BP means 'bad pollution' for the Great Lakes

It's easy being not green

Posted by Jon Rynn (Guest Contributor) at 8:07 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Lake Michigan.

In an effort to keep expanding the flow of oil, companies such as BP have been trying to extract oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, which is like trying to drink coffee after you've dumped it into sand. The process is so energy-intensive that there is talk of putting the world's largest nuclear power plant on top of the tar sands in order to heat them up enough to use them, and lakes of toxic water have been created there.

And where will that goop go to get processed? BP has decided that it would like to process much of it on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, at its huge refinery, and they have been given a waiver by Indiana and the U.S. EPA to expand their pollution dumping, according to the Chicago Tribune:

The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.

Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs.

Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals.

What a way to create 80 jobs!

The story, which was the first indication that Chicago city officials were given about the situation, continues:

BP, which aggressively markets itself as an environmentally friendly corporation, is investing heavily in Canadian crude oil to reduce its reliance on sources in the Middle East. Extracting petroleum from the thick goop is a dirtier process than conventional methods. It also requires more energy that could significantly increase greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Environmental groups and dozens of neighbors pleaded with BP to install more effective pollution controls at the nation's fourth-largest refinery, which rises above the lakeshore about 3 miles southeast of the Illinois-Indiana border ... The steady flow of oil, grease and chemicals into the lake from steel mills, refineries and factories -- once largely unchecked -- drew national attention that helped prompt Congress to pass the Clean Water Act during the early 1970s.

Now, congresspeople from the area are asking the EPA why they allowed this, including a Republican Congressman who said, "In my book, BP, which tries to market itself as an environmentally friendly company, now stands for 'Bad Pollution.'"

Chicago city officials are exploring legal options and will meet with BP officials, who are gearing up a PR counter campaign. The Chicago Parks Commission will be soliciting petition signatures in the popular lakeshore region this weekend.

What I'm wondering is, why has BP been dumping 21 million gallons of waste in Lake Michigan even before this? Why is there a huge refinery near Chicago? The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago recently opened an exhibit about "The City of the Future," and a team from the University of Illinois put together a presentation claiming that as we move deeper into the 21st century, fresh water will become more and more important. The Great Lakes will be one of our greatest resources, and currently hold 90 percent of North America's surface fresh water and 20 percent of the entire planet's.

Isn't water more important than gasoline?

For story: BP means 'bad pollution' for the Great Lakes
31 Comments | Post a Comment

Double Trouble

Are the Canadians crying foul about this? Or are they looking the other way if it means a big boost to their oil sands projects?

A sign of more to come when scarcity really hits home.

by justlou at 8:41 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Indiana is a backwater

I can get away with saying that because I was born and raised there. Gary Indiana was once one of the filthiest places in America. The politicians from that state will do anything to create a job. I once met the principal of a private school here in Seattle who had taught all around the world. He also taught one year in Indiana and claimed it was the most backward thinking culture of them all. He worked hard trying to extract his foot from his mouth when I volunteered that I was from there. He needn't have bothered.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:59 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Indeed, and the so-called watchdogs are lapdogs

Here's a story today:

Plug-in hybrids would slash carbon output by 2050, report says
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/19/europe/hybrid.php
WASHINGTON: Plug-in hybrid cars would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 500 million tons a year by 2050 without taxing the electric grid, according to a report issued Thursday by an unusual coalition of power companies, General Motors and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The report found that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, using power primarily from the electric grid would cut U.S. greenhouse vehicle gas emissions by 33 percent from levels today.
"There is no plausible future electric scenario where PHEVs do not return a significant carbon dioxide emissions benefit," according to the report, conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute, the research arm for electric utilities.
The success of plug-in hybrids is predicated on the ability of utilities to measure when power is used and to encourage people to charge their cars at night, John Bryson, chief executive officer of Edison International in Rosemead, California, said. California is regulated and Bryson said his company would not profit from greater power demand from hybrids.
The study assumed that people would charge batteries 74 percent of the time at night, when power demand is the lowest. The study also assumed that plug-in cars would begin building market share in 2010. . . .

So what do we learn again from these stories?

All attempts to maintain car culture, whether petroleum based or PHEV, presume that the energy systems aren't going to get smaller. The PHEV story presumes, for example, that we can maintain a grid like we have now --- that the electric grid continues to burn coal, in other words.
Groups like NRDC have become a huge part of the problem; working with utilities and GM to promote an absolutely unsustainable level of CO2 production from coal and natural gas is a sign of how debased the "big green" groups have become. On this trajectory they should just change their name to Natural Resources Development Company and be done with it.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 9:01 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Tar sands...

...are a huge topic unto themselves, as you can see at Energybulletin.net's Tar sands articles and links, but I am not aware of activism against them in Canada. I believe that indigenous peoples are leading the fight, because the whole process creates a moonscape. Also, there is a looming crisis, as I alluded to, because a huge amount of natural gas is being used, and they can't keep it up at this rate, because the U.S. needs the natural gas too. Unfortunately, "mainstream" energy analyses like from Cambridge Energy Research Associates lump the huge amount of oil in the tar sands in with the truly cheap oil in order to claim that we have decades left of oil before oil peaks.

BioD -- I never understood why Indiana seems to be the one Red state in a string of Blue states on the northern border of the U.S., although a friend of mine's brother-in-law was the Democratic governor before he lost in the last election. Usually industrial workers form the base of at least a somewhat liberal politics.

JMG -- as far as lapdogs, those articles I referenced had a peculiar reference to a Great lakes environmental group that said they weren't necessarily opposed to more pollution -- I don't know what gives there, maybe they caught the NRDC "It's the best we can do, now don't screw it up and protest or it will get worse" disease. Seems like Mayor Daley (!) is angrier than they are. By the way, none of the big enviros seem interested in mass transit, and NRDC has been pushing ethanol; I haven't checked on their ideas for nonrenewable electricity generation, although a couple of them cosponsored big reports on the possibility of solar/wind.

by Jon Rynn at 9:33 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Never forget

That Indiana was a HUGE KKK state in the early 20th Century. The state government was loaded with Klan. So you're dealing with a pretty shallow gene pool to start with ...

The 5% Project

by JMG at 9:44 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Ammonia

Uh... why are they dumping ammonia when other companies are burning fossil fuel to make it? I assume there is a good reason. I just want to know what it is.

by wiscidea at 10:54 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Indiana politicians and Catholics

Former Congressman Lee Hamilton (D) is of course a widely respected senior statesman, and co-chaired the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Senator Evan Bayh (D) was briefly thinking of running for president, and may be on the nominee's short list for VP. His late father Birch Bayh was held in high regard. Senator Richard Lugar (R), ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the most intelligent and least ideological members of his party, created a stir a couple of weeks ago when he expressed dissatisfaction with the progress of the war in Iraq and called for downsizing the US military presence there; but then, as if to quash his own show of independence, he just voted with his party against closing debate on the Democrats' bill favoring a time table for withdrawal, for which Paul Krugman has now called him an "enabler" of George W. Bush's denial of reality.

So, whatever one thinks of Lugar's latest vote, Indiana's congressional delegation has often achieved prominence and won respect.

I am not so sure, however, about its universities. Indiana University at Bloomington is no doubt a decent place, with an impressive number of majors, and is said to have a beautiful campus; but an alumnus of my acquaintance, having fled to NYC for graduate study, bitterly referred to the state capital as "India-no-place." The charming 1979 movie "Breaking Away," about a young Italianizing bicyclist, was shot in Bloomington, and features the social divide between the "townies" and the students.

Perhaps even better known than IU is the University of Notre Dame at South Bend. I do not really know it, but have read a number of things by people who teach there, mostly in theology. It is a leading Catholic school in this country, of course, and I cannot help feeling that it has been going resolvedly more conservative in the age of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Is there any kind of student activism at all? South Bend is 30 or so miles inland from Lake Michigan, but it would be nice to know that at least a few students are outraged by this unspeakably bad move on the part of the state government to allow for increased pollution of the lake.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:19 AM on 20 Jul 2007

PHEV-practical now

Plugins reduce emissions 33% assuming our current heavy cars, and our current grid. If you use carbon fiber to make them light, and shape them to be aerodynamics (make them cars, not freakin tanks) you can come closer to a 50% reduction even with our current grid. Bring wind, sun, wave and so forth on-line rather than coal and reduce emissions to close to zero. A PHEV with a 70 mile range that gets 75 mpg when it switchest from electricity to gas would exceed a 90% reduction if it ran on a renewable grid. (Because 85% of the miles or more would be on electricity.) Of course if it had 100 mile range, even with current U.S. driving habits, the reduction would be more like 95%. So an 8 kwh battery and a 4 gallon gas tank - that is something that would be practical with current battery technology

by Gar Lipow at 11:32 AM on 20 Jul 2007

Gar, do you have any...

...references on this? Wouldn't it be better to just skip the hybrid/phev phase and go directly to electric? What's your impression of battery life and recycling? (No need for a remedy for acne, anything on the above would appreciated).

by Jon Rynn at 11:55 AM on 20 Jul 2007
[ Parent ]

Ammonia

Couldn't they feed it to some organism in a big holding pond and then compost the critter (plant or microbe, not warm fuzzy creature) to make a nice organic soil amendment for parks, soccer fields, flower gardens, et cetera?

by wiscidea at 11:55 AM on 20 Jul 2007

It would probably cost them money...

...either that, or it's just the way they do things -- it's like when corporations decide to look at their efficiency in their processes, and discover that they can save billions by conserving...why BP doesn't do it is beyond me.

by Jon Rynn at 11:59 AM on 20 Jul 2007
[ Parent ]

Politics and Economics

Hey, all:

I think JustLou's response (the very first) is the best, and it certainly does appear that they want their tar sands project to move forward, and the slightly displaced source of the pollution outfall and the thinly spread out jobs bait is enough to influence their position. That's the politics. That's the Corporate Oligarchy. And it is probably a good example of Gobblizeation, since they can probably invoke some rule in NAFTA or other environmentally disastrous document.

On the economics, Jon asked a very good simple rhetorical question:

"Isn't water more important than gasoline?"

Of course, this is meaningless to BP, since water is not the commodity they own and wish to promote. If it was the other way around, or regardless of the commodity, they will try to tip things their way. And the courts and the political appointees in EPA, as we have seen repeatedly, are all too willing to go along with them. So it is all about money.

"BP = Bad Pollution?" What's new? As we have also seen repeatedly, marketing and operations are frequently completely divorced from each other. Do anything to extract the product, do anything to cover up the process and sell the product.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

by SustainableGreen at 12:22 PM on 20 Jul 2007

And Beyond Moonscapes

Hey, all:

One other thing: Yeah, extraction of tar sands is as bad as strip mining coal, plus as we see, tar sands extraction has huge water pollution and thermal impacts. Since it is so resource intensive it depends on a high cost for the product (petroleum) to justify it. Assuming all we do is rely on the market to save our asses, driving down demand, switching to sustainable sources of energy, but adding a progressive tax on to petroleum products, will help prevent this next disastrous resource boondoggle from proceeding.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

by SustainableGreen at 12:43 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Hey, Canis, you left one out,

Purdue, located in the middle of a hundred square miles of corn fields, 60 miles north of Indianapolis.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 12:49 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Thanks, BioD

Actually, I never knew where Purdue was, till you told me right now.

I also overlooked the federal prison at Terre Haute, where the all-American terrorist Timothy McVeigh was executed -- an institution of higher learning of a different kind.

And then, I somehow neglected to give Dan Quayle his rightful place in my list of famous Indianans in Washington.

DC, that is. I guess you are the famous Indianan in the other Washington.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:25 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Hey, don't forget ....

Michael Jackson's from Indiana, so ...

Ummm, ok, never mind.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 2:43 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Stop beating up on Indiana!...

...I once spent part of a summer selling dictionaries door-to-door there, the people were nice...now if they would just stop the polluters.

by Jon Rynn at 2:49 PM on 20 Jul 2007
[ Parent ]

I Agree with Jon--What is the point?

Hey, all:

I have my own very strong opinions about my own state of Texas, but I would defend it--well, in most cases, on a selective basis. I really see no point in castigating the entire state of Indiana. Certainly its politicians and business leaders could be at fault, but the people themselves--what is the point?

I drove from Texas to Michigan and back through Indiana 4 Summers ago, and one of the few times I saw a wind turbine installed at a farm was in Indiana. I stopped and had a great conversation with them.

The politically appointed administrators of the state and Federal agencies are almost always suspect, especially when the agency operates contrary to business and industry interests. We see it ALL the time. It is quite possible BP shopped around the permit until they got a response they liked. Just like one of us would do a plumbing job.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

by SustainableGreen at 3:15 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Who's beating up Indiana?

Certainly not I. It was BioD, pointing out at once that he is from there, who was the one who called the place "backward." I do not subscribe to that, and only made some remarks about the state, which on balance are as mixed as any that one could come up with for most other states.

And there is an important moral in that, no? If the Indiana state regulators have given BP a free pass to dump toxic substances into Lake Michigan, in exchange for BP's creating eighty jobs, we should certainly not come away thinking that they did that because they are "backward." Still less should we feel confident that our own state officials would be any more enlightened.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 4:01 PM on 20 Jul 2007

I'd rather beat up on the whole country...

...for all the pollution that oil and coal have been fouling the air and waters with for all of these years. Just think how much cleaner this continent would be (including Canada) without them.

"High-speed rail now!" (from the Museum of Science and Industry model train exhibit).

by Jon Rynn at 4:55 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Leading or Beating?

Hey, all:

Heh heh, I have (and have had for a long time) the same frustration about how the country is going. Actually, being marketed to death is more accurate.

And it appears it was the Michael Jackson reference that was over the top. I would trade, however, the Stooge-in-Chief for The Ghost of "Thriller" in an instant.

Canis, you are right--every state has a mix of good and bad. But I would disagree that it was all about 80 jobs--that was just for the public's consumption. All the investments and political pull is the real reason.

We really need to focus now on finding progressive environmental candidates to run and be elected in November 2008.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

by SustainableGreen at 8:44 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Washington state has similar problems

I received this email from a reader in Washington state:

I'm fed up with all these rape the environment companies and the people that work there. I live in Curlew, WA and have been dealing with Kinross Gold and their plan to mine gold. Same old story they come to an area hard pressed for jobs and locals (along with government officials) give them the key to the area to do, as they want.

My question to BP, which made $22 billion net income in 2006, is why can't more jobs be created by making the process clean? They need to
go outside their own little hamlet and look at all the feeder business that would be making the products to purify the by products.

What people forget is that no one gets away from pollution - not even the rich. Water and air is indispensable to all humans. Tell BP to keep that in mind.

Richard Charlson

by Jon Rynn at 7:31 AM on 22 Jul 2007

More Irony

This comes as a city in Michigan, the "Great Lakes State" bans bottled water :O

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/16/ann-arbor-moves-t ...

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 7:50 AM on 22 Jul 2007

precious waters (BP) Begin Protected

The great lakes need to (BP)- BE PROTECTED - from

BP
Petroleum,
BP is protected from being stopped.
BP transporting crude from Alberta by way of? The destination to be the south end of Lake Michigan for refining w/o waste restrictions in check. Also the possible sulfide mining in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on the water shed known as the Yellow Dog Plains = Again ='s a potentially irreversible contaminating scenario for life all life microbe to top of the food chain. This has got to stop. The dabbling around the worlds largest base of fresh water needs to be protected from the out and out greed. Mom says it's time for alternitive ways of running things and it starts now. Quit pissing in the pool. The chlorine and sludge you dump is way out of line. Is that simple enough to understand.

by Mom at 8:03 AM on 22 Jul 2007

all about clout

This part of the country is about as corrupt as Louisiana.

by Elsa Mary at 10:53 AM on 23 Jul 2007

ILL Enviros C ->

Hallelujah! Today, a mainstream Illinois environmental thing said something beside "Lake Michigan":

"The reason for the increase in pollution is that the facility will be processing dirty Canadian "tar-sands" oil, which is more difficult
to refine."

That one bullet point of six in an environmentillinois.org flyer/petition to be delivered to BP stations, ends:
"I am shocked that you would increase your pollution of Lake Michigan, so I'm going to buy gas somewhere else today, and every day until you agree to avoid any increase in pollution to Lake Michigan."

Difficult, but not dirty? As long as it doesn't dirty Lake Michigan we'll gladly burn through it. That's about as good as the environment gets from Chicago to Springfield, IL., so I guess the people doing this deserve some sort of thanks

by ids at 8:51 PM on 07 Aug 2007

yep mom

With metal prices rising mining looks to be starting up again in the copper and iron country on the shorelands of Lake Superior.

Meanwhile a wind resource that could power the upper midwest is neglected. Mining jobs that leave a devestated ecosystem and layed off miners at the end with destitite families...or good jobs building out clean renewable wind energy that continue on into the forseeable future?

Another choice that will be made by industry lobbyists instead of we the people. Unless the grass roots and net roots can combine to overcome the cold cash of the lobbyists.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 6:41 AM on 08 Aug 2007

natural gas

Instead of consuming natural gas, those tar sands ought to be made into natural gas under ground. No mining mess or refining sludge or water contamination.

Transportation fueled by clean wind energy is the answer, not gas guzzling fueled by massive contamination and massive release of GHG.

But once again lobbyists will have their way. Maybe a campaign across the board against lobbying is needed. with all grassroots orgs joining in.

On a related energy note: the daily show featured anti-cape wind activists who have probably posted here at Gristmill? The program airs today in reruns. Starting in 2 minutes actually. The main featured activist surely sounds like one of the posters here. see if you agree. Hehehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 6:55 AM on 08 Aug 2007

Link

http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/Media/2007/07 ...

A local article on the daily show lampoon of the anti-cape wind forces.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:19 AM on 08 Aug 2007

Youtube link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEaOkhWOZ1A

Very funny. That view of the Yacht club is surely worth saving!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:24 AM on 08 Aug 2007

thanks

by Jon Rynn at 12:04 PM on 08 Aug 2007
[ Parent ]

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