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Guest column: Iowa right to question S.D. refinery permit
News Articles | Des Moines Register | Jim Redmond | July 24, 2010
Read the full article on the originating site
With oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico, Americans understand that environmental regulations must be written and enforced before a disaster, not after an oil well blows or a refinery explodes. Citizens now realize the significance of vigilant government agencies in keeping corporations focused on public health and a clean environment.
Thanks to a July 15 Register article (“Iowa Seeks Environment Study for S.D. Refinery”), Iowans learned about a looming threat to our health and natural treasures by a proposed 400,000 barrel per day refinery and its 200-megawatt power plant. Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources Director Rich Leopold wants impacts on our state to be measured before any permits are issued. Given the deficiencies in the present permit, he has requested the South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment (BME) seek an environmental assessment and comprehensive impact study.
The air pollution permit sought by Hyperion Resources for its refinery and power plant avoided the inclusion of studies of impacts on Sioux City as well as parks and prairies along the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers.
The promise of jobs is not sufficient cause to shortcut the regulation process.
The air permit South Dakota’s BME so enthusiastically granted to Hyperion last summer is significantly flawed. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has questioned at least eight major deficiencies in the permit and a South Dakota circuit court judge ordered the weak permit back to BME for additional stipulations. Leopold has listed additional deficiencies in how the refinery developer assessed impacts on Iowa’s natural resources and citizens.
Despite claims about being “a green refinery,” Hyperion’s refining the dirtiest crude oil in the world – Canadian tar sands oil – would make the refinery a massive polluter. It would emit more carbon dioxide per refined barrel than any other refinery in the nation. Total CO2 pollution would be about 19 million tons annually, doubling South Dakota’s carbon footprint. Hyperion would also emit large amounts of particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, sulfur dioxide, mercury and other dangerous pollutants that cause cancer, lung and heart disease, asthma and worsen global warming.
Neither the Hyperion management nor the BME has experience operating or regulating a refinery. Is this a recipe for disaster?
South Dakota officials and Hyperion developers have refused to consider impacts on our state. Sioux City already has marginal air quality and adding Hyperion’s pollution likely would cause air quality violations or limit future industry in Iowa. South Dakota officials chose instead to use Sioux Falls’ cleaner air as a baseline when considering Hyperion’s impact on the region. Common sense instructs us that Sioux City will be severely affected, especially in winter, when prevailing winds direct Hyperion’s pollution toward Iowa and Sioux City.
The National Park Service in its capacity as protector of the Missouri National Recreational River objected strongly to the weak analysis of the impact on this national scenic stretch. The developers brushed off those objections.
Led by a diverse group of conservationists, Iowans for decades have been preserving and managing the last vestiges of native prairie surviving on the Loess Hills. The Nature Conservancy’s Broken Kettle Grassland, its 3,000-acre prairie the largest in our state, is just a few miles from this industrial “gorilla.” By calling for an environmental assessment and comprehensive impact study, Leopold is protecting the economy and the health of Iowa.
In its support of wind generation and other renewable sources of energy, Iowa has embraced the challenge of transitioning to cleaner forms of energy. Why should parts of our state be subject to the air and water pollution produced by a state clinging to past industrial models?
It is imperative Iowa become engaged to the greatest extent possible in any permit process on this refinery. I applaud Leopold’s efforts.
Tagged with: public health, south dakota, hyperion, refinery, iowa, clean environment
