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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Environment - Much more on: Protests grow over BP permit to increase dumping in Lake Michigan

Updating this ILB entry from July 20th, reports of outrage about the BP permit continue.

Sylvia A. Smith, Washington editor for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, writes:

WASHINGTON – Indiana came in for a verbal thrashing Tuesday as members of Congress lambasted the “stunning mistake,” the “crazy” decision and the “wrong-headed” ruling that would allow a Hoosier oil refinery to increase the pollution it dumps into Lake Michigan.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management will allow BP’s plant in Lake County to increase its ammonia discharge by 66 percent and its suspended-solid discharge by 33 percent.

“This is crazy. This is nuts,” said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich. “Instead of creating more stringent regulations, this permit marks a huge step backward in our effort to keep our Great Lakes clean.”

The state also came under fire Tuesday from Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who called the permit “a major setback.”

In a response last month to Hoosiers who complained about the permit, IDEM said the increase in the contaminants is justified because of “the additional jobs, the long-term viability of the existing jobs/business and the value to our nation’s overall security resulting from utilizing a new source of petroleum from a neighboring friendly country.” * * *

[Governor] Daniels’ spokeswoman did not respond to a request for Daniels’ reaction. When the plant remodeling was announced, Daniels called it a “landmark project” that “marks another huge step in Indiana’s economic comeback.” He said the project would employ “more construction workers … than to build the new Indiana Stadium and Convention Center.”

When BP announced the project last year, officials said reconfiguring the refinery could increase production of motor fuel by about 15 percent.

IDEM told Hoosiers who objected to the proposed permit that the agency “knows that the increase in the effluent limits for ammonia and TSS (total suspended solids) will result in some degradation of the water quality of Lake Michigan. However the increase has been limited to the amount shown by BP to be necessary and this action does support important social and economic development in the area of the discharge.”

A story from the Chicago Tribune, by Jim Tankersley and Michael Hawthorne, reports:
BP said Tuesday it has done everything possible to keep more pollution out of the lake. And BP executives -- including the company's American president, Bob Malone -- pledged to re-evaluate their Indiana expansion plans by Sept. 1 with environmental quality in mind during a noontime meeting in the office of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the politicians in attendance said and a BP spokesman confirmed.

Emanuel called the meeting "a clear, frank, unambiguous conversation" between BP and a bipartisan coalition opposed to increased Lake Michigan dumping. Durbin called the meeting a "wake-up call" for BP. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), one of a half-dozen Great Lakes lawmakers at the meeting, said Malone ended the meeting by indicating that "he gets it now."

There were no Indiana lawmakers at the meeting. They generally have been reluctant to criticize BP, at least in part because the refinery expansion would add 80 jobs.

Republicans and Democrats from Illinois warned throughout the day that BP would lose any fight over Great Lakes pollution and that the company was risking an environmentally friendly image it promotes heavily in advertising campaigns.

From a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The mayors of Milwaukee, Racine, Green Bay, Sheboygan and Superior are opposing a plan that will allow petroleum giant BP to boost the amount of pollution it's dumping into Lake Michigan from an Indiana refinery.

"As mayors of cities that sit on the Great Lakes, we are gravely concerned that the quality and environmental protection of the entire Great Lakes system has been placed in serious jeopardy by this decision," the group wrote in a letter Tuesday to the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Gitte Laasby of the Gary Post-Tribune writes today:
Calls for greater scrutiny of BP's plans to add pollutants to Lake Michigan intensified Tuesday -- from the halls of Congress to the Indiana Statehouse, and even the Illinois governor's office.

Face to face with testy congressmen from Illinois and Michigan on Tuesday, BP said it wouldn't immediately implement its plan to increase discharges of ammonia and suspended solids into Lake Michigan, and would look at "feasible alternatives" between now and Sept. 1.

Earlier Tuesday, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich criticized Indiana state officials authorizing BP's plan to dispose of more pollutants in Lake Michigan.

The Democratic governor called the plan "a major setback" in efforts to clean up the lake after years of neglect.

Blagojevich urged Indiana's Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels to rescind the permit, which took effect Monday, and said Illinois officials will consider legal action if he doesn't.

Patrick Guinane of the NWI Times reports:
Daniels' office did not directly respond Tuesday to question about the permit. But Indiana Department of Environmental Management Commissioner Thomas Easterly issued a statement saying the BP permit will not be altered.

"IDEM's wastewater permit for BP's Whiting Refinery fully complies with the federal Clean Water Act and assures the full protection of Lake Michigan," Easterly said. "During the review process, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also performed an exhaustive analysis and concurred that the permit met federal standards. The BP permit stands approved as written."

The South Bend Tribune reports:
Federal lawmakers from several Midwest states took aim at BP Oil and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on Tuesday. The delegation spoke in favor of a resolution to denounce the permit.

One by one, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers from Great Lake states spoke against the plans to allow more pollution to go into Lake Michigan.

"BP's wrong-headed decision here to increase discharges in a lake and in a region trying to overcome decades of environmental neglect will not stand," said South Bend-area Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Granger.

Donnelly said he would attempt to block plans by BP to expand its Whiting refinery if he must.

But, first, Donnelly, D-2nd, said he wants to try and convince the company to pursue ways of increasing fuel production without adding pollution to Lake Michigan.

Like Donnelly, Michigan City Mayor Chuck Oberlie said he can't imagine with advances in technology why the refinery can't be expanded without raising the amount of ammonia and other pollutants in its waste water.

''It behooves all of us to attempt to make adjustments to end up with a zero impact on the lake,'' said Oberlie.

"What they're telling is, it's cost prohibitive. Baloney. They can do this the right way," said Donnelly.

Meanwhile, BP has run afoul of local building permit requirements, according to this story by Steve Zabroski in the NWI Times:
HAMMOND | Contrite excuses from BP refinery executives for building a construction command center without city permission failed Tuesday to move Hammond officials responsible for development.

The Hammond Redevelopment Commission postponed any retroactive approval of the office complex until at least next month.

BP North America paved parking areas and assembled at least 20 trailers over the past six months on property it owns east of Calumet Avenue and south of 129th Street to house engineering and supervisory personnel working on the refiner's planned $3 billion expansion project.

But the London-based oil giant failed to secure necessary city building permits, or present their plans to the Hammond Redevelopment Commission, which has jurisdiction over uses of the property since its designation as a redevelopment district in 1998. * * *

"This was an oversight," said Nicholas Chulos, an attorney for BP with the law firm Krieg DeVault. "The trailer project should have been presented to you before any development occurred."

Redevelopment Commissioner Daniel Spitale, who moved to table the matter shortly after Monday night's presentation by refinery spokespersons, said he was "just not comfortable" with a lack of information regarding whether or not the project was in compliance with the North Hammond Redevelopment Area plan.

Established in 1998 and amended in 2002, the plan aimed for the transformation of the area from heavy industry to business and light-industrial development, with the goal of complementing adjacent recreational uses such as the Lost Marsh Golf Course.

Though considered "temporary," the trailers would remain at the site through completion of BP's expansion for the processing of new petroleum sources from Canada, said Thomas Keilman, the refinery's director of public affairs, a project that is estimated to take four years.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 25, 2007 08:56 AM
Posted to Environment | Indiana economic development