BP’s Thursday announcement that it will avoid putting increased pollution into Lake Michigan is a victory for the hundreds of thousands of Great Lakes Region residents who made heard their call that Lake Michigan is our gem and drinking water, not a dumping ground.
If BP keeps its promise, then the lake is safe from the damaging impacts of increased ammonia and toxics-containing solids, increases which are allowed by BP’s new discharge permit issued in June by Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management (IDEM).
However, as long as BP’s discharge permit remains on the books in Indiana, it sets the dangerous precedent of being the first permit in years to allow a company’s increase in toxic pollution into Lake Michigan. The permit flies in the face of the Clean Water Act, which since 1972 has set a precedent of continued progress at cleanup.
Indiana regulators could only justify the permit’s pollution increase by expanding a narrow exemption in the Clean Water Act’s “antidegradation” regulation, which is intended to keep clean waters clean, into a gaping loophole. Doing so required the agency to ignore the Great Lakes Water Quality Initiative which clarifies the narrow circumstances under which this exemption may be granted. In short, the exemption should only apply with proof that affordable pollution control technologies are unavailable to avoid an increase. But in this case, regulators allowed BP to avoid full consideration of pollution control options.
For example, although BP testified that a quarter-acre wastewater treatment plant could mitigate new pollution discharge, the agencies accepted, without apparent verification, BP’s claim that there’s no room for one at its 1,400-acre refinery. After BP told members of Congress that a lack of existing technology — not space — necessitated the pollution increase, Chicago officials proffered a list of seven affordable pollution reduction technologies, several in use at comparable refineries, and all of which BP apparently neglected to consider.
To ensure Lake Michigan’s protection, BP must seek a modified permit that codifies its promise of no increased pollution into the lake — this will both hold BP to its pledge and avoid setting a low standard for future Indiana discharge permits. The people have spoken, and they demand a higher standard of care for their Great Lakes.
