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Monday, August 03, 2009

Environment - "Critics say little change since BP permit issued"

That is the headline to this story today by Gitte Laasby in the Gary Post-Tribune. Some quotes from the lengthy story:

It's been two years since the Indiana Department of Environmental Management issued the controversial water permit for BP Whiting, allowing the refinery to increase pollution into Lake Michigan.

An independent report by Indiana University professor Jim Barnes concluded that unclear state laws on when, and by how much, a facility can increase its discharges into Lake Michigan led to the controversy over the permit.

But critics say the problems Barnes pointed out have yet to be resolved.

"I'm really concerned, based on the history in Indiana, that as the rules exist now, BP could happen again," said Brad Klein, attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago.

Klein is part of a stakeholder group of industries, municipalities and environmentalists that has been meeting with IDEM staff to clarify the state's so-called anti-degradation rules for nearly a year and a half.

The anti-degradation rules aim to protect water quality from being degraded. They specify under which conditions new or increased discharges can occur to Lake Michigan and various streams and inland lakes.

Indiana's laws don't allow new or increased discharges into Lake Michigan of chemicals like mercury that accumulate in fish and people who eat fish from the lake.

But facilities may be allowed new or increased discharges of other, less toxic, pollutants. That can happen if a plant demonstrates the increased discharge is necessary. A plant can do so by conducting an anti-degradation analysis showing that alternatives to the increase have been evaluated and the increase is necessary to accommodate important social and economic benefits.

But the new rules also propose setting an "insignificance" level under which facilities won't need to prove the increased pollution is necessary.

For Lake Michigan, that level is proposed to be 1 percent to 2 percent of the total amount of each pollutant that the lake can accept while still allowing people to fish, swim and use the lake for drinking water.

Environmentalists are concerned that Lake Michigan's "insignificance" level would lead to an enormous amount of pollution.

"The loading capacity of Lake Michigan is huge compared to other waters in Indiana," said Lyman Welch, water quality program manager for the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "You can't base the amount of pollution that you can add to Lake Michigan based on the capacity of the entire lake. Pollution that's added to Lake Michigan is not uniformly distributed into the lake. Pollution will move up and down the shoreline depending on how the wind is blowing and how the currents flow."

Here is a side-bar, headed "Activists want tougher, clearer rules."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 3, 2009 01:25 PM
Posted to Environment