The company's expanding tar sand crude oil refinery at Whiting, IN - - not far from Chicago - - is being
allowed by state regulators to dump relatively larger amounts of mercury into Lake Michigan, the AP reports:
BP received permission from IDEM [the Indiana Department of Environmental Management] in late 2011 for the refinery to
discharge an annual average of 23.1 parts per trillion of mercury —
nearly 20 times the water quality standard for the Great Lakes. Such
mercury variances are allowed under state law.
I surprised this isn't covered under the Great Lakes Compact. Did all the signatories think that governmental bodies would be too honorable to permit this?
ReplyDeleteShame on Indiana and on Mitch Daniels.
The Compact is about Great Lakes quantity and conservation, not water quality, per se.
ReplyDeleteWhy does Waukesha want Lake Michigan water???
ReplyDelete