Indiana Allows BP To Pollute Lake Michigan

An anonymous reader writes "Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs. The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day."

Re:Free trade and multinationals

[zig007]

Well, regulating markets is financial suicide in the long run, so you can't keep them(the regulations) forever.
At some point you must open up(when it will cost too much), and if you wait for too long, your industry will be dangerously uncompetitive due to a long time lack of..yes, competition.
This has already happened to your steel and car industry. Probably others as well. Wasn't paper hit as well?

Wouldn't a better way be to legislate that all fuel(this may of course be applied to other goods) sold in the U.S. must have been produced using methods that meet certain environmental and humanitarian requirements? Like the ones in the U.S.?

This would level the field in a kind of fair way. Sort of. Don't you think?

Re:Lake Michigan

[Optikschmoptik]

Indiana, jealous of Chicagoland, Wisconsin and Michigan, has decided to mount an ecological attack on us!

If only it weren't considered ridiculous to think about it that way. We can't really call it an attack for two reasons:

1. We're part of the same country (then again, they are the only red state on the lake...).
2. It's a long way off from the worst that has been done to Lake Michigan. The other states are in no position to throw stones.

This is just disgusting. But what's more disgusting is that it hardly qualifies as news.

Re:Is it worth it?

[piper-noiter]

I'm a citizen of Indiana and I was furious when I read it in the paper this morning. A measly eighty jobs in exchange for further ruining of our lake front! It's unconscionable. Our free lake front swimming is one of our state treasures. Miles of sand, trails, and surf.

That said, I imagine there was a lot of pressure on the state legislatures at a federal level. They see it as a chance to decrease Middle Eastern dependence. The whole idea makes me furious.

Re:Why Dump Ammonia?

[cnettel]

To be fair, you can get a fair deal of fertilizer out of urban sewage processing as well, but there is one issue (although I guess it's quite different in different regions): a lot of farmers (or regulatory bodies) don't like the trace amounts of cadmium and so on you'll find in the otherwise biological waste. I would imagine that the ammonia from this process isn't magically concentrated and pure before it reaches the lake. Extraction and separation to get it pure enough to sell could possibly even turn out to be more expensive than even turning it back into nitrogen and hydrogen...

Re:Lake Michigan

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Canadian. Please stop dumping your hazardous, solid waste garbage in Michigan landfills and polluting the USA. [mcsrt.org] Start recycling and don't produce anything that can't be recycled. While you are at it, use your new found national wealth to come up with an alternative to fossil fuel powered cars/trucks. I will gladly come to Canada and purchase one. I don't like the idea of building more oil refineries, but what is the alternative? We need alternatives, not whining or threats of nuclear destruction. Geez.

Learn to read, genius

[Foerstner]

"The additional sludge is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines."

Umm...

Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws...

See the difference?

Re:Learn to read, genius

[timmarhy]

both quotes are from the article. compared out of context like that they would seem to be at odds

" the Clean Water Act that prohibits any downgrade in water quality near a pollution source even if discharge limits are met"

They aren't exempt from pollution guidlines at all like you and the submitter are trying to pretend, they have merely allowed BP to pollute to the maximum amount allowed under the act. prior to this BP were putting out far less, the issue is that the act is poorly written and inflexible.

Re:Is it worth it?

[Simon Garlick]

Newsflash.

http://www.economist.com/images/ga/2007w27/Petrol. jpg [economist.com]

Re:Free trade and multinationals

[Kattspya]

Yeah the corporations are all corporationy and it's destroying the world somehow.

There is not a finite amount of wealth in the world (yet). There was a time when everyone was equally poor and thanks to industrialization and specialization we got rich. Somehow the west got wealthy without making Africa into a giant hole in the ground. If your theory is correct then we could not have gotten where we are today without depriving some other continent of wealth. Please tell me which continent we used up to bootstrap the industrialization.

If you don't think you're benefiting from globalization then you need to open your eyes. Everything costs less that it used to due to more free trade and greater specialization and the absolute poverty continues to subside even without accounting for population increase (I think).

I'm sorry if the above is incoherent but it's three AM here and I was about to go to bed.

invasive species in the Great Lakes

[falconwolf]

Heck, they even refuse to stop ships from wherever from coming in and dumping bilge water contaminated with all sorts of invasive species into the lakes.

You mean like the Zebra mussle [wikipedia.org]?

Falcon

free trade

[falconwolf]

NAFTA and free trade in general is pretty damn stupid.

NAFTA IS NOT freetrade. Anyone who things they are the same is wrong. NAFTA is all about government interference in trade whereas free trade is little if any government interference in trade.

Illegal workers are mostly a problem caused by making it difficult for workers to work legally

While I agree with the sentiment I'd also add that there would not be as many Mexicans trying to get into the US if NAFTA weren't so bad. According to NAFTA, with billions in taxpayer subsidies US agribusinesses can export to Mexico and sale food cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow food on farms there. When they can't make a living on farms Mexican farmers will head north.

Foreign workers seldom are in a position to demand goods and services from the US.

Actually immigrants are in pretty good positions to demand goods and services, many immigrants actually send, remit, a lot of money to relatives where they came from. Immigrants in the US are also more likely to start businesses creating jobs than US citizens are going to start a business.

The Wal-Mart shopping ethic, and the free trade agreements that make it possible, is killing us like a snake eating it's own tail.

Once again that's not free trade.

Falcon

Yep, Canadian oil is yucky, but unavoidable

[Caractacus Potts]

A funny thing happened when the price of oil went up. It's now profitable to use some of the world's lower quality crude oil. And, unbeknownst to most Americans, Canada has huge amounts of such petroleum and companies are madly rushing to bring it to us. The main problem with the stuff in the ground is that it's mixed in with sand and most of the desirable compounds have evaporated away, leaving the thick gooey stuff and higher concentrations of contaminants like heavy metals. Google Athabasca tar sands for more info.

In the long run, though, this stuff will eventually be cleaner for refineries since it will be "upgraded" to a synthetic crude oil in Canada to remove most of the metals, sulfer, and nitrogen compounds. Google "oil upgrader" for more info.

Re:what is the lagrest source of freshwater?

[afidel]

Ok, Lake Baikal is slightly larger in volume than the Great Lakes, by a couple percent. The fact remains that the Great Lakes are a tremendous resource and continuing to needlessly pollute them is shortsighted and arrogant. Oh and the Great Lakes are already surrounded by millions of people who depend on it for their drinking water, so the threat to human life is real today, not some theoretical prediction based on models or guessing.

Bullcrap

[MosesJones]

Seriously what a load of tosh. The idea that the US (the world's largest per-capita polluter by a mile) has had strong environmental laws that are being "weakened" due to competition is laughable. Auto-manufacturing is suffering due to from competition from... Japan (hardly "3rd world"). Canadians (NAFTA) have stronger environmental legislation than the US.

Claiming environmental legislation is being weakened in the name of free trade is just rubbish. I'd bet pretty heavy money that had BP been building this plant in Sweden, or even across the lake in Canada, that they would have been subject to tighter environmental restrictions.

Free trade generates jobs, its what made the USA the economy that it is. Economic protectionism is actually what is destroying the environment in the US, e.g. subsidising non-green corn for bio-fuel while punishing much cleaner Brazilian ethanol. Corporations always try and get away with things, governments should enforce things. Unfortunately in the US the environment is just an excuse for bad subsidies and anti-competitive behaviour rather than using the Free market to adopt solutions that are working elsewhere.

Blame NAFTA, Blame Japan, Blame China. In fact Blame Canada... anything rather than admit the problem is rather closer to home.

Re:Aquafina is bottled useing that water as well.

[e4g4]

Actually Aquafina (a Pepsi product) and it's Coca Cola counterpart Dasani, are generally bottled from tap water local to the market in which it is sold - it keeps their shipping costs nice and low and their profit margins high. After all, who would ship purified tap water across the country?

Re:Is it worth it?

[dusty_yates]

You're only half correct on the plant fertilizer. To illustrate my point I'd like you to breathe pure oxygen. oxygen is required, and expensive! It couldn't hurt you could it?