"EPA backs BP dumping"
August 1, 2007
Factual Errors
1. Hawthorne says that BP is the first company in years to be allowed to increase the amount of toxic chemicals pumped into the Great Lakes. This is incorrect. No legitimate scientist would call BP�s wastewater discharge �toxic.� It�s 99.996 percent water and is, in fact, cleaner than many sources of well water.
2. Hawthorne complains that the Clean Water Act prohibits declines in water quality, even when limits on pollution discharges, are met. This is a subtle mischaractization of the law. �No-backsliding� means that limits can not be raised and that water quality goals can not be relaxed. The act is flexible enough to allow for changes that are inherent to a free market system. That is apparent from the fact that other wastewater sources have asked for, and received, permits to increase, their discharges. While BP�s permit is not tied to an increase in productivity directly (it is rather tied to a change in feedstock) it will not result in backsliding. The lake will continue to get cleaner, whether or not BP�s project moves forward.
3. Hawthorne refers to Dick Durbin as a �lawmaker.� Dick Durbin is not a �lawmaker,� Dick Durbin is an �idiot.�
OK, I�m a jerk.
4. This one�s not Hawthorne, but we can hang it on U.S. Representative Mark Kirk. Kirk is quoted as saying �Years of accelerated pollution from BP will create another problem in the future.�
Horse-puckey. Let�s assume that the two pollutants that Kirk is worried about (ammonia and solids) kept accumulating in the lake. This doesn�t actually happen. Ammonia evaporates and solids drop off the bottom, but let�s assume that was not the case. It would take 6,000 years before BP�s contribution to either was detectable in lake by conventional laboratory methods.
Furthermore, neither pollutant is of much concern (as we have seen) and, in any case, BP�s contributions are background noise compared to natural and other man-made sources.
Spin
1. Hawthorne implies that the EPA isn�t doing its job. He complains that the agency has been trying to eliminate pollution in the Great Lakes for 30 years, but still granted BP this abominable permit.
Pollution in the Great Lakes has been dramatically reduced, though Hawthorne fails to mention it. BP�s project is so small, in the scheme of things, that it will have no effect. This permit is part of an overall program that has been effective and will continue to be effective.
2. Again, Hawthorn leans on the 54 percent increase in ammonia emissions and the 35 percent increase in solids emissions. His selective use of data fails to tell the reader that the refinery�s discharge is primarily (99.996 percent) water, that it is insignificant when compared to background and that we�re talking about concentrations in the parts per million.
3. Hawthorne calls solids �tiny sludge particles.� The only sludge involved with BP is Hawthorne�s articles. He�s backing off his previous claim, that BP is discharging �sludge.� (How do his editors let him get away with this?) It ain't sludge, it ain't "tiny sludge particles" and it ain't toxic. It's an incidental amount of solids.
No rational, unbiased person, would call 30 ppm of solids, which is primarily comprised of chlorides and sulfates that also occur naturally, �sludge.� Doing so is nothing but hysterical propaganda.