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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Environment - "Plans nixed for BP asphalt plant"

A story from the Aug. 5, 2007 NWI Times includes this quote:

Concerns over BP's compliance with city health and safety regulations also led the [Hammond] Board of Zoning Appeals to postpone any approval of a $110 million asphalt production facility planned for North Hammond, which company officials said was the first step in the project to bring Canadian crude oil to its refinery.
From May, 2008:
The proposed asphalt center would be just south of the Lost Marsh Golf Course, and would fill as many as 220 tanker trucks and 80 rail cars per day.
From a May 13, 2008 story in the Gary Post-Tribune:
"We wanted to go with the environmental justice issue since we thought that was completely overlooked in this permit. This permit has been broken down in different sections. This is a major expansion. You spend $3.8 billion and IDEM refers to it as a minor. If you spend that kind of money, it's a major," said Bessie Dent, a Hammond resident and member of the Calumet Project.

If the permit was considered as one rather than three different permits -- for an asphalt plant, a diesel plant and the expansion, it would have been considered a major modification, she said.

Today, at 11:07 am, Gitte Laasby posted this story on the Gary Post-Tribune website:
HAMMOND — BP Whiting has scrapped its plans for an asphalt plant in Hammond.

In a letter to the city of Hammond, the refinery has withdrawn its petition for conditional use and developmental variance for a property at 1304 129th St. across from the Lost Marsh Golf Course.

“At this point, BP has exercised its right to withdraw its petitions that are currently before the Hammond board,” BP spokesman Tom Keilman told the Post-Tribune Wednesday morning.

He said BP is considering whether and where to build another plant.

“We’re currently reviewing our options in terms of the asphalt operations,” he said.

Keilman acknowledged that the city of Hammond had a number of conditions for granting the petition, including requirements to monitor emissions, but he would not comment on whether requirements had anything with BP canceling its plans.

Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. said he felt he had no choice but to put conditions on granting the request because the asphalt plant would harm the community.

“We didn’t really support it. I support the expansion but the part of moving the asphalt plant to where they wanted in Hammond, we didn’t like it,” McDermott Jr. said. “There was a lot of concern about the health issues. There’s been studies that this can cause cancer clusters in the neighborhood around it. It doesn’t make sense you take that and move it closer to a neighborhood. I didn’t want that to be my legacy if I found out 20 years from now that kids got sick.”

The zoning issue was on the agenda of tonight’s meeting of the Hammond board of zoning appeals.

For more details, read tomorrow’s Post-Tribune.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 27, 2008 12:16 PM
Posted to Environment