Community High School

Indicting Whiting

BP North America has recently obtained permission to increase pollutant discharges into Lake Michigan from its oil refinery in Whiting, IN. The new permit is the result of a request from the company to increase its effluent mass of TSS (total suspended solids) and ammonia from 3646 to 4925 pounds per day and 1030 to 1584 pounds per day, respectively. BP made this request to further its “Project CXHO,” in which it will obtain and process greatly increased amounts of Canadian Extra Crude Heavy Oil. According to BP, this is the result of a dwindling supply of oil in Texas and the other mid-continent states.

An economic incentive

“It’s a modernization of the refinery, to ensure a stable supply of crude oil,” said Valerie Corr of BP Press Relations. “This project would allow us to refine more crude oil.” Canadian crude oil is derived from bitumen, a heavy, tar-like, extremely viscous organic liquid. This substance, in which oil-solid separation is difficult to achieve, contains higher concentrations of metals (copper, lead, mercury) and nitrogen. The increased discharges of TSS and ammonia are explained by these properties: the higher amount of concentrated metals increases the total discharge of solid material, and the oxygenation and decomposition of more nitrogen requires more ammonia. TSS includes both these concentrated metals and sludge, which is the solid material left over when water goes through a treatment plant. After the crude oil is refined, the remaining material is sent to a wastewater treatment plant, treated, and dumped into Lake Michigan. The refinery discharges approximately 21.4 million gallons of wastewater into the lake every month.

BP is investing three billion dollars to renovate the Whiting plant and increase its current production of gasoline and diesel by 1.7 million gallons per day. This project will “increase the diversity and security of oil and other petroleum products in demand by customers in the Midwestern United States” (BP press release, 24 August 2007). BP’s justification of this project is the socio-economic benefits it will provide to Whiting and Indiana. The modernization of the Whiting refinery is expected to create 70 new jobs with average salaries of $26.61 an hour by 2011, and 2,500 part-time construction jobs. According to BP, there is no doubt that this project will create favorable economic growth, the benefits of which will outweigh any environmental concerns.

“We urge you to reconsider”

In a July 18th letter, Senator Richard Durbin (D-Il) and Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel wrote: “While we fully recognize and support the economic growth that will come from the expansion of the refinery in Whiting, we respectfully urge you to reconsider your decision to dump tons more ammonia and “sludge” into Lake Michigan. As a company that strives to set an example of environmental stewardship, we encourage you to make those changes necessary that will eliminate the need to further pollute Lake Michigan.”

Before this permit was granted, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) carried out careful investigations of the refinery’s facilities and wastewater treatment plant. BP’s permit application had to be considered on a “case-by-case basis,” because some of BP’s requests were based upon exceptions to the rules. In accordance with Indiana law, if “the increase in mass discharged is not related to an increase in discharge flow, a requested increase in a mass effluent limitation is evaluated on a case-by-case basis.” This means that the levels of pollutants in the effluent wastewater can increase, as long as the total amount of discharged wastewater does not. BP has engineered the Whiting refinery so that the levels of TSS and ammonia can increase, but the total amount of released wastewater will remain the same. There are no regulations for determining the “appropriate increase in mass when the increase is not a result of an increase in flow” (IDEM’s BP Fact Sheet). Thus, the levels of pollutants in the total discharged water are not regulated and may go significantly over the limits.

IDEM also granted BP permission to use a “mixing zone,” which dilutes polluted water by mixing it with clean water in a designated area of the lake. According to Indiana law, water quality standards may be exceeded in mixing zones; therefore, a higher amount of pollutants than is allowed may be present in a mixing zone. Mixing zones are not allowed in Indiana without approval from IDEM. This permit also goes against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Antidegradation Act, which prohibits any lowering of water quality in outstanding national resource waters (ONRWs). Lake Michigan qualifies as an ONRW.

BP’s proposed increases of TSS and ammonia are 110% and 226% of EPA’s limits on those pollutants, respectively. Because of these figures, stated in Tables 13 and 14 of Advent-Environ’s antidegradation analysis, “BP has determined that there is a potential for the Lakefront WWTP [wastewater treatment plant] to have difficulty complying with TSS [and] Ammonia” regulations. The analysis also revealed that the levels of copper, lead, and mercury in BP’s effluent “show a reasonable potential to exceed water quality standards.” The limitations set by IDEM on these pollutants will not become effective for three years, and mercury levels will only be checked semi-annually. Advent-Environ is a wastewater management group from Brentwood, TN.

BP’s permit request was submitted on 30 November 2006. IDEM asked the company to provide a better reason for why they needed to raise their outflow of pollutants, and why they were not doing anything to improve their wastewater treatment plant. BP responded that they did not have enough space on the grounds.

The company currently reduces its total suspended solid discharge by recycling some of its effluent wastewater to the refinery cooling towers. However, this process creates higher concentrations of cycling metals in the water, which is directed back down to the wastewater treatment plant and into the lake. Therefore, Advent-Environ concluded: “It is not an environmentally friendly option to recycle discharge back to the cooling towers,” and no alternatives have been proposed. Plans for more advanced ammonia treatment equipment were canceled because of excessive erosion in the past; BP retains its less advanced equipment. BP has not commented on the relationship between the focus on its oil refinery and its plans to further the use of solar and wind energy. 

“It is our goal to cause no harm”

BP must monitor the toxicity of its effluent wastewater but is under no obligation to reduce it, according to page 34 of its permit. Its increased releases of TSS and ammonia and its almost unregulated mercury and lead discharges are mixed up into the lake environment, our drinking water, and the habitat of Great Lakes animals. The concentrated metals in TSS are harmful to animals: mercury damages the kidneys, stomach, intestines, and can cause mutations; ammonia causes gill hyperplasia in fish, which thickens their gills and makes it difficult to breathe. Lead exposure, in its minor forms, can cause anemia, headache, kidney and nervous system damage, and abdominal pain.

According to Corr, “It is certainly our goal to cause no harm to the lake. We comply with all standards set by EPA.” But many are not so sure that this is the case—Durbin and Emanuel among them. In their letter, they continued: “We cannot allow the Great Lakes to be treated as a dumping zone for industrial waste. We have appealed to federal authorities to block the State of Indiana’s approval of this new permit allowing additional dumping in the Lake. We also plan to work with our many colleagues around the region, and their millions of constituents, to ensure that this expanded dumping will not come to pass.”

Many of their “colleagues” agree. “We believe that it is inappropriate for the state of Indiana to release increased amounts of pollutants into Lake Michigan, ” said Elizabeth Austin, Communication Director in the office of Pat Quinn, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. “It is inappropriate to affect not only Indiana, but Illinois and all the states and Canadian provinces that border Lake Michigan. We believe it is wrong to reverse the decades of progress that have been made in cleaning up the waters in our Great Lakes.”