[BCNnet] Botts, IDEM, BP blame public!

[Carolyn A. Marsh]

Unbelievable, Lee Botts, Alliance for the Great Lakes, BP and IDEM unite to
blame public!

 

Critic: Blame public apathy, not BP
(http://www.post-trib.com/news/486391,bprefinery.article)

July 27, 2007

BY DANIELLE <mailto:dbraff at post-trib.com>  BRAFF Post-Tribune staff writer 

BP officials and a prominent environmentalist defended the Whiting oil giant
Thursday amid public criticism of its highly publicized permit to increase
discharges into Lake Michigan. 

While public outcry against the refinery has been high over the past few
weeks, BP followed protocol and had public meetings, discussions and
information sessions before the Indiana Department of Environmental
Management issued the permit, said Tom Easterly, IDEM commissioner. 

Easterly, appointed to his state position in 2004, is from Valparaiso and a
former steel mill environmental manager. 

Few people attended the meetings, so IDEM held a longer public notice and
comment period so everyone would have a chance to learn about the permit.
Still, no one took notice. 

"This permit went through the most public process that any other permit has
gone through," Easterly said, speaking to a packed conference room in the
Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission on Thursday morning. 

Lee Botts, a Northwest Indiana environmentalist and spokeswoman for the
Alliance for the Great Lakes, agreed. 

She said BP and IDEM were not at fault when it came to the permit. She
attended many of the public meetings only to become distraught when she
thought no one else cared. Now that issues have been dissected in the media,
everyone is angry, but they shouldn't blame the oil giant, Botts said. 

"My hope is the really constructive thing to come out of it is that the
public will pay more attention to these types of things," Botts said. "We
got full cooperation from the agencies and from BP." 

Easterly said while it's impossible for the company to get treatment counts
to zero because some particles refuse to settle, they have lowered their
count to the lowest possible numbers they are physically able to achieve. 

Tom Keilman, BP spokesman, reiterated that since BP followed all
environmental and governmental guidelines, they will not be putting the
permit on hold. 

But while BP continues to move forward, the public firestorm surrounding the
measure has done damage throughout Northwest Indiana, Easterly said. Other
companies that submitted their permit applications are halting the process
because they don't want to go through the same criticism facing BP, Easterly
said. 

Contact Danielle Braff at 648-3079 or dbraff at post-trib.com

 

From: @K.ST Action: REJECT
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