BP Whiting and environmental regulators say the Whiting Refinery's new wastewater permit will result in less mercury being dumped into the lake by 2012.
"Over the next five years, BP will be working with regulators to make our small mercury discharges even smaller," said BP spokesman Thomas Keilman, on Friday. "We do not expect the modernization project or the processing of heavy Canadian crude to cause any net increase in mercury levels in our Whiting effluent."
The refinery's new Indiana Department of Environmental Management wastewater permit has been controversial because it allows the refinery to discharge 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more silt into the Lake.
Illinois politicians have strongly criticized Indiana's move to allow the refinery to increase the discharges of those pollutants, and the U.S. House on Wednesday voted 387-26 to condemning Indiana's issuing the permit.
The same permit also will govern the discharge of mercury, a highly toxic pollutant that has only recently come under state regulation.
The EPA's Toxics Release Inventory database for 2005 shows BP discharged almost 3 pounds of mercury directly into Lake Michigan that year. Similar discharges were projected for 2006 and 2007.
That concerns environmental regulators because even very low concentrations can effect fish and humans, and mercury does not break down over time.
Keilman was speaking Friday in response to news reports that the new IDEM permit exempts the refinery from federal mercury standards.
Under the IDEM permit, BP would have to reduce its mercury discharges to eight-one-hundredths of a pound, or just over one ounce, by 2012, according to Peter Swenson, chief of the water permits section at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chicago office. That would bring it into compliance with EPA standards.
While the permit does not mandate how much reduction there will be each year, Swenson said the discharges will have to be gradually reduced to meet the standard.
BP's mercury discharges into the lake have not been regulated until this permit was issued, Swenson said.
EPA records also show BP released another 52 pounds of mercury into the air in 2005.
Smokestack emissions of mercury are not yet governed by EPA regulations.
Keilman said the company prides itself on continuous improvement and will reduce mercury discharges into the lake each year if possible.
Nevertheless, the mercury dumping has added to the controversy over the new permit.
On Friday, Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, released a statement on the issue critical of Gov. Mitch Daniels.
"Gov. Daniels has been pro-business for so long," Smith said. "It's time for him to become pro-people."
IDEM is putting the new mercury standards into all new industrial waste water permits, according to Sandra Flum, an IDEM spokeswoman.
Much of the mercury BP discharges is already present in lake water it draws into the refinery, Keilman said. Some of it comes from rainwater that is collected in its storm sewer system.
Most of the mercury that finds its way into the Great Lakes comes from the smokestacks of coal-burning electric generation plants and is washed into the lakes by rain.
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