All the talk about the XL Pipeline got me to wondering, was the BP refinery in Whiting, IN still going to process the oil sands? All the talk seemed to center around the pipeline sending the crude to the Texas refineries, but I saw no mention of Whiting. Since our buddy Mitch Daniels, gave BP permission to increase emissions beyond the standards a few years back, I wanted to know. Remember when we had all the environmentalist around on that one? Well, guess what? They will still be refining that crap here in Indiana.
Why should you be concerned? Two reasons, the bp refinery sits on the shore of Lake Michigan, and with refining those tar sands come 'tailing ponds'. 'Tailing ponds' are the ponds of toxic slurry that are left behind when the use steam underground to liquefy the bitumen, which is what they are going to process. Bitumen is full of impurities like sulfur and heavy metals. Do you see where I am headed here? Toxic ponds .... in close proximity to Lake Michigan. If you don't remember what you learned in school as a kid, the Great Lakes are the largest area of fresh water, in the world. Not just the United States, the WORLD. Lake Michigan, where ten communities in four states get their drinking water. Those ten communities then sell rights to other communities to pump that same water. Oh, and don't forget the salmon fisheries in Lake Michigan, and its where local restaurants get their perch.
Funny thing is, bp could build a small waste processing plant on site to deal with this toxic mess, but our buddy Mitch told them they didn't have to since they claimed to be short on funds and space for it. Instead they only have to build a diffuser that churns the waste into Lake Michigan water. Doesn't that make you want to go to the beach? If you go to Google maps and look at a satellite image of the bp plant, out in the water you can see where waste is released into the water. I think its about a mile out into the water. You can't miss it, it changes the color of the water. If all of that wasn't bad enough, you might want to know that processing the tar sands increases mercury emissions into the air, by 400%. If it happens to rain, then that, too, will fall into Lake Michigan.
You might find it reassuring to know that if bp violates the EPA standards (and they will), they will fight the fines in court for awhile, but they will eventually pay them. For some reason, they have a consistently nasty habit of doing that, thinking they won't get caught. When they get the crude to the refineries in the Gulf where most of the refineries are in a Foreign Trade Zone, they won't have to pay taxes when they export it internationally, so they should have plenty of money. Over a three year period they paid more in fines, death related payouts and judge ordered upgrades than it would have cost them to follow the law and upgrade their plants on their own when they knew they had a nasty habit of exploding. Fifteen more of their employees would be alive today if they had.
If I know a lot of geeky stuff about this, its because I spent a month doing research on EPA records for a group of environmental activists in California when this first became an issue a few years ago. Another thing I researched while I was at it, was bp's record of violations, fines, worker deaths and accidents. As you can tell, bp holds a special place in my heart.
Tony Hayward, if you are out there somewhere, I would say that I'm sorry if all those people showed up on your front lawn, except I would be lying. It took me two weeks to track down your address.
