The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote later today on a
bipartisan resolution asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
to review a permit that would allow an oil refinery to increase
pollution discharged into Lake Michigan.
“It’s crazy, it’s downright nuts,” said U.S. Rep Candice Miller,
R-Harrison Township, in a speech on the House floor today. Congress has
recently passed legislation to increase funding for clean water, fight
invasive species and end sewer overflows.
“Unfortunately,
this permit flies in the face of everything we’ve accomplished this
year,” Miller said. “It’s a huge step backwards.”
It’s a showdown between an oil company, BP, trying to expand its
refining capacity, which would help keep gasoline prices low, and
keeping the Great Lakes free of pollution.
BP
plans a $3 billion expansion of its 117-year-old oil refinery on the
shores of Lake Michigan at Whiting, Ind. The Indiana Department of
Environmental Management issued a permit last month that would allow
the company to increase the amount of ammonia it discharges by 54% and
to raise by 35% the amount of suspended solids it discharges into the
lake each day. That means an additional 554 pounds of ammonia and 1,279
extra pounds of treated refinery wastewater each day, members of
Congress said in a letter last week to the EPA.
“These
staggering figures are wholly contradictory to the intent of the Clean
Water Act, which seeks to minimize the degradation of our water
quality,” the letter said. The letter was a formal request for the EPA
to open a review of the permit.
The permit allows the company to
get around a provision in the Clean Water Act that prohibits new
emissions by diluting the pollutants and discharging them at multiple
sites around the lake.
The city of Chicago opposes the permit,
as does the mayor of nearby Hammond, Ind., which has a drinking water
intake a mile away from the plant.
BP wants to expand the plant
so it can process heavy crude oil from Canada. The plant is the fourth
largest in the country and the largest supplier of gasoline to the
Midwest. BP officials said at a conference last month that the
expansion would make the supply of gasoline in the Midwest more stable.
A leak at the plant earlier this month shut part of the refinery for 12
days, contributing to a spike in gasoline prices. Several U.S.
refineries, including ones in Texas and Kansas, have been plagued by
problems this year, leading to a shortage of refinery capacity which
helped drive up prices.
Other refineries have canceled planned
expansions. As one of the oldest U.S. refineries, BP said it needs to
spend money now to stay profitable in competition with oil producers in
other parts of the United States, the Middle East and Asia.
BP has yet to start building the expansion, which it hopes could be online in 2011.
In
advertisements, BP bills itself as green and concerned about global
warming. Environmental groups in nearby states are joining together to
fight the company’s Whiting plans, said Mike Shriberg, director of
Environment Michigan.
“This is unacceptable,” he said in an
e-mail. “Ammonia acts as a catalyst for fish-killing algae blooms and
the plant's sludge is chock-full of concentrated mercury, selenium, and
other toxic heavy metals.”
BP spokesman Scott Dean said the
company does not release sludge, toxic or otherwise, into the lake, but
will release treated wastewater that has microscopic solids in it.
"We
understand that any citizen who lives along the Great Lakes takes the
health of the lake very seriously and we share that concern," Dean said.
Chicago’s
parks department is spearheading a petition drive to try to get the
governor of Indiana to reconsider the permit. BP has also asked for
exceptions to clean air regulations for particulates it discharges into
the air.
