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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Environment - "BP permit must be rewritten: State may not have fully assessed new emissions"

Gitte Laasby reports in the Gary Post-Tribune today in a long story:

MERRILLVILLE -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is forcing the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to rewrite part of the air permit for BP's Whiting refinery.

EPA says BP and IDEM left out or underestimated several sources of air pollution that need to be counted when determining what kind of air pollution control equipment is necessary.

EPA has given IDEM 90 days to rewrite the permit, respond to questions and provide emission estimates for several polluting units that were left out of the permit.

EPA's order came Monday -- more than a year and two months after a coalition of environmental groups petitioned EPA to object to the permit. * * *

"Specifically, questions must be answered about emissions from flares, residual emissions from vessel depressurization, increased emissions from coking and coke drum depressurization, fugitive emissions from reduced sulfur compounds and emission factors to account for higher-sulfur crude," EPA said in a news release. * * *

BP spokesman Scott Dean said it's too early to tell what, if any impact, EPA's order would have on the three appeals pending in state court, but that construction on the refinery will continue.

"We have a valid construction permit, we have 2,000 people currently at work on this modernization project," he said. "The construction is about one third complete and we intend to move forward with construction."

He said company officials were "caught completely by surprise" by EPA's order.

"They reviewed this permit last year and had no objections," he said. "We haven't been able to go through the details of their new questions, but we'll of course go through it and work with them to address their concerns."

IDEM has 90 days to revise the permit, but will not be required to hold another hearing or take public comments. Spokesman Rob Elstro said IDEM "will need that time to evaluate the available options and consider the appropriate response to the order."

In addition to the NRDC, the environmental groups that petitioned are the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the Hoosier Environmental Council, Save the Dunes and Sierra Club.

From a staff story today in the NWI Times:
IDEM issued BP modified air permits May 1, 2008, and June 16, 2008, to allow construction at the refinery to begin and to serve as the operating permit for the expansion, respectively.

Construction began in May 2008 on BP's modernization, which will enable the refinery to process more heavy crude oil extracted from Canadian tar sands. The project is on track to be completed in early 2012.

In August 2008, several environmental groups petitioned the EPA to object to the state's modification of BP's operating permit.

Pamela Blakley of EPA Region 5 in Chicago said the objection will not halt site construction and is not related to the minor modification permit BP received to do construction. Blakley, chief of the Chicago regional office's air permit division, also said the EPA's action is separate from permit appeal cases environmental groups filed with a state administrative court.

The EPA said that the additional emissions created from the expansion project did not trigger a more stringent air permit modification, which could have forced BP to install additional pollution control equipment or take other steps to curb emissions. However, the EPA said IDEM should respond to all the questions raised and re-evaluate emission calculations for the project.

The EPA also disagreed with other points raised by the environmental groups, which argued the state should have forced BP to adhere to a compliance schedule, further scrutinized the venting of uncontrolled pressure relief valves and taken a harder look at whether the refinery plans to use the best available pollution control technology.

An IDEM spokesman said the agency will use the 90-day period to evaluate its options and consider an appropriate response to EPA's concerns.

To see the 24-page order the EPA sent the state concerning air pollution permits for the $3.8 billion expansion of the BP Whiting Refinery, go [here].

The Chicago Tribune's Michael Hawthorne puts a political slant on the story - the headline is "Obama's EPA cracks down, orders more tests for BP refinery: In last months of Bush's administration, agency approved project to upgrade and expand northwest Indiana BP site, one of the largest polluters in the Chicago area." Some quotes:
The decision is a policy shift by the EPA. In the last months of the Bush administration, the agency signed off on the BP project and rejected the concerns raised in Monday's order by President Barack Obama's EPA.

Critics say the operating permit was typical of Indiana's lax approach to BP, which has embarked on a $3.8 billion upgrade and expansion of its Whiting plant to process heavy crude pulled from tar-soaked clay and sand in Canada. The state earlier had allowed BP to dump more water pollution into Lake Michigan, but the company backed off after Tribune stories prompted a storm of public protest.

"This refinery expansion is clearly going to dump additional pollution on the surrounding communities, and the law requires BP to control it," said Ann Alexander, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "BP has been playing games with the numbers to try to duck that responsibility, but the jig is up."

One of the problems outlined in the EPA order involves a dozen flares that burn off pressurized gases from the refinery. The federal agency has accused BP of repeatedly violating pollution limits on its flares. But when the Indiana Department of Environmental Management awarded the company a new permit last year, it agreed with BP that the flares will emit virtually no toxic fumes when the expansion project is completed.

The EPA also directed Indiana to re-examine emissions from equipment that turns some of the heavy oil into petroleum coke. The state agency declared the emissions would be "negligible," a conclusion the federal EPA suggests is unrealistic given the amount of pollution coke production creates. * * *

The EPA's order could set a precedent for refinery projects in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio.

BP and Indiana regulators say the Whiting project will cut the amount of air pollution the refinery emits. But even with various improvements in the last decade, the refinery is the sixth-largest source of industrial air pollution in the Chicago area, a Tribune review of federal records shows.

The 246 tons of airborne chemicals and heavy metals emitted by the refinery in 2007, the last year for which figures are available, included toxic benzene, ammonia and mercury.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 20, 2009 09:57 AM
Posted to Environment