On the heels of halting BP from increasing pollution in Lake Michigan, Environment Michigan and its affiliates in the Midwest launched a new campaign in September to prevent other industrial polluters from increasing their discharges into the Great Lakes. Earlier this year, BP sought permission to dump 1500 pounds of ammonia and nearly 5000 pounds of wastewater laden with mercury and other toxins into Lake Michigan. While our intense scrutiny forced BP to back down, other polluters in the region have similar plans pending.

If we want to keep the Great Lakes as an unparalleled national treasure, we cannot allow polluters to treat them as a dumping ground. That’s why Environment Michigan is working to prevent future BP fiascos. We’re asking the Great Lakes Governors to endorse a policy of no increase pollution from existing industrial polluters.

Accounting for 90 percent of the fresh surface waters of North America, the Great Lakes are truly a national treasure. These vast waters not only provide drinking water and recreation for millions of Americans; they are also the lifeblood of the region—the Grand Canyon and the Yellowstone of the Midwest, as Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel observed.

Yet, recently the Great Lakes faced a new threat from one of the world’s largest corporations: BP. Despite BP’s marketing on its environmental reputation, the company sought—and was granted—permission to increase it dumping to 1500 pounds of ammonia and nearly 5000 pounds of sludge particles daily from its Whiting, Indiana refinery into Lake Michigan.

Not only would BP’s increased ammonia feed fish killing algae blooms and its increase in toxics containing sludge particle put more children’s health at risk, but the permit also set the dangerous precedents of being the first in years to allow an industrial discharger to increase toxic pollution into Lake Michigan.

In response, Environment Michigan and its affiliates helped organize what the Associated Press called a “firestorm” of public and political outrage. And August 23, BP publicly pledged to avoid the pollution increases allowed in its new permit.

Moving Beyond Pollution

But BP is not the only company seeking to dump more pollution into the Great Lakes. Permits allowing pollution increases are pending for Murphy’s Oil on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Superior, for ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil in Illinois, and elsewhere in the Great Lakes region.

The Lakes still face a litany of threats, from sewage overflows to unrestricted water withdrawals. With years of progress cleaning up industrial pollution, and with so much left to do to restore the Great Lakes, this backwards trend is the LAST thing we need.

For the sake of our waters, the people who drink them, and our children who will inherit them, we must prevent future BP fiascos by eliminating industrial pollution increases into Great Lake state waterways. And then we can get back to work fixing the other threats to the Great Lakes.