On
the heels of halting BP from increasing pollution in Lake Michigan, Wisconsin Environment and
its affiliates in the Midwest launched a new campaign in September to prevent
other industrial polluters from increasing their discharges into the Great Lakes. Earlier this year, BP sought permission to
dump 1500 pounds of ammonia and nearly 5000 pounds of wastewater laden with
mercury and other toxins into Lake Michigan. While
our intense scrutiny forced BP to back down, other polluters in the region have
similar plans pending.
If
we want to keep the Great Lakes as an
unparalleled national treasure, we cannot allow polluters to treat them as a
dumping ground. That’s why Wisconsin Environment is
working to prevent future BP fiascos. We’re asking the Great Lakes Governors to
endorse a policy of no increase pollution from existing industrial polluters.
Background
Accounting for 90 percent of the
fresh surface waters of North America, the Great Lakes
are truly a national treasure. These vast waters not only provide drinking
water and recreation for millions of Americans; they are also the lifeblood of
the region—the Grand Canyon and the Yellowstone of the Midwest,
as Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel observed.
Yet, recently the Great Lakes faced a new threat from one of the world’s
largest corporations: BP. Despite BP’s marketing on its environmental
reputation, the company sought—and was granted—permission to increase it dumping
to 1500 pounds of ammonia and nearly 5000 pounds of sludge particles daily from
its Whiting, Indiana refinery into Lake Michigan.
Not
only would BP’s increased ammonia feed fish killing algae blooms and its
increase in toxics containing sludge particle put more children’s health at
risk, but the permit
also set the dangerous precedents of being the first in years to allow an
industrial discharger to increase toxic pollution into Lake Michigan.
In
response, Wisconsin Environment and its affiliates helped organize what the Associated Press
called a “firestorm” of public and political outrage. And August 23, BP
publicly pledged to avoid the pollution increases allowed in its new permit.
Moving
Beyond Pollution
But BP is
not the only company seeking to dump more pollution into the Great
Lakes. Permits allowing pollution increases are pending for
Murphy’s Oil on the Wisconsin shore of
Lake Superior, for ConocoPhillips and
Marathon Oil in Illinois, and elsewhere in the
Great Lakes region.
The Lakes
still face a litany of threats, from sewage overflows to unrestricted water
withdrawals. With years of progress cleaning up industrial pollution, and with
so much left to do to restore the Great Lakes,
this backwards trend is the LAST thing we need.
For the sake of our waters, the
people who drink them, and our children who will inherit them, we must prevent
future BP fiascos by eliminating industrial pollution increases into Great Lake
state waterways. And then we can get back to work fixing the other threats to
the Great Lakes.
