Off The Cuff

An Oil Company-Good Guys Or Bad?

Posted by: From Arkansas in Odds And Ends on Jul 23 2007

Welcome back!

In a news story from the Chicago Tribune, BP Whiting Oil refinery in Whiting, Ind. has been reported as being allowed to dump more of their industrial sludge and the ammonia that goes with it into Lake Michigan. The opponents believe that this will go counter to the efforts made to date concerning the cleanup of the lake. Apparently, BP has become exempt from the Clean Water Act. The Tribune defines the BP refinery as already one of the biggest polluters of the lake now. The Chicago Tribune states that BP will be allowed to release 35% more sludge and 54% more ammonia into the lake than they previously have been allowed to do. I want to note here that BP will still come under the federal guidelines for water pollution.

As is usually the case, there is another side to this story. BP Whiting says that they are only putting treated water into the lake and is well within the legal limits according to the law. According to BP, the percentage of the levels will be less than half of what the federal guidelines do allow. The sludge does get treated but does not go in the lake at all.

BP says that since they are following the guidelines that no people or the environment will be harmed by this at all. In addition, they are intending on providing 80 more permanent jobs at that facility as well as 2000 contract workers during the construction times. They say they have been trying hard to be environmentally friendly and back such efforts as well. Above all, this permission by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the U.S. Environment Protection Agency allows BP to continue to go forward with it’s $3.8 expansion increasing it’s current capacity to 15% more. One more thing. BP also provides fuel to the midwest, including Chicago.

What needs to be included here is the fact that we definitely need more refineries pumping more oil products out that are NOT coming from the middle east. It’s obvious why we need this. BP is working to get Canadian oil coming into that refinery, thus the expansion. The bigger picture does need to be seen. I have to applaud BP for trying to move away from the middle east oil that seems to have us in their grip.

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