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Environmentalists vow to halt BP construction
News Articles | Gitte Laasby | Gary Post-Tribune | October 21, 2009
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Environmentalists say IDEM allowed BP to increase air pollution without the pollution control equipment required by the Clean Air Act. They vowed Tuesday to do what they can to stop construction while BP puts in the best available pollution controls.
Last year, environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to object to BP’s air permit, blasting BP and IDEM for not counting up to thousands of pounds of emissions from a new coker and from flares — tall chimney-like structures that release gases.
On Monday, the EPA backed up most of environmentalists’ arguments about underestimated emissions and ordered IDEM to re-count emissions and rewrite BP’s operating permit within 90 days.
Environmentalists had already filed three appeals of the construction permit with similar objections to the state’s Office of Environmental Adjudication, a court that reviews IDEM’s permit decisions. Now they are making sure the judge knows about EPA’s decision.
“We will formally notify OEA concerning this decision. The form of how we’ll do that and what it’ll mean is all still under discussion,” said Ann Alexander, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the petitioners.
If it’s necessary to completely rewrite the operating permit, the virtually identical construction permit may be considered invalid, too, and stop work.
OEA environmental law judge Mary Davidsen said she is aware of EPA’s decision and that a party in the state case could file the order to support their case, which may change the date of the scheduled hearing on April 12.
Environmentalists argued that studies have shown sulfur dioxide from flaring at refineries in California often exceeded 10,000 pounds in a day. Sulfur dioxide can cause difficulty breathing and potentially be deadly. Refineries with fewer flares than the eight current and three proposed new flares at BP in Whiting emitted up to 22,000 pounds of volatile organic compounds per day, which contributes to smog. BP and IDEM only counted routine flaring emissions, saying modernization of the refinery would lead to fewer emergency flaring incidents.
EPA ruled that “the state has not shown that it has placed a prohibition on such emissions that is legally and practically enforceable.”
Environmentalists also said emissions from BP’s coker were underestimated and that BP and IDEM did not account for the fact that the raw material — high-sulfur Canadian tar sand crude — contains more pollutants than traditional lower sulfur crude.
“IDEM must clarify how certain emissions potentially omitted from the original … analysis are accounted for,” EPA said in its order.
Tagged with: epa, bp whiting, gary, indiana department of environmental management
