Chicago and Illinois EPA have waged a fight against BP's plan to use Lake michigan as a toilet: [note that Indiana supports the crap!]

"[BP] sought to dump more ammonia and suspended solids into Lake Michigan as part of a $3.8 billion expansion that will enable the refinery to process more heavy Canadian crude oil. Officials justified the increase in part by noting that the project will create 80 permanent jobs and 2,000 construction jobs."

well you can support this effort by not buying BP gas and sign the petition below.


_____________________________

This past weekend over 50 supporters of Environment Illinois and our sister
organization, Wisconsin Environment, fanned out to BP gas stations in Chicago,
Madison and Milwaukee, handing out flyers and letting consumers know that BP
plans to increase its daily toxic dumping into Lake Michigan by over three tons.

And the message got out there -- we had numerous stories of motorists taking our
flyers, checking them out and then turning around to fill up elsewhere and
Environment Illinois supporters in Naperville were covered in a story in the daily herald.

We're going to build on this momentum with future days of action across the
Great Lakes region. This weekend, for example, our ally Environment Michigan
will be holding similar events in Ann Arbor. Be sure to stay tuned for upcoming
announcements about ways you can get involved in your community.

Meanwhile, we've had over 70,000 people from across the Great Lakes and beyond
sign our petition to BP and the EPA, and I want to see our 'No BP Gas Pledge' be
just as successful.

Right now, please take action by joining the over 12,000 people around the
region and signing the 'No BP Gas Pledge.' Tell BP that as long as they're
planning to increase toxic dumping in our lake, you're planning on buying your
gas elsewhere.

To sign the pledge by clicking on the link below.
Petition

The rebranded to BP to get the public to forget their polluting ways under the old moniker British Petroleum. Name a brand changes, although everything else has stayed the same.

what bugs me is the fact city and state resources have to go to fight what should be a federally protected right to clean drinking water for future generations - we know better that we did in the 60's -- water can only take so much of this crap. the feds should be going after bp. not daley.

i'm a michigander, and i seem to remember a few weeks ago that there was a real outcry about this in the u.s. house. i'm not sure if a resolution was passed, but would be worth looking into. my dad wrote bp a letter and got a response something to the effect that environmental restrictions are why a new oil refinery hasn't been built in this country in the last 20 years and that's why oil prices continue to rise. yes, but is it worth screwing up the water quality of a huge reserve of freshwater reserve?

i know i'm naive and idealistic and a little stupid in some ways, but i'm amazed that this dumping is even being considered seriously.

cheaper gas or clean water, make the choice amerika.

the trouble with petitioning to "not buy bp gas" is that you might unwittingly buy it from another station anyhow. due to the logistics of the oil industry, you could stop into a shell station, for example, and actually be buying gas from bp.

and i wondered why there were people blowing up BP gas stations when i was in england during the summer of 2005...

Does anyone have a link to how many tons it puts out daily already? is an additonal 3 tons alot or alittle?

naperville is no where near lake michigan.

apparently, at least according to the wastewater treatment people at bp in whiting the water is actually cleaner after it leaves the refinery.

Imagine that...Dumping toxic waste into the last remaining clean (and largest) body of fresh water on earth. Why cant this muck be dumped into trucks and hauled off site to some landfill?
Bit of trivia...Lake Michigan is fed entirely by rainwater (and melting glaciers).

Vado....naperville gets it's drinking water from Lake Michigan...and yes, no where near Chicago, thanks to a huge pipeline. Perhaps cutting them off would offset the dumping by mere dilution.

previously in the news. thanks for the update, TED. I'll forward the petition to my family in Chicago and Madison.

apparently, at least according to the wastewater treatment people at bp in whiting the water is actually cleaner after it leaves the refinery.

i wondered what kind of treatment might be going on. this would be interesting to understand prior to any knee-jerk reactions (like mine) to the release of this 'wastewater'.

the trick would be figuring out from whom you could get a relatively non-partisan answer about the quality of the water released. certainly not from bp or our epa. an independent testing firm possibly? paid by whom?

i'd guess that more pollutants enter chicagoland from all the commuters driving to and from naperville everyday.

Thus perpetuating the need for more Fuel....
Headline: NaperVillans Collectively Drain and Pollute Lake Through Thirst For Gas and Drinking Water.

it used to be a small town now its 250k of suburban sprawlicious amerikan lifestyle.

Who drive everywhere

in their gas guzzlin suv's!

...to and from their tract homes built in once cornfields.
The new crop, Sprawling Vinyl-Sided Homes.
I'd like to know how much corn crops have been displaced and how much alternative fuel could have been produced from them, and the amount of oil these people actually consume commuting, returning home to drink and Bathe in OUR lake water! Amazing to think all of this sprawl is occurring with a birth / replacement rate of less than 1:1...

A side note....I have an SUV that gets 24.2 MPG which is parked 6 of 7 days per week, and driven less than 2000 miles a year....Not all SUV owners are oblivious/guilty/contributing ;)

yeah and they are trying to take jobs away from hardworking indianastanians!

Damn Brits! First they got us to support the Sha(?) in Iran and now lake Michigan? When will BP's reign of terror end???

dump it in Gary

But on a serious note I would be interested to see how this waste is treated. There are measures BP can take to get suspended solids out of the water and I'm sure there are ways to lower the ammonia count as well to "safe" levels. Environmental restrictions in the U.S. are very strict compared to many other, mostly developing nations and I'd be suprised they'd let BP dump toxic waste into lake Michigan. I'd like to see what actions BP is taking to treat the waste to comply with U.S. law before running around yelling.

Did y'all not see the part about the 80 permanent jobs this is going to create? Just think of how many tax dollars that will create to go towards building more bombs to blow up other countries. Manifest Destiny baby!!!

i almost feel like starting a trolling flame war with a pro-BP, pro-industry alt just to piss off all you nice liberal environmentalists, almost.

I'm the ultimate kind of environmentalist, the "let's destroy everything and start over" type. Human beings are an infection on this beautiful rock.

heres some info from NationalPetroleumRadio

thanks for the link vado, i figured they weren't dumping stuff like this in the lake

all this for only 80 jobs?

more refineries would help our economy, and i'm sure there are ways to refine oil and reduce the amount of pollutants pumped into the environment from said process.

Boycotting a BP retail gas station over their environmental record will have the same effect that boycotting all retail gas stations for one day has on prices....<b>None!</i>

While the refinery is owned by BP, they sell their product to all retail outlets. The only difference between BP branded gasoline and everybody else is the added detergents. Handing out phamplets at a retail outlet and convincing people to drive elsewhere is actually worse for the environment. Now those morally offended customers will turn around their SUV's and drive further, wasting more gasoline, emmiting more CO2 and purchasing the same product from the same refinery. Shit like that pisses me off about how stupid the environmental activism in this country is. Do your fucking research and find a more effective way to get your message across. (Same goes for the anti-war activism IMO)

Secondly, BP is expanding their refinery because people are consuming more petroleum. Maybe the environmental approach should be more about consuming less oil so the expansion wasn't necessary. I'm sure BP wouldn't spend 3.8 BILLION if there wasn't a profit in it for them.

actually i am doing my research - thats what my phd is about -- if it cost them 10 billion to make a refinery that does not destroy yet another natural resourse then they should spend it and charge us all for the real cost of keeping the environment clean, maybe that means $10 / gal -- so be it - then you'll see a reduction in consumption. but dont compromise drinking water.

bp of any of the oil companies, has made a committement to 'cleaner technologies' including agreeing not to drill in the artic region. they are a company that is aware of there actions reflect their committement to a better world [even if its all marketing].

so i am certain aquapura your not proposing just to dump crap in lake michigan which is drinking water for millions - what do you propose beside dis'n me?

I think TED aqua, and even myself, get agitated with environmentalist activism because its often misguided and its erroneous in its assumptions about how the world works.

I speak for myself here, but i've spent considerable time in mines and heavy industry operations and there is alot of waste. However many large, multinational companies, either through government regs, market forces, or just plain old good samaritanism try to keep the impact of these operations to a minimum. There are bad examples all the time, Dow chemical being one of them, but there are many companies who try to get us the base materials we need to support civilization while not destroying the environment to get them because dead kids and class-action lawsuits are bad for business.

and they build ugly shit like this...

better than alot of gas stations, still ugly though.

I think we still think of environmental activists as dirty hippies, though now we think of those trying to invest in "the green technology boom" as entrepreneurs. And I think we're all fed up with the hippies.

But I am also fed up with the "rich kid with the ball" where BP esentially says (and the current administration goes right along with) "If I can't pollute as much as I want to, I'll go build it where they don't care about poisoning their constituents / I just won't build it. Nyah!" Either you can afford to do it right, or don't do it. Don't give yourself a million dollar bonus so I can drink 53% more ammonia everyday.

Plus, wouldn't you need more jobs to monitor and perform the increased cleaning that you should be doing? Hmm - why don't the officials think of that, eh?

here's what BPsez

sounds legit to me

my older brother works for environmental action, the national component of Environment Illinois and worked extensively on this BP campaign...check out their site--they do a lot of good work, environmentally based of course, but much of it is in a political context. standing up to the biggies at BP has made him pretty damn stoked. check them out:

http://www.environmental-action.org/

what a bunch of relativists!

oh, it's just ammonia and "total suspended solids." nothing to worry about. are you the same people that believe the press releases of the bush empire? that ammonia amounts to 1,500 lbs/day. ammonia is responsible for huge algae blooms that affect water quality and hurt natural ecosystems. high levels of mercury are included in those "total suspended solids." you know the same mercury that leads to birth defects. and it's going into our drinking water. people around here will rail against the evil automobile, but when it comes to doing something about it the response is pretty flaccid.

jafidler, i believe it because i've worked for an environmental department in a similar organization (mining company), and spent a considerable portion of my life living in a mining community. We weren't killing kids or poisoning the environment, and we were disposing of materials that many environmentalists see as harmful because they don't care to understand beyond what they read in their own press blurbs. We treated said waste until you could drink from it (after you let the particulates settle) and then dumped it into the deepest trench we could find. 90% of that waste was water, 9.999% was crushed rock (suspended solids) and trace amounts of organic chemicals. This was in indonesia, a country with fewer environmental restrictions than the U.S. Ammonia exists in trace amounts naturally anyway. If the EPA says its good, and the State EPA says its good, then its probably good. These companies exist to make a profit, but its damn hard to make a profit when you have dead kids and class action lawsuits on your hands plus its bad publicity. If you wanna raise hell about shoddy environmental processes, talk to the mom and pop gold miners dumping heavy quantities of mercury into the Amazon.

the epa sez that 880 pounds of mercury end up in lake michigan every year from air pollution, primarily coal fired power plants near the lake.

and another pressure on the lake is, yes increasing water usage. another precious commodity that is too often wasted by people.

you have to take these issues on as they come up. capitalize on the media attention brought about by senators and environmentalists posturing. i have no doubt that there are plenty of companies doing far worse than what bp is about to do to lake michigan, but that still doesn't make it right. plenty of companies are doing bad things, but when there's an opportunity to speak up and do something about one of them, it's an opporunity worth taking.

maybe we should throw a "Protect the Lake" punch party for the states on its banks.



Oh im being an ass again, but seriously, these are the prices we pay for civilization, our best bet is to try for sustainablity. It seems like BP is trying for that, as much as building an oil refinery near a lake can be.

oh, and sustainability in the above post needs to be in " ".

TED - I wasn't trying to diss you, unless you were the one handing out the leaflets at BP retail outlets. That's what I thought was stupid and a complete mis-informed waste of time.

Of course I don't think BP should have free reign to dump toxins into Lake Michigan, or any body of water for that matter. I also would pay a higher retail price for a cleaner refinery.

My real complaint about the environmental movement is they don't propose any solutions. Yes, the oil companies pollute, well, what's your solution other than to protest the refinery expansion? I already suggested a campaign to educated people and get them to consume less. However, I never see solutions, just protest and complaints. I realize they are passionate, but not effective.

you raise an interesting question, aqua: what role can activism have in changing the practices of large multinational corporations?

i'm not sure why passing out pamphlets seems so ineffective to you. the one thing that activism can do is raise awareness. letting consumers know there is a consequence to the simple act of buying gas, i believe, is just the form of education that you seemed to be advocating for later in your post. larger change starts first with an awareness of a situation and then gradually changing the little mundane habits of our everyday life. calling activists "dirty hippies," not saying you said this, but it's been in the tone of a lot of these recent posts, is only counterproductive as it seems you have many of the same aspirations as the activists.

i am all for activism. i am all for clean air and water and happy smiling children who aren't licking lead paint off their toys. but, to have one thing you have to give something else up. to have automobiles, airline travel, electric lights, internets access and loud ringing guitar anthems, well you have to produce energy. and all this energy has its waste as a byproduct.

vado, i'm not going to deny an element of nimbyism to my feelings on this issue. i'm just not sure i'm ready to sacrifice lake michigan so some jackass can drive his hummer through our beautiful modern world.

vado, as americans we need to do as we do. we need to outsource our pollution production. all our problems will be solved.

we'll be able to produce more pollution at cheaper labor costs

that's one idea.

they did outsource it...to indiana. indiana embraced the idea. unfortunately they forgot that michigan and illinois share the same water.

jafidler - I'm not against spreading awareness by passing out phamplets. The news story said the activists were passing out phamplets that told consumers to boycott BP Retail Stations. Per my previous posts that's mis-informed since the downstream retailers, regardless what name is on the sign, all get their product from the same refinery.

vado makes a good point about our everyday lifestyles requiring energy, which has real environmental consequences. Even so-called renewable energy have costs. Look at what inputs there are into manufacturing solar PV panels or windmills. Worst of all his all, the heavy metals going to batteries for hybrid vehicles.

My soapbox speech is that people should be "responsible" with their energy use. If everyone made a conscious effort to do this I believe our energy use could be drastically reduced while maintaining our current standard of living. Most things are so simple too. Turn off the lights if you aren't in the room, don't make non-essential car trips, change the thermostat a degree or two, wash clothes in cold water, etc.

I agree with the above post that people need to be more responsible about energy use. We shouldn't have to import oil from people we don't like and we don't need to live in XXL houses and drive humvees with one man in them. Making the attempt to get americans to change the culture of mass consummerism that contributes to many of our social, political, and economic problems is an uphill battle that will only be won when gas is $10 a gallon.

definately TED... I think major metro areas in the past have been successful by "outsourcing" the bad infrastructure. Joliet, Cal City, Gary has been Chicago's major industrial "armpit"

You might go as far as to say "ghettos" are a necessary evil. Though these undesirables are consequences of a larger problem and it's hard to know where to begin. And just to come full circle, I think that it relates very well to the energy problem. Where do we begin? The whole energy cycle is so complex that we have thoroughly confused ourselves. Greenwashing has become a concern. How do we inform people intelligently? Hell, scientists don't even have a lot of answers.

How do you tell someone that their lifestyle is wasteful and "sucks"... tried that one on my girlfriend (now fiance)... it didn't go well. not at all. in fact, the paper had a big article exposing bottled water waste vs. drinking from the tap. my girl drinks so many bottles of water in the house, it's repulsing to me. lake michigan tap water rocks! (she grew up with iron filled well water and is never comfortable drinking from the tap) so, to come even fuller circle. don't ef with my tap water BP.

what about other options of sequestration? not totally informed on the issue, but perhaps its an option.

We need to invest in increasing efficiency. And while all you freemarketeers think the government does nothing bu screw shit up (and when republicans are in charge, who can disagree with you) but its going to have to be the government - the federal government - to do this at the scale we require. Our comprehensive road network did not come from the free market. Neither did our communications network (ma bell=government protected monopoly) or this very network.

And I am not just looking at taxing emmisions - though that is necessary. The cost for each gallon of gas should include the cost to remove the emmisions out of the air and clean up the ground and water during the refining process. Its also reducing the home loan guarantees in undeveloped areas, increasing them in transit oreinted communities and city centers. Its increasing CAFE standards. Its increasing funding and tax credits for technology which increases efficiency, eliminates pollution, cleans air and water, etc. And the free market is not capable of doing that. And with the rich and powerful only concerned with the profit in the next 90 days and their hand up congress' ass (as in puppets) then its not going to happen until enough of us get pissed off for our congressman to get their puppet ass off the hands of big buisness and back into the hands of their constituents.

[Our] Government is of the people. As moral beings, it to should behave in a moral way.

Business is there to make a profit - and if it costs less to use lead paint or expell raw sewage than that will make more profit - which means it's a better business.

Gary was never created as an armpit to Chicago. It was chosen by US Steel to be the home of a new facility. The city itself has significant contributions by very well known starchitects of days gone by.

Like i said, dead kids and lawsuits can fubar a man's profits.

You know Mattel's contractor in China that put leaded paint in the toys? They're out of business because of public backlash and the Chinese government is in a tizzy over product safety. Robert Redford managed to close an entire mine in Montana with A River Runs Through It. You'd be amazed how well the free market and private activism in association with aspects of the Federal Government, has curtailed pollution and industrial waste in this country.

and don't forget the CrYiNgInDiAn commercial!

If you can get yourself immunity from lawsuits for a measly campaign contribution (or, hell, eliminate the law) then so much for civil courts. And $25,000 is a hell of a lot cheaper than the Million dollar lawsuit. Its just good buisness!

But the main problem here is that its not coordinated - and the free market is capricious and fickle - that is why we need a big and steady hand for such a major undertaking.

Yes, like a tyrant. I nominate Al Gore for supreme chancellor.

So you'd rather have us all eating lead paint in our bread because regulation is evil and lead is a cheap leavening agent?

This either/or crap is a facile arguement - You know, its not anarchy/republican vs. tyrant/democrats. Have you had enough of the slash/division sign?

Government is what we had that got us into this mess in the first place. It, intentionally or unintentionally, steered us towards a petrochemical dependent oligarchy. And - like it or not - they are the only ones who can fix it - but only when they stop taking payoffs from "special interests" (i.e. big buisness) and start protecting their constituents.

Like roads or networks - it does nothing unless they are all connected and working together.

i wonder how much toxic waste is dumped into lake michigan from chicago and how it harms the fresh young cornfed indianastanians. probably a hell of a lot if you did the math.

Of course not crow, but just understand I have worked for people like BP before, and my family has been involved in mining/heavy industry. Not all private industries are evil, not all industrialists are evil, and if your government, and your state government, and BP says expanding the plant will fall within and below federally mandated minimum's for pollution than it's probably alright. The big and steady hand you're talking about would be tyrannical in nature, at least in the way you describe it in your post. There is so much more to industry than meets the eye, and very few people care to educate themselves about it.

i didn't see a mention of the graphic:
the powerful image of nguyen ngoc loan shooting a viet cong prisoner over bp's logo..

I understand you've worked for industry and I don't think they are evil - they, like all buisnesses, are simply driven by profit.

I was saying that its not a black & white comparison (I believe I called that type of rehtoric "crap" and "facile"). Industry HAS to be part of the solution, and there WILL be industries that are involved in actually returning the planet to a more healthy equilibrium.

What I am saying that since industry is driven by profit there is no motivation for them to do the right thing if change is not mandated (in fact, doing the right thing when other competitors are not is a penalty to the "moral" company) - and the only one who can mandate that change is the government. And for this change to be effective it needs to be actively and passively working towards its goal on all fronts. You call this tyranny. Its not, because the government of, for and by the people are the ones who are represented by this guiding hand that I used in my simile. It is us - and we need to be able to monitor and revise our representative government before this can move forward. Because if there is a tyranny right now, it is the tyranny of collusion by the richest of the rich who control the boardrooms of the major corporations who have bought and sold politicians like baseball players.

This is my specific problem: they can dump 53% more ammonia into 12+ million peoples' drinking water. They can dump more than 20% more "pollutants formerly called sludge" into one of the largest bodies of fresh drinking water in the world. They now say "we're doing the best we can" but before they did a lot of this on the q.t., and were of the attitude I mentioned way up there somewhere of "Don't tell me what to do, or I won't do it at all" - which I guess would be fine, except the pollutants don't stop at their property line. When your actions affect the public at large, then they need to be regulated by the public at large. In order to fix the mess we're in, this regulation needs to be well coordinated. It also needs to be a combination of incentives, investments and regulation. And all of those things need to work in concert to acheive the goal of a healthier planet.

And vado - chicago does need to clean up its act. No excuses for the home team.

vado, we dump our waste in the river and send it south. talk about screwin with nature.

all the fishies love those ancient combined storm/sewer lines, right?

at first i thought you said probably a hell of a lot if you did the meth which would have had a whole other meaning.



i'll show myself out.

"EPA Administrator Mary Gade called the public reaction to
BP's dumping plans - "a firestorm of outrage," as reported by the
Associated Press on Wednesday.

Gade was speaking at a joint news conference with BP and opponents to their dumping plans, including Environment Illinois' own Max Muller. Her comment was certainly influenced by our delivery of over 70,000
petition signatures opposing BP's plans and by events like last weekend's Day
of Action."

http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=144498

well, they purify the water before they dump it, and before you drink it. there are tankers that dump waste oil right into the lake, untreated. if you don't believe me, go to a beach sometime. that's what the black sand is. true its your drinking water, but no one in their right mind drinks straight from the lake.

actually meth labs are an increasing problem environmentally speaking. half the time the beaches in chicago are closed cuz of ecoli anyway. and enjoy all the garbage that beach visitors leave layin around. bp prolly wont even do this expansion now cuz of the bad pr.

oh and the other side of the story about the vc execution. the executioner in that pic had just found out that the family of his best friend had been killed by the vc.(according to the guy who took the pic.) now perhaps he should have shown restraint. but war is war and civil war is twice as bad.

incidentally, the vc prisioner had also apparently just killed several people.

crow, i'm not gonna argue with you, because i think for the most part, we agree but there already are government checks in place-which i agree need to be there-to keep industry from mucking up the environment. Air, water, and environmental quality has improved drastically over the last century, and it is mostly because of activism, good samaritanism, and government involvement "for the people". For the most part, I support the mission of the EPA and I think the checks you are asking for are already in place. The amounts of ammonia going into the lake are probably well within safe norms, and has been posted here, the water coming out of the BP plant is probably a lot cleaner than the runoff from cities surrounding it. Its good to be skeptical of this stuff, but at some point one realizes that it probably isn't as bad as it first sounds.

also, while i'm not an advocate of pollution, lets face it: environmental concerns are only pertinant when they threaten to lower the quality of life. when this goes through, no one will even notes. lake michigan's (and huron's) zillion or so shipwrecks probably contribute to far more pollution than all of the refineries on the lake. superior is even worse. all of those ships go down loaded with chemicals and fuel oil. i'm all for protecting the lakes, but they are humungous. there is a huge dilution factor to consider here.

also, that wreck is a protected nesting ground for double crested cormorants

i hope there isnt too much mercury in these michiganistan produced bell's oberon's im pounding back 2nite.

mmm oberon - you do have good taste vado.

If anyone is interested, a live broadcast of Indiana's hearings to approve the discharge permit. Below is the email I received from my state rep, the wonderful David Orentlicher (I'm serious, he's a great representative):

There will be a legislative hearing this Wednesday, August 22, to consider the state's approval of BP's discharge permit. Here are the details:

Administrative Rules Oversight Committee
9:30 A.M. in Room 404 of the State House

The hearing will be broadcast on the internet, at www.in.gov

A Landscape Architect friend designed a water treatment system at the back end of a refinery in Australia. It took refinery waste water (as clean as could be made with technology) and gave it a run through channels and ponds filled with appropriate plantlife to take out any remaining toxins, and over a course long enough that particulates settled. Wildlife moved in, they had created a fine environment. It was a BP refinery.

If you want hospitals, plastics, progress of any sort, you need energy. Thus you need BP and their rivals. They hire a lot of Environmental Science PhD's. They are the biggest investors in alternative energy.

Get to grips with making buildings (which account for, in construction and operation, 50-ish% of all energy consumed) more efficient. Integrate the new technologies. Deal with it. Quit moaning.

Appreciate that the "richest of the rich", their engineers, plant managers, rig-workers, administrators, pump attendants, give you coffee in the morning, a ride to work, computers and lighting by which to tune your CAD models, a ride home, sweet televisual entertainment and a warm bed. When you're prepared to give that up, and you know how, then go demonstrate.

Latest News:

By the Tribune and the AP

In the wake of ongoing public outcry, BP America announced this morning that it will not dump more pollution into Lake Michigan from its Whiting refinery despite the approval granted by Indiana for the increased discharge.

BP’s announcement comes just one day after State Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, hosted a hearing in Indianapolis on the contentious BP permit, at which Indiana Department of Environmental Management Commissioner Thomas Easterly defended the state’s permit. On the same day, Gov. Mitch Daniels traveled to Northwest Indiana and, according to regional media reports, also defended the state’s decision.

But today, BP announced that it will not implement the state permit but will instead work over the next 18 months to seek other technologies that would allow it to expand its refinery without increasing the amount of ammonia and total suspended solids discharged into Lake Michigan.

“We are committed to this project. It is important for the nation, it is important for the Midwest, and it is important to BP and to the thousands of BP employees in the state of Indiana,” said Bob Malone, BP America chairman and president. “We are going to work hard to make this project succeed.”

Indiana granted BP a permit allowing the Whiting refinery to dump 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended solids into Lake Michigan daily so it could process heavy Canadian crude oil and increase production of motor fuels by about 15 percent.

Instead, BP announced that it will provide a $5 million grant to Purdue University toward the Purdue Calumet Water Institute/Argonne Laboratory Technology Task Force. The task force was recently formed by U.S. Representatives Pete Vislcosky, D-Ind., and Judy Biggert, R-Ill., with the goal of identifying alternatives to increased wastewater discharges.

“Obviously, this is good news,” said Save the Dunes Council Executive Director Tom Anderson of BP’s announcement.

Anderson noted that Save the Dunes has argued that the technology already exists that would allow the oil refinery expansion to go forward without further harming the environment. Save the Dunes Council testified at Pelath’s hearing on Wednesday and presented a 16-page report that identified alternative technologies.

BP’s announcement also drew praise from Visclosky.

"I applaud BP for making a commitment to addressing the energy crisis in an environmentally-friendly fashion. The goal of having no increase in Lake Michigan discharge, while at the same time expanding refining capability, will require new and innovative technologies, and I believe the Purdue Calumet Water Institute/Argonne Laboratory technology task force convened by Congresswoman Biggert and myself provides a perfect opportunity to address these critical issues,” Visclosky said in a statement.

Malone said BP decided not to use the permit because a project such as the one in Whiting “requires regulatory certainty.”

“We have ... obtained a valid permit that meets all regulatory standards and is protective of water quality and human health. Even so, ongoing regional opposition to any increase in discharge permit limits for Lake Michigan creates an unacceptable level of business risk for this $3.8 billion investment,” he said.

Indiana’s permit prompted ongoing public outcry, with opposition that included public officials from Illinois and Michigan. Opponents said the permit amounted to a reversal of decades-long efforts to reduce pollution levels in the lake. The U.S. House passed a resolution in July calling for Indiana to rescind the permit.

After the public outcry, Daniels on Aug. 13 ordered a review of state laws covering Great Lakes water quality and permits. He appointed James Barnes, the former dean of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the former EPA general counsel and deputy administrator, to conduct the review.

During the hearing before Indiana’s Administrative Rules Oversight Committee chaired by Pelath, IDEM’s Easterly defended the process, saying his agency felt no “undue pressure” from other state officials to approve the permit.



Posted 8/23/2007

thanks for posting, poczatek. great news!

my hat's off to BP, in the end it looks like we may all benefit from this

Sun-Times cover this morning:

BP listens to Chicago (but France doesn't!)

how hysterically arrogant and, well, i don't know, i thought it was funny. sorry vado, i can certainly understand both sides of the coin. but it's time we push back a bit and put the burden on the economy and less on the environment.

that headline combined with this side story to make the most terrifihilarious sun-times cover ever...

Fan: Cubs saved my life

it get's funnier than fiction when you read about the neighbor.

Very funny link, postal. I love any article that includes the words "undershorts".

Suddenly, and maybe I've been naive until now, but suddenly this all sounds like a publicity ploy by BP to make themselves look good - at the expense of Indiana, who perhaps deserves it.

i think you're right, lb: the ones who are really looking bad at the end of all this are the state legislators that enabled BP to do this, legally...it would not be surprising to find that this was all a carefully orchestrated PR move by BP...they come out looking clean(ish) and the state lawmakers are the ones in the muck.

publicity stunt or not, it is a change in values. its a bit of a message to politicians all over the country, that people are expecting this kind of protection.

i, for one, don't think it was a conspiracy, i think BP, once they found out about the public outcry, saw this as a positive exit stage left and spun it to their advantage. either way, no harm, no foul. i don't think indiana did anything wrong. but this event of activism certainly sets another precedent.

it's not like i had much to do with this bp episode, but after this and the grosse pointe public library, i'm feeling more and more like making your voice heard can make a difference.