August 28, 2007
�BP gets break on soot limits� - Part 2
My older and wiser brother Lar (as opposed to my older and crazier brother Gene) has a theory about Michael Hawthorne�s BP coverage: the oil giant must have done something to piss the reporter off. A bad tank of gas? Cold coffee? Enforcement of the �no shoes, no service� policy? God knows what it was, but somehow, somewhere, Hawthorne decided to launch a vendetta, and this story is about all the proof one needs to reach that conclusion.
This one is so bad, for so many reasons, that it boggles the imagination. There is nothing that Hawthorne says about BP that could not be said of literally hundreds of sources in the Greater Chicagoland area. You could pull out the letters �BP� and insert any other large industrial plant�s name, or �mobile sources�, or �off road sources�, or �area sources� and reach the same conclusions.
The truth is that BP is one of many, many sources of air pollution in the region. The truth is that air quality in the region has steadily improved for over 30 years. The truth is that Chicagoland meets EPA�s standards for clean air for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, lead, particulate matter ten microns in size or less (except for a chunk of the southeast side) and ozone (based on the old, 1 hour standard). Chicagoland does not meet EPA�s new clean air standards for particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size) � which BP�s emissions have little to do with � and for ozone (based on an 8 hour average) � which BP�s emissions have almost nothing to do with.
It is remarkable, therefore, that anyone could write a story that appears � to the uneducated reader � to create a fantasyland where Chicago�s air is so dirty that you�re risking your life by breathing and that BP is solely and wholly responsible for this wretched state of affairs. It�s not a news story. It�s a Sierra Club press release. What the hell is it doing in the Tribune?
With that off my chest, let�s talk about �soot�.
Hawthorne blends a number of rotten ingredients in this stew of distortion. There are facts here, but the facts are used in such a disjointed way that it�s impossible for the average reader to sort out the truth. But we will try folks. We will try.
Yes, BP did receive a variance (not an exemption) from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, on July 12, 2007. You can download the actual text of the variance here: http://www.in.gov/idem/programs/air/index.html (hit �Variance for BP Products North America Inc.� to download the document).
Now, if you read the document, you will see it actually does contain the words:
�Compliance with these current limits pending the rule change would impose an extreme hardship on BP, because the currently available information indicates that compliance with these emission limits is neither technically nor economically feasible.�
It also contains these words:
�The impact of the variance on ambient air quality will be negligible given that the requested emission limit changes do not represent increases in actual emissions, but rather a more accurate quantification of already existing emissions.� (Emphasis added).
And these words:
�There are number of other emission units at the Whiting refinery that have either been shut down or that have been required to cease fuel oil burning since the SIP was adopted and these changes have resulted in actual reductions of emissions.� (Emphasis added).
Here�s the facts folks:
1. We are only talking about units fired by natural gas and/or refinery gas. There are no cases of anyone, anywhere using any add-on controls to reduce the tiny amount of particulate matter that is created when you burn gaseous fuels efficiently. Suggesting that there is anything else that could be done, or should be done, to control particulate from these sources is incredibly stupid. I am amazed that any environmental group would waste their time suggesting it, and I am even more amazed that one of the biggest newspapers in the nation doesn�t have the brains, will or resources to figure that out as well. It is truly mind-boggling.
2. This action does not represent any increase in emissions. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. It is, again, utterly ridiculous to represent it that way. This is about bookkeeping. Up to 1998, EPA told sources who burn gas to use a certain emission factor. This is the number that you use to calculate how much particulate you (theoretically) emit. Then, in 1998, they updated the emission factor, based on new data.
Previously, BP multiplied the millions of BTU�s of gas burned in the refinery by the number 0.004 (the old factor) to calculate their particulate emissions. Now, they will use the number 0.0075 (the new factor) for multiplication purposes. Certain units were permitted before 1998, so this is nothing more than cleaning up the permit to reflect the new math. Emissions have not actually changed, out there in the little place we like to call �reality�.
3. There is nothing unique to BP here. People clean up their permits all the time. Every single source that burns gas has had to (or will have to) make a switch in factors and, if those factors were in their permit, modify their permit in a similar manner.
4. EPA did not, as Hawthorne claims, conclude that �refineries emit more soot that previously thought�. That is an utterly asinine thing to say. EPA concluded that everyone who burns more natural gas emits slightly more particulate than they previously thought. They reached this conclusion in 1998. EPA also concluded that particulate emissions from the burning of natural gas are so ridiculously tiny that it would be utterly pointless to do anything but require clean, complete combustion to �control� them.
I could go on, but I hope that you get the idea by now. Speaking as an environmental professional and a scientist, this was as bad of a hatchet job of the truth as I�ve ever seen. And that�s saying a lot, for I�ve seen a lot of bad environmental reporting. I don�t know if a story like this is libelous, in the legal sense, but it sure as hell oughta be.
