EPA rejects permit for BP Whiting refinery
On October 16, responding to a petition filed by environmental groups, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson objected to the operating permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) for BP North America's refinery in Whiting, Indiana. BP is expanding the refinery, which is twenty miles south of Chicago on Lake Michigan, to handle high sulfur Canadian crude oil. The EPA had previously approved an air permit for the project, concluding that the increase in refining capacity would not lead to an emissions increase sufficient to reach the “major modification” threshold. Under that determination, BP was not required to install additional pollution control devices or take other steps to reduce emissions and meet Clean Air Act requirements. However, environmental groups predict that the expansion will create approximately as much new global warming pollution as a new 300-400 megawatt coal plant, about a 40 percent increase from current refinery levels.
The petition, filed by the Environmental Law and Policy Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, Hoosier Environmental Council, Save the Dunes and Sierra Club, alleged that the permit omitted certain emissions and the IDEM did not adequately respond to public comments regarding that issue. The environmental groups raised concerns regarding 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 rejected some of the petitioners' grounds for objection, but agreed that some emissions may have been omitted and that IDEM did not adequately respond to public comment, resulting in an objection to the permit. EPA’s action requires IDEM to conduct a new emissions analysis which potentially could result in a determination that BP’s refinery expansion is a “major modification.”
IDEM spokesman Robert Elstro said the agency will use the next three months "to evaluate the available options and consider the appropriate response to the order."
The refinery expansion, estimated to cost about 3.8 billion dollars, will boost its production of gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel 15 percent to about 4.7 billion gallons a year and is expected to be complete by 2012.
Scott Dean, BP spokesman for refining and marketing in Chicago, said BP was “surprised and frankly disappointed,” by the EPA objection to the permit, but plant construction is continuing.
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