BP Whiting Indiana Refinery
When I was in high school I took Journalism for three years and then for a few years during college. I unofficially majored in Journalism – completely getting away when I got into a heated discussion with my college newspaper staff. I didn’t like the rules that went along with writing when stories seemed to be presented one sided in some cases, or not even represented in a paper at all. With so many news sources bombarding us with stories it can be difficult to find out the truth.
The Chicago Tribune published an article about a BP Refinery located in Whiting, Indiana. The Tribune published that the company was allowed to dump 54% more ammonia and 35% more sludge into Lake Michigan, after they received an exemption to the state environmental laws. Of course after reading the article (seen here) one would be very upset as this puts BP into the leagues of other companies that contribute major pollution to the land and water.
BP issued a statement explaining what was really going in within their company and dumping into Lake Michigan – for instance, what is released into Lake Michigan is 99.9% water. Considering the effort that goes into people cleaning up lakes and other water areas, that sounds like good news. The statement also tells about processing crude oil from Canada, which will enable us to use oil other then from the Middle East as well as creating many permanent jobs. I think the .1% of dumping that is not water may be a small price to pay. Clean up efforts are important for the environment as well as the areas surrounding the water of course as is knowing the company’s stance. Of course the dumping is said to have little to no impact on the people or environment.
Check out the BP Whiting Refinery Fact Sheet in addition to reading the news, reading something directly from the company often lets us see another side to the story.