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Monday, November 19, 2007
Environment - More on: "BP wastewater permit: 'We already have the technology'"
Gitte Laasby of the Gary Post-Tribune reported on Nov. 11th, per this ILB entry of that date:
BP representatives say they haven't found a way to reduce the Whiting refinery's discharges of ammonia and suspended solids. But potential contractors, who say they can solve the problem with technology used at other refineries, say BP shut them out.Today Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune reports:
The company pledged [last month] to abide by the more stringent limits in its old water permit even as it undertakes a $3.8 billion expansion to process more heavy Canadian crude oil.Yet during a tour last week of the sprawling lakefront refinery, built in 1889 by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co., officials said figuring out how to keep that promise is proving difficult.
"If there's a breakthrough out there, we don't know about it," said Dan Sajkowski, the refinery's manager. "We've literally looked at all of these proposed solutions and more. If there was an easy fix, don't you think we would have done that and saved ourselves from going through the past few months?"
Sajkowski said officials are actively reviewing dozens of potential strategies and cautioned that BP will scuttle the expansion project if solutions are not found. But signs that BP is still planning the overhaul are everywhere at the refinery, from video screens in the executive offices to the "Project Canadian Crude" labels painted on company vehicles winding through the maze of towers and pipes outside. * * *
They repeated arguments that limited space along the lakefront -- the water treatment plant is sandwiched on a D-shaped peninsula between the lake and the refinery -- prevents them from making more aggressive improvements.
"It just isn't practical to engineer something else that would work effectively at this site," Morrison said from a grated walkway suspended above a giant clarification tank coated with sandy brown foam. The Chicago skyline rises above the horizon 15 miles away.
Closer by, just across a set of railroad tracks that separates the treatment plant from the refinery, workers are erecting a 10-million-gallon tank to hold storm runoff. The consultants hired by the City of Chicago suggested that this tank could be divided to make room for more treatment equipment, though BP officials aren't sure that would work.
Finding a solution is critical for BP. The Whiting refinery already is the nation's fourth largest, with the ability to process more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day at peak capacity, and production is expected to grow by 15 percent when the expansion project is finished in 2011.
Critics say excuses are weak. Critics note that it's common for industry to insist it cannot comply with tougher environmental regulations. Faced with deadlines and firm limits, though, companies usually find something that works.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 19, 2007 07:58 AM
Posted to Environment