Great Lakes In the News

The expansion might result in more stable, possibly lower gasoline prices but at a price -- more pollution.

"It's crazy, it's downright nuts," U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, a Harrison Township Republican, said in a speech on the House floor Tuesday as the House debated a resolution condemning the permit. "It's a huge step backwards."

The resolution urges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to overturn the permit. The agency has that authority if it finds that the permit issued by Indiana state authorities would violate the federal Clean Water Act.

BP, a British company, plans to expand its 117-year-old oil refinery at Whiting, Ind., just a few miles from Chicago. The refinery won a permit last month from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to increase the amount of ammonia it discharges by 54% and to raise by 35% the amount of suspended solids it discharges to Lake Michigan.

That means 554 more pounds of ammonia and 1,279 extra pounds of suspended solids each day, 19 members of Congress said in a letter last week to the EPA asking it to review the permit. Six of the signers are from Michigan: Democrats Sander Levin of Royal Oak and Dale Kildee of Flint and Republicans Miller, Mike Rogers of Brighton, Vern Ehlers of Grand Rapids and Peter Hoekstra of Holland.

The City of Chicago also opposes the permit, as does the mayor of nearby Hammond, Ind. Hammond has a drinking water intake a mile from the plant.

"We understand that any citizen who lives along the Great Lakes takes the health of the lake seriously, and we share that concern," said BP spokesman Scott Dean.

Dean said the company worked closely and openly with regulators in the permit process.

"These are people whose job is to protect the water," he said. The EPA reviewed the permit before it was granted and did not object to it, said EPA spokeswoman Phillipa Cannon.

The permit allows the company to dilute the pollutants and discharge them at multiple sites around the lake, getting around a provision in the Clean Water Act that prohibits new emissions.

Environmental groups are fighting BP's 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 wants to expand the plant to process heavy crude oil from Canada. The refinery is the fourth largest in the country and the largest supplier of gasoline to the Midwest. BP officials said at a conference last month 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 surge in gasoline prices. Several U.S. refineries, including ones in Texas and Kansas, have been plagued by shutdowns, adding to a shortage of refinery capacity that 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 the expansion, which it hopes could be completed in 2011.