Land

BP faces new heat from feds over plant

By |

(IL) The Chicago Tribune – BP is facing new questions about its Whiting refinery from federal environmental regulators, who accused the company Thursday of starting a project to process heavy Canadian oil three years before it obtained the necessary permit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited the Midwest’s largest refinery with significantly increasing air pollution linked to asthma, heart disease and early deaths as a result of the project, though the agency did not quantify the amount.Regulators said BP’s actions are troublesome because northwest Indiana, like other parts of the Chicago area, already violates federal standards for harmful smog and soot pollution. The complaint comes a year after the Tribune reported that Indiana regulators had allowed BP to dump more water pollution into Lake Michigan from its Whiting refinery, about 15 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. More

Echo

S.S. Badger must stop dumping ash by 2012

By |

(MI) Ludington Daily News – Ludington’s S.S. Badger is lauded, revered and adored for its uniqueness as the last operating coal-fired passenger ship in the United States. On the other, it faces environmental regulation for that very reason – coal, or, in this case, a coal-burning waste product, ash. With coal burning comes waste, emissions through the stack – specifically exempt from regulation by Wisconsin and Michigan state law – but also an ash slurry that is dumped daily into Lake Michigan. That ash discharge used to be considered normal operating procedure for coal-fired vessels. A 1973 portion of the U.S. Clean Water Act – when there were still more than 50 coal-fired vessels operating – stated discharges like the Badger’s, which are “incidental to normal operations,” were allowed.

Echo

Michigan releases air quality report for public comment

By |

(MI) Bay City Times – The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has released an air quality monitoring plan for public comment.  The report interprets past air monitoring data to determine which air pollutants will be measured at what site locations during the upcoming year and beyond. The Annual Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Network Review is available on the DEQ Web site at www.michigan.gov/deqair. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. June 22. More

Waste

Detroit incinerator’s burning issues

By |

(MI) The Detroit News – If you eat, sleep or waste in Detroit, or Royal Oak or a dozen other local municipalities, chances are good your garbage will be shipped to the heart of this city where it will be incinerated and converted into steam, electricity and exhaust fumes that will be recycled into some citizen’s lungs. If you take a trip to the incinerator — or if you prefer the official Orwellian name, the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Facility — you are in for a view of the decadent, profligate habits of the American citizen and the protracted problem of trying to dispose of his detritus. More

Air

China benefits from Obama’s fuel mandate

By |

(MI) The Detroit News – On the same day President Barack Obama marched the Big Three auto executives smiling to the guillotine, China announced it will not set mandatory emissions standards and instead will attack greenhouse gases with a strategy that doesn’t threaten its ferocious economic growth. America has chosen a sharply different tack, as was apparent this week at the White House, where Obama announced he would make the harsh California emissions mandates the national standard. The automakers, now wards of the federal government, had no choice but to cheer the mandates, even though a senior Ford executive told the L.A. Times the mandates would likely put the automaker out of business.  More

Air

Automakers, Obama Announce Mileage, Pollution Plan

By |

(NY) The New York Times – President Barack Obama wants drivers to go farther on a gallon of gas and cause less damage to the environment — and be willing to pick up the tab. Obama on Tuesday planned to announce the first-ever national emissions limits for cars and trucks, as well as require a 35.5 miles per gallon standard. Consumers should expect to pay an extra $1,300 per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016, officials said. More

Echo

Public comment period on new Bay County coal plant ends Wednesday

By |

(MI) Bay City Times – Wednesday is the last day for public comment on a draft air permit for a new coal-fired power plant in Bay County. So far, more than 1,000 comments have been received about the proposed Consumers Energy project, said Mary Ann Dolehanty, with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in Lansing. “The majority of them are form letters, that are probably 50-50 split,” for and against the new plant, a proposed $2.3 billion, 800-megawatt expansion to the Karn-Weadock complex in Hampton Township, said Dolehanty, acting permit section supervisor for the DEQ Air Quality Division. More

Air

U.S. to Offer New Mileage and Emission Standards

By |

(NY) The New York Times – The Obama administration will issue new national requirements for the emissions and mileage of cars and light trucks in an effort to end a long-running conflict among the states, the federal government and auto manufacturers, industry officials said Monday. President Obama will announce as early as Tuesday that he will combine California’s tough new auto-emissions rules with the existing corporate average fuel economy standard to create a single new national standard, the officials said. As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016. More

Echo

Changes Proposed to 2010 Air Monitoring Network

By |

(IN) Muncie Free Press -The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) suggests adding additional monitors to Indiana’s monitoring network to include measuring for lead, PM-2.5, sulfate, and meteorological data. The agency released a draft of the 2010 air quality monitoring plan to the public for comment until June 14th. IDEM is required to review the state’s air monitoring network every year to make sure the agency has monitors in the right locations to get accurate air measurements. The agency also removes or relocates air monitors that no longer give relevant information.More

Echo

EPA taps 21 Great Lakes schools for air tests

By |

By Thomas Morrisey
Capital News Service

Federal and state officials are scrutinizing 21 Great Lakes-area schools as part of a nationwide check on whether bad air threatens the health of elementary students. There are 62 schools nationwide that will be monitored for 60 days as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiative. An EPA scientist said the program will help determine if the pupils are at risk and guide future testing for potential dangers. “It’s really hard for us to know. We couldn’t make a list of the worst 60 schools if we wanted to because we just don’t have that information,” said Jaime Wagner, an environmental scientist with the EPA’s regional office in Chicago.