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permit to move ahead on the mega expansion one that is anticipated to create as many as 1,500 construction jobs -
environmental organizations appealed the IEPA permit.
Among them were the American Bottom Conservancy, represented by the Natural Resources Defense Council, and
the Sierra
Club, represented by a Washington D.C.-based group known as the Environmental Integrity Project.
Ann Alexander is senior attorney with the NRDC.
"Once the permit was put out by the IEPA in draft in the summer of 2007, several environmental organizations
submitted
technical comments that criticized it as being in conflict with the Clean Air Act," said Alexander, noting that the permit
concerns emission of carbon monoxide and other gases. "The overall concern has to do with what happens when your added
emissions are large enough to trigger a requirement for state-of-the-art pollution controls. ConocoPhillips' additional
carbon monoxide emissions from the proposed expansion are large enough to trip this threshold. But they - the IEPA and
ConocoPhillips - didn't take the next step of conducting the required analysis to determine what exactly the
'state-of-the-art' controls are in this instance. You have to look around for who's doing what in terms of controlling
emissions, and you generally have to emulate that. In their permit application, they didn't do that," she added.
Although the additional capital investment for such controls might be significant, Alexander says, it's not
difficult for
the company and IEPA to research the well-documented emissions control measures that are already in place at refineries in
the San Francisco Bay area and use those as a starting point for the necessary measures at ConocoPhillips' plant in Roxana.
"After these (environmental) comments were submitted earlier on last summer, the IEPA decided the commentors
were right,
but the agency just paid lip service to the control measures we identified and went ahead to issue its final permit with a
weakened version of those measures," Alexander said. "The IEPA added some additional requirements, but it didn't take the
step of actually quantifying achievable reductions in carbon monoxide emissions from flaring, which tends to be a very large
source of emissions.
"Interestingly, this is similar to the BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana," she added, referring to a refinery
near Chicago
that is also going through the permitting process to expand its plant to be able to process Canadian crude. "The Whiting
refinery has a draft permit out right now as well, and it currently has no provisions in it to control flaring emissions."
Alexander said the BP refinery in Whiting, Ind. initially filed an air permit with its state environmental
permitting
agency that was similar in many ways to the one ConocoPhillips filed with the IEPA for its Roxana refinery, but that the BP
refinery withdrew the permit after its water permit caused a huge public outcry; the refinery had proposed increasing its
discharge into Lake Michigan. Alexander said BP since resubmitted its air permit in February before the Indiana Department
of Environmental Management and is awaiting an answer.
How will the U.S. EPA's Environmental Appeals Board rule on ConocoPhillips' Wood River Refinery air permit,
and even more importantly when?
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If it does not dent the petition altogether, Alexander says, the EAB could do one of three things: 1) It
could send the
case back to the IEPA, asking it to fix the sections in question and reissue the permit; 2) the EAB could ask for an
additional briefing and/or oral argument; or 3) the EAB could send the permit back for a public comment period, listing the
specific changes that need to be made and giving the public a chance to comment on those changes.
The when is stickier than the how, according to U.S. EPA spokesman Dave Ryan.
"We make every effort to move these appeals along, but the truth is that there is no time sequence on
appeals," Ryan
said. "They take as long as they take. This is a complex case. There's no deadline. Right now, this case is in the
administrative system, but cases like these can be appealed through the federal court system. This is an important
decision."
The Environmental Appeals Board is comprised of four judges counseled by nine attorneys.
Doug Whitley, president of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, says he is very supportive of all of Illinois'
refineries
getting upgraded and modernized so that they can handle processing Canadian crude oil.
"It makes sense because we need the energy," said Whitley. "And it makes us less dependent upon less-stable
nations.
Also, we learned from (Hurricane) Katrina that when the Gulf Coast suffers, everyone suffers. Modernizing these refineries
makes all the sense in the world. I personally would like to see these go forward as soon as possible. I'm in favor of
seeing industrial investment in Illinois."
What's troubling, Whitley says, is that government bureaucracy - particularly in the environmental arena in
this scenario - can bog down inherently well-meaning projects, and well-meaning companies.
"We're too sophisticated for our own good," Whitley said. "Our nation has become overly sophisticated in the
bureaucratic
regulatory and permitting process to the point that it causes long and unnecessary delays, primarily for industrial
projects. And I think it's frustrating for most people who are concerned. I think industry is as environmentally sensitive
as anybody, from all it's had to put up with since 1970 (the Clean Air Act)."
Whitley added that industry planners, managers and developers understand what's involved and are going to do
the best they can with the technology that's available to them.
"One of the problems we currently have is that some in the environmental community are seeking to impose
standards or have expectations that far exceed the current law," he said. "It's sort of like the environmental community
keeps moving the
target on the employers, and in the process, I think, causes disruption in the public relations and political arenas and
raises more concerns than are absolutely necessary. What's really going on here is that we've gotten to the point where any
regulatory roadblock that can be pursued is pursued."
While the NRDC's Alexander agrees that from a business perspective the refinery's expansion means positive
economic impact in the short haul, she urges business and community members to also consider the long-term costs.
"It's a little short-term focused to only look at the construction jobs," she said. "The refinery will be
processing dirty crude for the next 50 years. The real costs aren't going to be immediately obvious, but the public health
costs are definitely part of the overall economic equation."
ConocoPhillips government and community relations director Melissa Erker said the company did not wish to
comment at this time, pending the outcome of the petition.
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