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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."
The Great Lakes were never that great to begin with, but that's just gross.
Kdawson should stop polluting Hardware with stories that don't belong there.
in INDIA many companies pollute their local river. This should really be stopped, but generally its acceptable in some countries.
Why UNIX?
And what does this have to do with computer news?
Just because The editorial staff discovered politics doesn't mean that the slashdot readership suddenly turned into the crwod at dailykos,
Sounds like what they are doing is legal, but it seems to be a pretty crappy way to create 80 new jobs! Our natural resources are really not ours anymore (if they ever were). I think that to many people oil is more important than clean water.
FTFA: The refinery will still meet federal water pollution guidelines. But federal and state officials acknowledge this marks the first time in years that a company has been allowed to dump more toxic waste into Lake Michigan.
-- I'll be back before you can say antidisestablishmentarianism...
80 jobs.
6500 lbs of waste each day.
The environment.
Priceless.
There are some things money can't buy...
If you say no to 80 new jobs you can kiss your political career goodbye. Unless the voters decide they like the lake, then its time to flip flop the other way... Live life by the polls, just like Billery.
We already can eat only a limited amount of fish that come from the Great Lakes, how about we just dump more heavy metals into the lakes. Garg.
It is very frustrating that the federal government refuses to do things to protect the Great Lakes. 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. These resources must be protected.
Look at what invasive species such as the emerald ash borer have done to MI and other surrounding states. When we people learn?
-Andrew
If it's good for the canadians then it must be ok.
Well I live in Indiana, a state that has seen a lot of industrial job lost due to NAFTA and a general decline in U.S. auto manufacturing. So the state is doing everything possible to get jobs backs. Unfortunately, they are doing it at the cost of the environment. This is what happens when we open markets and start competing with 3rd world countries. We have to relax our standards so that we can win contracts from multinationals. The only winners are the corporations.
Call me ignorant, but really, how much would it cost to properly dispose of this material in drums, or whatever, to a proper storage/refuse location? Instead of exempting them from the environmental laws, maybe they could get a tax credit for the equivalent amount it costs to safely dispose of these chemicals?
Ohhhh, my bad, they probably don't pay any taxes already...
this is a red state people, they care about money, jesus, nascar and guns here; Mitch Daniels (current governor) is almost certainly behind this as he has been behind every other major retarded deal to net himself favor and money with the rich assholes here (aka selling out all our toll roads to foreign companies and contracting ot build new ones which they will own forever after paying some fee).
this doesn't surprise in teh least, he's also behind the attempts to mirror new york's city wide smoking bans on virtually everything (hint: we have a fuck of a lot of smokers here, probably more than average, no i'm not one of them however i'm surprised that in a republican state where republicans are supposedly for less gov't involvement in everything shit like this flies every time)
he's pro-roadblock checkpoints etc etc
life in naptown sucks, anyone whose not from here is always trying to go back home and most of hte (smart?) people from here leave or try to (they're always bitching about the "brain drain" here, they actually think this will be some tech mecca and have been trying to cement that position for awhile now, HELLO Chicago ain't that far, but they dont' care)
in addition to these they make no effort to keep the large manufacturing jobs open etc, and tout a handful of high level investment jobs as some massive coup that will save us all while thousands of people here get laid off who dont' have a degree and healthcare is virtually unavailable and gas prices continue to skyrocket well over national averages (which Daniel's shot down an investigation into, ps this is one of the only states in teh nation that had actual sanctions against gas stations post 9/11 because on that day some stations were selling gas at $5-7/gal for panic profit - while I'm sure GWB would approve some angry people somewhere did not.)
this country sucks worse every day and this city (indianapolis) and the state are focused, concentrated microcosm.
This is just wonderful... my municipality and others in the Lake Michigan watershed have gone through great lengths (read: expense) since the creation of the EPA and Clean Water Act to clean up our own backyard. Indiana and BP has just thrown that all away. I hope to see a number of costly lawsuits over this... hitting them in the wallet where it hurts is the only way they'll listen.
And don't forget the health benefits of sludge, either!
Finally some numbers. Let's see...that's 20 lbs of ammonia and 62 lbs of sludge per new job per day. Yup, sounds like a bargain alright.
If I may, I'd just like to make one suggestion. Let's offer a free Hummer to any of those 80 workers who would like to take their share of waste products home each day.
Aside from all the deception our governments, here canadian, or american, or even mexican i guess, produces with our money... My only real hope is to see young poeple who get to care about the consequences of their action ( ie to dump 2 ton a day of pure industrial waste in a lake, part of what is the biggest amount of non salty water ) Everything is done to generate illusory money or more waste, in the lakes, on the road, in the air, heck even under the earth. I hope we will learn to change!!!!! But what can i do? I am only one. or am i
Too much ammonia causes algae blooms which kill.
If you noticed also, sludge containing heavy metals will also be dumped. mmm....mercury
I think we're all forgetting that BP just re-branded themselves. Now their logo is a little green and yellow sunflower, they have pictures of plants and glaciers on their website, and they run commercials featuring environmentally conscious gen X folks. This obviously means BP cares about the environment. They're most likely dumping 4,925 pounds of organic compost into Lake Michigan every day.
Are we supposed to assume BP's re-branding was a big PR stunt to make the public think they care about the environment? Phhs, No. If there is one thing I've learned, it's that energy company always have the best of intentions, even when they're shooting protesters from helicopter... shooting them with love.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Um, I think I'll stop my family's summertime Lake Michigan vacations.
The fact is that I don't think I want to boat, or have my kids play, in the water there.
Sure, maybe it'll only be so many thousand tons of crud in a bazillion gallons of water. But if anyone in my family ever came down with any disease in the next 40 years, I'd certainly feel a bit guilty.
Ammonia is used as an industrial precursor. For instance it's used to make fertilizer. Why dump it in Lake Michigan rather than purifying and selling it?
[Insert pithy quote here]
In the long term, this will create more than 80 jobs by the time the lake becomes a giant superfund site (Hazmat jobs pay good money!). Of course, people may die from the pollution but that will only improve the jobless rate as well. Wildlife doesn't vote or contribute, so who cares if wildlife dies? C'mon, government only thinks of the long-term benefit for the people. Right?
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
They should refine their own crude and sell it to the Americans. And keep the pollution to their half of the Great Lakes.
Not using mideastern oil is good. We are not getting rid of oil anytime soon, so getting us out of hotspot oil is good.
Apparently, the emissions are within both state and federal guidelines. If the legislatures want to to change these guidelines for everyone, they should do so.
Nobody is getting special treatment.
This sort of sounds like a NIMBY complaint. Just like they are doing to the windmill people in Jersey and other places. Energy will have to be produced despite the fact that someone somewhere will complain about every attempt to do anything. You think hydrogen or ethanol plants are going to be any more popular than oil crackers?
Oil is not going away soon and building processors of sludier canadian oil is good.
for "Hall of Shame" states.
Florida -- the Electoral Screwup State
Kansas -- the Science Miseducation State
Indiana -- the Environmental Rape State
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A dirty lake to go with a dirty state.
I wonder what Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois have to say about this hairbrained plan.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
Left up to the blue state environmental types, the USA would have no jobs at all. We'd all be selling beads to each other, until they banned glass blowing because it was too dangerous.
But, let's ask ourselves? How many cubic miles of trash come out of NYC? How much recycling really goes on in Boston? Where's the big green farms in Trenton, NJ? Does the city of Philadelphia even make enough biofuels for its own cars?
It's really easy to live in a city and decry everyone else's environmental practices but cities are the filthiest places on the planet, and yet, in the United States, they produce no food, no manufactured goods, nothing but a bunch of lawyers pushing lawsuits back and forth and selling insurance to each other. Yeah, that's some economy.
Red staters might be polluters, but at least they aren't useless.
This is my sig.
The solution to pollution is dilution.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I'm sure that the neighboring states will have something to say about this.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Exactly! People shouldn't be complaining! They should be opening up spas on Lake Michigan and offering sludge facials. It's well known that toxic elements and compounds will tighten the pores, slough off dead skin, and leave your face feeling invigorating. That tingling? That means it's working!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
BP seems to have a history of environmental callouses, just watched a prgogram on the history channel scrutinizing them for an explosion at a factory that killed a bunch of the workers, they put the trailer for worker breaks right next to a potential explosion. Found an interesting website about it link link2
Sorry, it isn't whether the state is red or blue. The politicians are giving the voters what the voters ask for, and the voters have irrational wants. Every Democratic candidate runs on the promise of more jobs. (What would happen to the candidate who said, "Elect me and we will have the cleanest water in the world, even though it will cost us 100,000 jobs!"?) Some candidates run on "pro-business" platforms. Why? Because business brings "prosperity" (read "jobs") to the area. Same promise, different spin. All false.
a n/the-myth-of-the-rational-voter/
Here's an interesting little essay on "The Myth of the Rational Voter". WARNING!!!! Intelligence and open-mindedness required! http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/bryan-capl
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
I was under the impression that there was some form of joint regulatory agency that basically said that we agreed not to piss in each others water supply....
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Indiana sucks, there's nothing there...except 80 jobs. Everybody should move out so that it can become one large landfill.
Sweetest of the transition metals!
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
If you're lucky, that gets you maybe ten new police officers. And something tells me it's going to cost more than $615K to clean up the crap being spilled in lake each year. Hell, the legal fees fighting off the complaints from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan -- the other three states that share the lake -- could easily be ten times that.
All in all, a dumbass move that makes absolutely no sense for the state whatsoever. I wonder who got bribed, and with how much?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Stop spamming for your shitty site. If spam is the only way you can think to get visitors, you are doomed to failure.
BP sucks. They're a bunch of two faced, decietful bastards.
Hey fuckers, I drink out of that lake!
Dump them into the company's board members and whoever else decided this.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This should make for some interesting sushi rolls in the future! The Japanese elite will ditch the fugu pufferfish, and take their appetites to Great Lakes coastal restaurants for a real thrill!
Aquafina now with ammonia and sludge
I prefer Swill, myself.
What?
they aren't exempt from anything, they merely got permision to use the maximum level allowed.
i don't see the issue unless you are planning on swimming right beside the outlet pipe. http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0209/featu re2/online_extra.html
people USE 2.4 billion gallons a DAY and it doesn't even make a dent in the lake, so you can imagine the bullshit tiny % of pollution a few thousand pounds makes. I'd bet money animals and humans contribute more pollution to the river in the form of urine per day.
so why don't you all try and have some perspective for once and not jump on the "omgz the evil corperation is killing the world" bandwagon.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Give Americans a choice between invading Iraq or giving up their SUV.
Give Americans a choice between invading Iran or giving up their SUV.
Give Americans a choice between invading Venezuela or giving up their SUV.
Give Americans a choice between polluting Lake Michigan or giving up their SUV.
They will select the former every time. Go ahead and put it to a direct vote next November; a $1/gal gas tax vs. war and pollution.
I wonder if the head of the EPA(Stephen L. Johnson) has anything to say about this, and if he was interfered with by the Bush administration or if he even knows about it. Does the EPA do anything or are they a waste of 8 billion dollars?
~ awaiting spiritual enlightenment ~
There are some things money CAN buy
Adam West? Is that you?
Does this mean that Lake Michigan belongs to Indiana?
Umm...
See the difference?
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
So, why are environmental protection laws in place? To protect against pollutions, of course. And who, in the past, alsways turned out to be the largest and most unscupulous polluters? Why, faceless megacorps of course, where no single person is responsible, and everyone can say, "Hey, it's not me, I'm only following orders. And anyway, we need to make money, not protect the environment"
So, that's why we got this kind of legislation in the first place, to enforce enviromental protection. But it turns out, you only need to wave a large enough check in front of the administration and offer some token benefit for the people to have administrators reconsider their priority. I mean, 80 Job? Come on, that's next to nothing. And even if it were 8000 jobs or 800000, we really need to ask ourselfs if we want to allow big megacorps to increase their margin on the back of our health. Note that this isn't technically impossible. It is perfectly doable, just more expensive than putting it inside the lake of course.
Truely, all are equal before the law. Except those who are more equal. save the United States.
This pollution may be just fine and dandy with Indiana, but what about the other states that border the Great Lakes? I live in Michigan and I don't want to see Lake Michigan become like Lake Erie once was...
us brits were longing to shit all over your country anyway. You've been doing the same round the world for too long! Remember Bhopal?
water? That stuff in toilets?
And you have to understand what IDEM is.
... Management . It's not about protection at all. That's the EPA's job. i
Indiana Department of Environmental
Imagine if the Indiana State Police were renamed the Indiana Department of Crime Management. Then you might see the scenario you're talking about.
NAFTA and free trade in general is pretty damn stupid. All this whining about immigration as costing Americans jobs but the truth is that people that work legally in the US play by the same rules we do so standards can be kept. Illegal workers are mostly a problem caused by making it difficult for workers to work legally. I mean who is going to work illegally when they can work legally, make more money, and have better conditions? Immigrants enlarge the consumer base even as they take jobs. Foreign workers seldom are in a position to demand goods and services from the US. Buying cheap goods and services from other countries is doing us serious damage. They can use slave labor, destroy the environment, produce crappy quality, and will almost always be a lot cheaper than American companies.
Then American companies have to complain about the standards they're asked to meet in the US because obviously they can't compete against foreign companies that have no standards. It's almost always cheaper to have something made in China and shipped to the US than to build it in the US - how can that not destroy America? 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.
It's shitty that Indiana feels the need to do things like this to keep jobs in America and shitty that they really are right - if they don't destroy America then US companies can't compete. That's what happens when you let foreign companies sell here without being in a position to hold them to the same standards we hold our own companies to. I'm all for globalization but for it to work everyone has to be playing by the same rules.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
History repeats itself
It's not "BP", it's "bp". I know your evil plan, you want us to remember the days of British Petroleum.
Hah!
It ain't British Petroleum; they're now beyond petroleum.
Eventually, the humanitarian corporation will transcend the material plane and become beings of pure energy, effectively destroying our oil dependence! At that time, they shall only be known as the color green (specifically Pantone Color 348C). for they will have no use for words!
I for one, hail our green-color trademarking overlords.
when I was younger we were told drinking the water "might not be a good idea". Now, I wouldn't even even want to swim in it. Thats just the ammonia, I'm sure dumping it in tLake Michigan by the ton will have an effect quite quickly. Since we don't actually know what the "sludge" is, I suppose it's hard to say what effect it will have but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.
Just because there is alot of water on the earth doesen't mean it isn't a valuable natural resource. How much of the earth's water is actually fresh, unpolluted and suitable for drinking?
We need oil.
Getting it from the Middle East obviously hasn't worked out so well.
The rate-limiting step in getting crude oil to consumers is the refining--we can get oil out of the ground faster than it can be refined, and a new refinery hasn't been built in the US since 1976. In that time, the number of active refineries in the US has dropped by 50%, while demand has increased 45%. The ones we have are running at capacity, so in an emergency, gasoline can't be produced any faster than it already is. Hence the frequent price spikes.
Yes, we need to stop using oil at some point, but while it's around, we might as well try to make it cheaper.
I particularily liked how regulators agreed with BP that they didn't have room on their site to build a new waste water treatment plant.
On their 1400 ACRE site.
Oy.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
"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."
"The additional sludge is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines."
This asks the question: What are our federal guidelines based on and why is this okay?
I don't get it. BP, you sit there dumping this sludge in the lake and you talk about how important environmental stewardship is? Are you trying to redefine the word "steward?" How exactly is dumping *somewhat less* horribly deleterious materials into a lake stewardship?
Until we get away from these shifty semantics and come to terms with how our actions affect the earth, versus candy-coating it because it justifies our ways of life, I don't believe that the real, sweeping changes that are necessary to protect our home will take place.
Tell it like it is. BP is dumping *less*, but is still dumping.
from BP and the environment
BP New Zealand, along with the BP Group world-wide, is committed to three simple but important goals - no accidents, no harm to people and no damage to the environment.
Our Commitment
Wherever BP has control or influence, it will: Consult, listen and respond openly to customers, neighbours and public interest groups. Work with others - partners, suppliers, competitors and regulators - to raise the standards of the industry.
Openly report the company's health, safety and environment (HSE) performance, good and bad. Recognise those who contribute to improved HSE performance.
BP has a strong commitment to minimise the environmental impact of its activities in areas such as emissions, wastes and energy use and to maintain an active dialogue with communities - locally and nationally - on environmental issues.
It has a well-established safety management and assessment system designed to improve safety performance. Likewise, health promotion programmes have been introduced to complement well-established occupational health practices.
As part of the commitment to high HSE standards, BP continually assesses whether products can be stored, handled, transported and used safely and with minimal environmental impact.
Environmental Initiatives
BP operates 15 service stations with solar canopies throughout New Zealand. This is part of BP's global initiative to 'Plug in the Sun'. BP now has almost 400 service stations with solar canopies around the world.
Triple Bottom Line
As part of our commitment to environmental and social responsibility, BP produces an annual Triple Bottom Line report.
Need i say more?
( if you arent local, this wont mean a thing to you )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How does this affect Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan? Are they for this kind of project? Do we need to keep hurting to an already damaged ecosystem like Lake Michigan? What are the real long and short term benefits and costs?
1. How many pounds of slag is Illinois, Michigan and other entities putting there?
2. Just how unsafe is putting it there? 1,000 pounds a day is a lot, but in a body of water that's 3,000 feet deep in places, it's a tiny drop in the bucket. Are we qualified to make such a claim?
A lot of times we hear things like this that sound horrible, but they're really not.
Don't think so? See what happens when Republicans decrease the amount of increase a sector of the governmental budget causes: "Welfare's been CUT! People will STARVE!" (Actually it's growing at 8% instead of 9% each year.)
While 'bought' politicians are not uncommon, and it's possible this is one dumping on the environment, I think more needs to be known about the subject though...
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Big buisiness wins again against the environment and people's health.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In India companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi are pumping water out of the aquifers faster than it be replaced. Some this could mean there is no potable water left. No water? Drink Coke! .
FalconShould there be a Law?
I can see this as an opportunity for the Save the Great Lake folks and the Greenpeace folks and everybody else here with a dog in the fight against pollution. Protests at BP in Indiana, a nice live web cam showing the BP pollution going into the lake. A nice graphic counter ticking it all off and available on the web. Hell, by the time the light of day shines all over BP and the 'business friendly/environment unfriendly Indiana state government they'll wish they never tried to put an extra teaspoon worth of pollution in the environment and BP which has it's absurd 'we're green' commercials will be shown to be not so green. Boycott Indiana, boycott BP, support your environment, protest against the state government. Sounds like a nice little fight shaping up. I'll go get my popcorn.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
This is ridiculous. A $3.8 billion expansion and they can't afford to clean up the mess that they're creating?
Do you realize that increasing production will increase the pollution created? They're also switching to a dirtier raw material, which inherently creates more nasty pollutants. Simply bitching that they should magically make pollution disappear because they spent money doesn't help much. You buy a car, it doesn't mean you have the ability to make its pollution nil.
At which point will the Indiana legislators start realising that their duty is to all the people of Indiana, not just the few that work for BP?
Not much of Indiana is even in the Lake Michigan watershed. Ironcially, the Great Lakes drain relatively little land. Most goes either south to the Ohio River, west to the Mississippi, northwest to the Great Slave/Bear Canadian thing, or north to the Hudson. However, an increase of 100 tones of ammonia and 230 tones of sludge over a year doesn't seem like it'll kill off their enormous toursism industry in Gary. I'm doubting those few desperate souls could be dissuaded easily at all at this point.
I bet if you asked people if they would want their laws bent or even waived to allow a polluter to pollute their water even more that 99 percent of them would say no. So how the hell does the Indiana Department of Environmental Management have the balls to try to justify and defend their decision?
I bet if you had people vote, it wouldn't be 99%. I also bet that if you had people vote on free cold fusion power, they'd vote for that too. Not that they can affect reality in such a way, but it's unreasonable to assume everything can be solved by a vote.
What's next? Indiana cops giving drug dealers the green light to push crack in schools?
Wait, what? Industry and its consequences just turned into an illicit government run drug cartel for children? I'm confused here.
Ok, I don't like pollution as much as the next guy, but this story's obviously been blown out of proportion to an extent. Just take it with a pinch of salt, or whatever that saying is.
OK, maybe I've only see the part of Indiana along I-80, and Gary, but f%ck Indiana, I thought it then and I think it now. When I think about the problems in this country, I think about Indiana.
BP has been making plenty of profits. Enough, in fact, that they could easily dispose of the waste in a more environmentally friendly manner while still making a profit. Disposing of the waste in a more environmentally friendly way would also probably create more jobs, either with BP or a company hired to handle the waste.
There is hope -- if the Republican candidates agreed with each other on anything during their most recent TV-debate, it was that we need to build (much) more nuclear stations. That should ease the strain considerably...
Nuclear power would have no effect on the demand for petroleum. The only way it could is if petro powered vehicles were replaced with EVs. But by powering EVs with nuclear power you're getting rid of one set of problems with another set of problems. Such as disposal of radioactive waste. The only way to really put a dent in pollution caused by petro is by cutting down on travel, commutes. Instead of spending an hour in gridlocked traffice to get to work, work where you can ride a bike from home. Encouraging Mixed-use development will do more than building more nuclear power stations.
FalconShould there be a Law?
And I drink from the lake's water every day, my family as well, this is an outrageous act of capitalism, it's nasty as it is already, why add more waist and pollution to the already nasty lake, the fish is bad, the water is bad (there is so much bacteria like e-coli and the like is even bad to swim in it), I really doubt that after processing the water to be drank, its safe. But is the only source that comes out of the tap. Now I'm supposed to accept this sludge and ammonia in my glass of water?. Indiana does not have ownership of the lake or the water in it. I've been wishing to leave this shitty state, this is now the strongest reason to do so. (Since I moderated this thread the only way to post is as an anonymous coward, sorry)
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?
FalconShould there be a Law?
A Greeny with a laws rocket could change that.
I can't get too worked up about this. In the larger scheme of things, it's a trivial amount of pollution. If you are really concerned about polluting Lake Michigan, how about doing something about agricultural, suburban, and urban runoff, poorly treated sewage, and the misuse of fertilizers and pesticides?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"Sorry, it isn't whether the state is red or blue. The politicians are giving the voters what the voters ask for, and the voters have irrational wants. Every Democratic candidate runs on the promise of more jobs."
Hmmm. I wasn't aware that a job was an irrational want. Thanks for clearing that up, comrade.
"(What would happen to the candidate who said, "Elect me and we will have the cleanest water in the world, even though it will cost us 100,000 jobs!"?)"
The tourist industry might feel different.
"Some candidates run on "pro-business" platforms. Why? Because business brings "prosperity" (read "jobs") to the area. Same promise, different spin. All false."
Well I'm sure the anti-business platform would do much better.
"Here's an interesting little essay on "The Myth of the Rational Voter". "
Rational or irrational isn't an all or nothing affair.
If what's good? The Oil Sands in Alberta? This oil is bad. Not only is it a heavy oil requiring more processing, it also needs a lot of water to separate the oil from the sand. And the water has to be converted to steam. Alberta's oil sands are energy and resource intensive.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Hmm, that's over 3.5 tons of ammonia and over 11 tons of sludge per job per year.
Most greedy companies just ask for tax abatements.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"C'mon, government only thinks of the long-term benefit for the people. "
Here's what I want you to do tomorrow. Go out into the city, or if you're already there? Walk along the side of the road. Now count all the trash you see regardless of size. Now here's your question. Did the government put that there or did the citizens? Anyone here remember that PSA with the Indian looking out over trash, and then a closeup of a tear coming into his eye? Yes folks, our government is a reflection of ourselves. Don't blame the government for not caring about the environment when the average citizen every day demonstrates their disdain for it.
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.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Half the body weight of the employees, per day.
That seems reasonable. (sheesh)
KeS
Modded down to -1? Who knew there were humorless eco-lesbians on slashdot? Feh, probably just humorless eco-lesbians trapped in overweight flabby men's bodies.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
in bribes did this cost bp, any guesses?
it's honestly not a big deal. hasn't anyone here ever kept fish in an aquarium? ammonia is just fish piss, and bacteria break ammonia down into nitrite, then nitrate. there's even a an anaerobic process that occurs in deep substrate that rips the oxygen out of the nitrate, releasing elemental nitrogen back into the atmosphere. and if you keep the ppm low enough, it won't harm the fish.
i'd be more concerned about a pig farm dumping both phosphorus and nitrogen into a river.
Before we condemn BP to anything other than bad PR, let's understand how this will affect Lake Michigan overall. The Ammonia will produce more algae blooms, which eat up oxygen, but how much? Will this detrimentally hurt the fish and creat dead zones, or will it provide a greater food source for other animals and be balanced out? The solid sludge I can't imagine will be any sort of benefit, but other than sounding bad, how much will it impact Lake Michigan as a whole? I don't know, but maybe someone should post a study on the effects. We all wish we could have no impact on the environment (emission free cars, complete recycling of all materials, pesticide and fertilizer free farming), but we accept this pollution because we need to get on with our daily lives. BP invests regularly in new technologies to reduce hydrocarbon dependence (BP Wind for example), but still runs into logisitical problems for certain expansions to their dirty old oil business. I don't know if they could have expanded their water treatment facilities (I don't know the geography around the Whiting Refinery), but just because they've asked to increase their permits (which is still below the national legal limits) doesn't mean that they are conciousless about the impact they're having, but it is their business decision and hopefully fully considered for the impact. It would be better if everyone could feel an equal share of pain in the pollution produced, therefore we'd all curb our production of it, but right now, as it stands, a benefit for all incurs a penalty for some and we have to understand that's a price. As a former Houston resident, I understand that penalty all too well, with the rancid polluted ship channel we have and the vast amount of industrial waste produced by our refineries that places like southern Florida never see. But I understand that if we want oil, we all either have to pay enough to stop the pollution (which in reality means covering the cost of desired profit and the additional cost of installing more pollution controls) or we have to stop our usage and encourage business sacrifices to help the environment by becoming active shareholders of the company. If we want our world to be a pleasant place to live in, we must all try to work to fix it and not just spout hatred towards those who produce what we want for a price (both monetarily and environmentally) that we are apparently willing to pay every time we go to the pump.
i was being sarcastic. :D
watching out for those of us who would rather not be annoyed, thought the validity of the statement is questionable,nobody should have the experience of reading the book for the surprise ruined by someone else.
Being an Indiana resident, this hardly comes as a surprise. Let's just wait until the Dunes National Park undergoes a die-off, kind of like the White River did when Guide Lamp got away with dumping an undisclosed quantity of toxic waste into it. That'll piss everyone off, I'm sure...
Seriously, the ammonia from fish poop in the lake is several orders of magnitude higher. Plus, ammonia is taken up by algae anyway.
Does anyone not believe that the human race is doomed? This is the type of stupidity that removes any doubt from my mind.
We have little concern for the impact our action have on the ecosystems that allow us to live. Eighty jobs can be used as justification to dump huge amounts of wastes into a water resource used by thousands.
This is typical of human folly. We allow polluter's to poison our environment if they pay off the right people. We allow developers to destroy the environment as they greedily consume our wildernesses until nothing is left.
I know that the human race is doomed because we're too greedy to say "enough!" There will always be another polluting factory, another house, store or condominium built where undeveloped land use to be until there is no undeveloped land.
What people just refuse to understand is that our ecosystem WILL EVENTUALLY COLLAPSE. And that day is coming sooner not later.
I predict that man will continue to rape our planet in an effort to gather riches. By the time that we realize that the ecosystem is indeed collapsing it will be too late. Governments will then spend huge amounts of money in the search for a way to save themselves but only find a grave.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Really, learn to read.
They are exempted from STATE environmental laws... not the FEDERAL environmental laws.
Understand?
"...could you explain how building more nuclear reactors will reduce oil consumption?"
By powering electric cars and other PHEVs? Allowing the expansion of light rail? Allowing more homes to convert from fuel oil to electric heating? Providing the power needed to make hydrogen? Powering other conversion industries (ethanol, biodiesel, shale, etc.)
In short, you have to think about not just the power industry, but also about all of the things said industry could power...
"I think one of us is a little confused...."
Hope that helped end your confusion...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I live in Milwaukee, and the beach here smells like a port-o-potty, and the water is entirely gross. Lake Superior is still beautiful and relatively untouched, but lake Michigan has gone to crap. The good news is that in the 90's Milwaukee updated their water filtration systems and now we have some of the cleanest drinking water in the country. It's quite good, actually! But the lake is the kind of thing where if you accidentailly touch it you think "I hope I didn't just get herpes..."
Coming soon to a lake near you: I feel a repeat of the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire breaking out soon In '69 the Cuyahoga River (a main river that flows into Erie) caught fire because Cleveland, among others, dumped pollutants into the stream. The pollutants went unchecked for a good while, and got to the point where a person "does not drown, but decays". While the exact nature of what set the fire remains unknown to myself, rumor had it that someone tossed a cigarette into the river catching it on fire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River Witnesses said that this occurrence was actually very intriguing. It's not every day you see water catch fire.
What does having 80 more jobs means when the pollution causes millions in healthcare costs? On the other hand if BP were required to meet environmental standards then thye'd have to create even more jobs in order to still stay in business. If BP is allowed to do this I wouldn't be supprised if taxpayers have another Love Canal, have to clean up another Suderfund cleanup, or GE's cleanup of Hudson River.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't blame you for not RTFA since it requires registration, but you apparently completely missed the part in the summary that says it was justified by "in part" by the 80 jobs.
You failed to account for any secondary economic benefits, such as a local drop in gasoline prices. You failed to account for the $3.8 billion BP will have to pay to build the expansion. You failed to account for BP's increased operating expenses (both the effects on the local economy and the increase in taxes paid).
IANAL, but the idea that WI, MI, or IL can sue IN over IN state law is absurd - especially since BP is still bound by federal guidelines.
Then - not because you have made any rational arguments, but because you cannot think of any - you came to the conclusion that someone was bribed.
Good point unfortunately. If now in the US companies have to deal with stringent environmental regulations and in China they can pollute and get away with it, that's one more reason to close US plants and open plants in China.
Ya but now the Chinese are learning what it means to allow businesses to pollute. They are finding out heathcare costs, which the government pays, are going up. China just executed Fuchsia Dunlop, who was responsible for ensuring the safety of China's food and drugs for not doing his job. And now this: China's environment chief on Thursday unveiled a set of tough new rules to tackle worsening lake pollution while lambasting the country's "bumpkin policies" that encouraged local officials to turn a blind eye to environmental hazards."
FalconShould there be a Law?
We should all vote these fucking whores out of office.
note to those in public office:
STOP putting corporate interests before those of your constituents.
STOP thinking that you're such a patriot. You're really just a corrupt unethical whore.
Your vote is for sale to the highest bidder.
Stop selling the rights of the people of the United States America.
They're using their grammar skills there.
This should clearly be moderated "Funny" as there is nothing informative about it. Instead it's +4 informative. This isn't the first completely miss-moderated post I've seen today either.
When "alternative" renewable energy sources like hydrogen (I know it's a carrier not an energy source), solar, and wind get the same amount of subsidies as nuclear power then I may support it. That or subsidies are ended. Without subsidies there isn't a profit making business that would build and operate a nuclear power plant, they'd have to get insurance but no insurance company would insure them without astronomical premiums.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So, according to this, in the UK they pay the equivalent of 9 or 10 USD / gallon. Oh my!
Gas prices in the US are probably amoung the lowest in the world. Besides pumping a little ourself the US has low tax on fuel. That gas price in the UK includes a high tax. I'd support higher tax on fuel but only if the money was used to research renewable sources of fuel and energy, such as funding research into the use of algea to produce hydrogen.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So people here on /. are outraged. That's nothing new. What is anyone going to do about it? Write a letter to a congressman? The governor? Run for office to get things changed yourself? Drive less and carpool more?
If you fill up at a BP normally, will you stop doing that? Or will you do what's easier, more convenient?
I live in central Indiana, and I really don't like the idea of more waste being dumped in Lake Michigan. It's fould as it stands. I wouldn't go swimming in it unless I wanted a few layers of flesh stripped off and loss of ability to reproduce. I may write a letter (that will be looked over, glossed over, and discared by aides) to congressman, senators, and the governor. I probably won't. I'm under no illusions it will do any good. I'm not going to drive less. I don't really go many places other than work and I, sadly, can't quit my job yet. I walk to the grocery store, same as I've done for two years. And I won't stop filling up at BP either. It's directly on my way home from work. It's too convenient to not drive 2 blocks out of the way to put the same gas in my car, but at a "Speedway."
Other than bitch and moan, what is anyone here willing to do, to change in their own lives because of this? The answer is probably nothing.
As Kurt Vonnegut might have said, "So it goes."
Well said, and I would like to think that the EPA works as well in this case as it seems to have done at your plant.
Maybe you're thinking of a different EPA because the one I know of said the air was good to breath in NYC after 911. The head of the EPA then, Christine Todd Whitman said it was safe to breath although toxins were in the air. And exactly how many of the Superfund sites have been cleaned up?
FalconShould there be a Law?
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.
the Great Lakes are THE largest source of freshwater on the planet.
I think you're wrong. Lake Baikal in Syberia contains 1/5 of all the freshwater in the world. Unfortunately it may be much more polluted than the Great Lakes are. The Soviets used it as a dumping ground.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I disagree. Execution may not bring back the victims of the criminal, but it certainly does prevent that person from performing those acts again.
I don't know, if I killed someone and thought I'd get the death penality I think it might be worthwhile to go ahead and kill more. Also once a person is executed there's no chance of bringing them back to life if it's found out an innocent person was executed. If they're in prison however they can be released and have their name cleared. And recent dna testing has cleared a number of innocent people on death row. About the only way I could agree with executing someone is if they wanted to be executed.
FalconShould there be a Law?
And who the fuck do you think you are?
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
I'm not upset because BP got permission. I'm upset because (1) I think they bought the permission with bribes, (2) that it's permission to do something that will help 80 people plus some shareholders, ignoring the other 34 million people (as of 2000's census) living in the states surrounding that lake, and (3) I think it's just plain wrong. That the federal limit is so high says more about that limit's wrongness than BP's rightness. Also, comparing urine to industrial waste is a stretch. And by "stretch" I mean laughably dishonest.
Mmmmm... nasty!
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
...will I see lower gas prices due to this change?
It seems to me that with the cost of oil banging on $80-a-barrel's door, Venezuela driving out American oil interests, and with no truly efficient alternative in sight, we will have little choice but to enable more production State side. The downside to more production will always be more pollution, but the upside will theoretically be lower costs for oil and, consequently, gasoline.
I realize the green flag is a popular one to wave around here, but what are our real options? I hate to see natural resources contaminated, but I hate to pay such high gas prices, too.
I'm not saying pollution is a good thing, but unless there are viable alternatives to refined oil for energy we are going to see more of this sort of news in the future. Either except pollution as the fee we will pay for lower gas prices, or propose new energy sources. The demand for low cost fuel isn't going to wait for anybody, green or otherwise.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
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.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
We all know that no female who is broke, pro-choice, agnostic(I'm mad at god, damn it!), and a college grad is gonna vote for bush unless her husband is beating her or she is carrying her parents torch.
This version of human nature you speak of is only prevalent in anti-intellectual states, where your knowlege of sports and bible is more important than ensuring your set to change with this changing world. They want to live in some kind of moralistic bubble and do the same hard labor and expect to get by the same forever. We all have to adapt, and as much as you don't want to hear it the these types of people are just in their death throes making noise, wildly lashing out against sanity, but you cant stop the times from changing.
Go live the Redneck dream... Hypocritical values, self-destructive voting practices.
And it's freaking retarded they use natural gas to make the steam to get the oil. What a waste of energy that is, not to mention waste of water.
I've thought about this more, or maybe, I'm just so damned tired that I don't care about politics. But the reality is that Indiana should do whatever it takes to get BP to build the refinery, and then, reneg on its dumping waivers so that BP can't dump in the Great Lakes any more.
I ask myself this. Conservatives need to be reminded that, if the Earth truly is a gift from God, then, why piss on it? If God created all the fish in all the seas and lakes, could it not possibly offend Him to kill them in droves simply because we are too lazy to trap what amounts to a truckload of waste per day? Isn't Sloth one of the seven deadly sins? And what about ignorance?
The bottom line is that, if you build your world view around the premise that God has created Man to do with what the world what he will, then, you must accept the idea that man in fact has the capacity within him to make permanent changes to the global climate ecology. If Man is so powerful, according to the Judeo Christian bible, that God himself said that Man could do anything as they constructed their tower of Babel, then, isn't it reasonable to believe that in fact, we really can? To me, as a conservative, the Right Wing radio argument that says that global warming is impossible because Man is so powerless is ultimately an insult to God. It's blasphemy, is what it is.
Now, I'm not some creationist or biblical literalist. Nor am I trying to preach to anyone. Take this as me, thinking aloud. If anything, what I write is really more directed to fellow conservatives that might also be looking on the Internet. Just as much as we conservatives call on muslim leaders to step up and take back their faith from the radicals, and just as much as we call on mainstream democrats to take back their faith from liberal extremists, we need to do the same things ourselves. It's not that Democrats should be muzzling talk radio or other conservative sites any more than the other way should occur. It's that, we ought to be able to tap fellow conservatives on the shoulder, when they are in the midst of making these heresies, and remind them, as they heatedly argue the right to dump heavy metals into God's waters, "is this what Jesus would do?"
Every mainstream has the obligation to police the radicals that would speak for it. I'm sure that Noam Chomskey doesn't speak for most liberals, even though they might find him entertaining, any more than Rush Limbaugh speaks for me. Funny guy sometimes, but, he's not what I'm about and he's not what most conservatives are about.
This is my sig.
Why don't they find something truly hazardous to dump into the lake and let the people stay home? There's probably a better market for heavy metals. Those jobs could even pay well!
Unless Beijing promoted a BBC food correspondent to the head of their food safety administration and then executed her, I rather think you mean Zheng Xiaoyu.
My mistake, it was Zheng Xiaoyu who was executed.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Hi, long time southsider here. What the fuck are you talking about?
Energy intensive? You bet. Energy costs are the major part of oil sands extraction -- so much that even when the price of oil goes up, the economics of the oil sands improve modestly because the costs of extraction go up significantly too.
The weirdest suggestion I've heard is to use nuclear power to generate the steam, thereby not burning as much oil and gas to do the processing, and decreasing the output of greenhouse gasses. Leaving aside the issue of using nuclear power at all, it sounds good, until you think about what will be done with that "extra, saved" oil and gas that would have been used for the processing -- it'll be sold and burned anyway, of course! So, you're not really ahead by much.
Heavy oil usually has higher concentrations of metals. All crude oil has some concentration of metals, mostly in high molecular-weight organic molecules that are "cracked" during the processing, leaving behind the metal-bearing portions in the residue. It's a real hassle to refine for that reason, because the metals interfere with the catalysts that are used in the processing, and then you have to dispose of the metal-bearing sludge or solid coke. The heavy oil is much worse than average for this.
But that's what you get for gulping down the "light, sweet" stuff so damn fast -- you start scraping the bottom half of the barrel. It's fine to say there's plenty left, but the effort required is greater and the quality is indeed poorer. It's great to have the oil sands, but they really are a last resort.
Corporations have:
1) Shipped American jobs and/or their factories out of the country,
2) Hired HB1 workers to replace those workers whose jobs remained here
3) De-qualified American workers for HB1 jobs to ensure they go to foreign workers
4) Used bogus bankruptcies to reneged on employment contracts after having failed to adequately fund retirement accounts and
5) plundered the remaining retirement funds in those accounts
6) Import cheaply made products from those foreign factories and slave workers, which honor NO environmental protections, to sell at prices designed just to prevent competition from startup American companies,
7) Sell those cheap products or poisonous food products at "super stores" using minimum wage part-time workers who do not get health insurance,
8) sell that health insurance to those who CAN afford it, but have doctors who can't or won't practice in the REAL world over rule doctors who do, just so corporations can make HUGE profits at the expense of YOUR health,
9) Supplement million dollar salaries of Managers with tens and hundreds of millions in bonuses for lacking the morals and ethics which would prevent them from DOING the above atrocities.
And now they want to add #10: abandon environmental protection laws that protect Americans from pollution which caused poisoning, cancer, birth defects, chromosomal damage, etc., JUST SO they can generate more PROFITS on the backs of those who can't even get adequate health insurance to get treatment for illnesses which most assuredly be the result of dumping Ammonia and hydrocarbons into public sources of drinking water? And this is to say nothing of the damage to the flora and fauna of the lake. It's like importing China's pollution.
If residents of states surrounding the lake stand still for this they deserve what will happen. At least they should vote for the first presidental candidate who promises to take PROFITS out of the health care industry and give univeral health coverage at the same level and quality as that received by our Congress. Most Congress persons may be immoral and unethical, or even outright crooks, but they do know what good health insurance requires because that's what they gave themselves. What's good enough for them is good enough for those who elected them and whom they "claim" to represent.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
"What is - is wrong." Thorstein Veblen
It also drives up the cost of living.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This is typical Midwest attitude -- ignore the huge environmental impacts of business in exchange for nanoscopic gains in the local economy. I think it would be much more acceptable if the expansion provided 1000+ new, sustainable (not merely there to build the expansion) jobs.
You'd think they would use logic. But no. Damn the tree huggers and hippies for preventing local businesses from making more money! Poisonous water and an environment with plentiful carcinogens free of pestilent wildlife will make us stronger!
We need more government to do what again? Help the poor and protect the environment?
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Take a look at an American city
...
You can see that it's very pretty,
Just two things of which you must beware
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!
Sounds like Indiana has the water thing covered. Unfortunate, for those of us who live in nearby States.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
if you live in Michigan you may recall the gas price swings of May as well as during this last week. I heard on the radio that this is because all our gasoline comes from one refinery and when that refinery sneezes the motorist gets pneumonia.
It's a bad thing that there's a single point of failure like this refinery. But given news coverage like this, I can't imagine a businessman eager to build another.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
See what capitalism does, in practice? Sure, it might not be pure Wealth of Nations, but since when was Stalin's Russia pure Communist Manifesto? When the wealth becomes concentrated, the businessmen bribe("lobby", "give campaign contributions") the elected officials, and everything goes straight to hell.
Our great lake MI was declared a source for PCB contamination. I am wondering has anything changed since?
IN has screwed the home owners, the toll road, the lottery, and roads, and now they are going to screw the lakes the only thing left is to just screw the politicians!
If you do not vote them out this time you might as well pee in the rivers too.
IEPA is almost as much of a joke as the EPA.
Who the hell is protecting our environment?
is to use the right dilution.
Right. I have worked in the Chemical Process Industry. I had to learn the basic ins and outs of e.g. RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act), &al. Here's an example. If the EPA regulations state that an effluent stream can contain no more than 3.7mg/kg of benzene (14mg/kg for refinery sludge...)*, then all that one needs to do is figure out that e.g. a water line will provide ~150 gal/min (3/4" hose with municipal line pressure), and 1 gal of water weighs ~3.78 kg, then you can safely dispose of a beaker (500 ml ~= 430e3 mg) of benzene by running the hose into the same drain that you dumped the solvent for 430e3/(3.7*3.78*150)~= 205 min. Run the hose (or faucet, &c.) all night, and you're golden. If you can locate your plant along a river (flow rate ~20,000 ft/sec ~=150,000 gal/sec)** then you can get away with dumping a heck of a lot more without running afoul of the EPA regulations.
As far as the old eyedropper in a boxcar argument, it's hogwash. Many of the toxins in question are bioaccumulative, so that the concentration in e.g. a fresh fish dinner will be much higher than that in the water which the fish was swimming in when caught. The "well mixed" assumption is not only inaccurate, it is just wrong.
* (IIRC... these numbers may have been changed, since the late 90's. It's not the specific numbers which are the point of my argument, however, but the philosophy that sufficient dilution makes it [dumping toxins into the biosphere] all right.)
**in case you're curious, this number was taken from a lower bounds government estimate of flow in the Hudson river [PDF warning]
Well, since 40 million people right now drink the water from Lake Michigan it might make some sense to keep it clean. Someday there might be a day when we won't need gas (I do not like to pay a ton for my gas either) But I think it is safe to say there will NEVER be a day when we don't need to drink the water... If anyone out there would like their comments heard by the goernor you can sign the petition against this expansion and add comments at www.savedunes.org/petition