Ok, let’s deconstruct some of this recent article written by Michael Hawthorne –
Michael Hawthorne wrote: Few complained about the permit while it was under consideration earlier this year, something critics said could be attributed to paltry outreach by BP and Indiana regulators. But following a Tribune story about the project in mid-July, opponents gathered more than 100,000 petition signatures, …
Come now, Mr. Hawthorne, you are too modest!! The article in question was from July 15th, where
you said the following
Michael Hawthorne wrote: The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.”
(all emphases are mine, unless otherwise stated), and
“Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals.”
As I have demonstrated in previous posts, Mr. Hawthorne either (a) read the permit and did not understand it, (b) read the permit and decided to completely ignore the clear statement in the permit that said that sludge dumping
of any kind was not allowed (and hence BP
could not have been making an application to dump more sludge into the lake), or (c) he simply did not even read the permit. Yet Mr. Hawthorne and his editor(s) left the story as they did, and I do not believe that yet to this day have they retracted any of this false assertion of sludge dumping.
However, in the current article (24 August), Mr. Hawthorne demures from repeating the sludge dumping charge in so many words, stating
Michael Hawthorne wrote: The permit allows BP to put an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of suspended solids into the lake every day. The amount of solids, tiny sludge particles that pass through water treatment filters, is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines.
Come now, Mr. Hawthorne, where is the confident assurance of your previous writing that BP was dumping actual sludge into the lake? Since when did this become “suspended solids”? But notice the way he still tries to eke out a measure of respectability for his prior report by stating that the suspended solids are “tiny sludge particles”. These micron-sized particles can come from
anywhere in the wastewater treatment process, so trying to rescue his previous statement of sludge “full of concentrated heavy metals”, to coin a phrase, simply does not wash.
In fact, let’s do a few simple calculations. BP reports from their website that the Whiting refinery uses about 120 million gallons per day of non-contact wastewater (used from process cooling only, no contact with internal chemical process) and discharges about 20 million gallons per day of treated wastewater. 20 million gallons is about 166.6 million pounds of water. At the permit average limit of 4925 pounds/day of TSS (total suspended solids) in that 166.6 million pounds of water, this comes to a concentration of TSS of about 0.002956%, or on the order of
29-30 ppm (parts per million) of TSS in BP’s wastewater discharge.
Now, I’ll admit that I am not a refinery expert. Nor am I a wastewater treatment expert. I am certainly not a BP spokesperson. Perhaps my calculations have failed to take some critical factor into account. I will be happy to be corrected by any such knowledgeable person. But as I see them right now, these concentration levels are nowhere near what could reasonably be considered anything like an actual sludge discharge. BP states on their Whiting website that their treated wastewater discharge is 99.9% water. There are separate specified limits on various other wastewater contaminants, and
none of these other limits were increased in the new permit to BP.
One might think from the press coverage that BP was the only entity “dumping” pollutants into the lake. Yet every municipality or business that releases its treated wastewater into Lake Michigan is also “dumping” TSS and ammonia into the lake. These are normal results of wastewater treatment processes. Each of these entities has their own water discharge permit.
Yet the hysteria continues. So, when will Mr. Hawthorne, his editor(s), or the Chicago Tribune make a loud public correction to the false information printed in their paper? When will we no longer be subjected to Great Lakes politicians grandstanding and showboating (literally in the case of the execrable Mark Kirk) on this issue? When will consumers realize that there are two ways to put downward pressure on gasoline prices; either decrease the demand for gasoline, or increase the supply of gasoline (for example, by increasing the capacity of existing refineries)?
I know I’ll be waiting, drinking a nice cool glass of Lake Michigan tap water in the meantime.
In closing,
http://whiting.bp.com/posted/1550/Sajko ... 169737.pdf
All you posted was the same articles released a week ago, a fact sheet from none other than BP, and some idiot with a blog who merely regurgitated what was on BP's fact sheet.