Skeptical public fears oil-spill health issues

Experts say medical risks will be mild, but many people just don't believe it

Images of oil-soaked birds and soiled beaches, combined with a general mistrust of industry and government, are making it hard for a skeptical public to believe there won’t be serious health effects from the devastating spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

For nearly seven weeks, local and national health officials have stressed that most medical risks likely will be mild and confined to workers exposed to oil and chemical dispersants at the source of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

“The human toxicity of oil, it’s pretty low,” said LuAnn White, a toxicologist and director of the Tulane Center for Applied Environmental Health in New Orleans, La. “It looks awful, it’s coating the birds, but the toxicity of those compounds is very low.”

So far, that seems to be true. More than 20,000 workers have been sent to the site, but relatively few have reported illnesses, including up to 11 who were said to be treated and released at a hospital in the past week with flu-like symptoms.

About 70 people in five Gulf Coast states have reported to poison control centers health issues they think are from exposures to the oil spill, with common symptoms including throat irritation, headaches, nausea, cough and dizziness, officials said. About 60 people have reported spill-related exposure complaints to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, said spokeswoman Lisa Faust.

A poll of about 550 members by the American College of Emergency Physicians in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida turned up one doctor who had seen a few patients with possible spill-related illnesses, none serious, mostly generalized malaise.

It's not clear whether the reported illnesses are actually related to the spill, whether they're related to environmental factors such as heat or fatigue, or something else entirely.

Little danger from tarballs, CDC says
Last week, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that tarballs now washing up on Florida beaches pose little danger and that exposure to small amounts of oil and dispersants is not harmful.

Still, that has done little to soothe worries among people who scoff at reports they believe downplay the seriousness of short- and long-term health effects.

“Yeah, the water isn’t toxic. Just like the land at the Nevada Test Site isn’t toxic either,” one reader posted on an msnbc.com discussion thread. “When [will] they stop all the lying?

Shame on the government and BP. My honest advice is don’t swim.”

“You just keep on believing that garbage,” wrote another reader. “Ask the dying pelicans, porpoises and marine life.”

Part of the problem is the magnitude of the disaster, said White. So far, the deep-sea well has spewed roughly between 22 million and 48 million gallons of oil, according to government estimates. More than 2,700 vessels have responded to the scene and more than 1 million gallons of dispersants have been used to break up the leaks.

Then there are the heartbreaking images of oil-drenched animals.

“You respond to what you can see, to what you can smell and to the fear,” White said. “[People] think it must be poison because it looks so bad.”

There is logical reason to be concerned. Crude oil contains a mix of compounds hazardous to human health, including benzenes, which are known cancer-causing agents, and hydrocarbons, which have been linked to problems ranging from headaches to respiratory distress. Sweet crude is ranked as a 2, a moderate hazard, on the Hazardous Materials Identification System toxicity scale of 0 to 4, in which 4 is worst.

Corexit 9500, a dispersant being used in such vast amounts, is rated as a 1 on the HMIS scale, or a slight hazard, according to the product's Material Safety Data Sheet, which warns against contact with eyes, skin or lungs.

Critics such as the coalition Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families charge that the dispersants have not been adequately tested and that the ingredients in the products have not been fully disclosed, obscuring potential health problems.

The worst health effects of oil exposure occur early and then diminish over time, White said. Volatile compounds in the oil, which are most toxic, evaporate quickly into the air. By the time oil reaches beaches, and becomes so-called "weathered oil," it has lost most of its toxicity. By the time it shows up as tarballs, the risk is even lower, she said.

Studies of dispersants have focused more on the effect on aquatic life than human life, White said. Though little is known about the long-term effects of the substance, she said an analogy would be the difference between people being exposed to dish soap residue after doing dishes versus dumping the stuff into a fish tank.

"It's not going to hurt you, but it might kill your fish," she said.

But White acknowledged that the public is viewing this disaster through the prism of the unknown — and fear.

"The anxiety level of everyone in this state is just unbelievable," she said.

Data from the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska showed early reports of minor skin and respiratory ailments, but no long-term study was done. No one has tested the long-term effects of releasing dispersant in such vast amounts.

‘In God we trust, all others bring cash’
The problem is that the public can’t tell whom to trust, said Robert Emery, vice president for safety, health, environment and risk management at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

They don’t believe data from BP, the oil giant behind the spill, which so far shows no harmful evidence of volatile compounds in the air from the oil that could cause health problems. And they don’t believe government authorities who say exposure is likely not a problem.

Emery called for more extensive independent monitoring by a group like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has just begun to report limited exposure data on its web site and has yet to post information about worker illness and injuries.

“You’re in a situation where it’s in God we trust, all others bring cash,” he said.

Emery said he suspects actual health risks will be low, if not non-existent, and that many reported illnesses actually will be caused by heat, or exposure to diesel fuel used to run equipment or other factors unrelated to the spill.

Still, he said it's important, this time, to conduct vigorous long-term studies to detect — or rule out — health problems.

"As more monitoring results become available from a variety of sources, as the work goes on, a question would be: Were the actual exposures sufficient enough to warrant some kind of long-term health follow-up?"

‘Nobody’s listening’
But it’s not enough to simply spout science, said David Ropeik, author of the book “How Risky Is It, Really?: Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts.”

Health officials and scientists would do better to acknowledge public mistrust of the oil industry, government and oil spills and to acknowledge the wrenching effects on animals and the environment. Perhaps then people would be more open to considering the actual health risks.

“The perception of any risk is a combination of the facts and how those facts feel,” said Ropeik.

For instance, some people would be horrified at the thought of eating fish from the oil-tainted Gulf waters. But federal health officials say adulterated seafood won't be allowed on the market. Even when known hazards, such as mercury, are detected in seafood, officials stress that it can take months or years of regular consumption of contaminated fish to accumulate toxins that are a health concern.

To many, that feels crazy.

"Even one drop of this stuff is bad news," wrote another msnbc.com reader.

For Merle Savage, no amount of expert spin can convince her that that the oil spill fallout will be safe. Savage, now 71, was a general foreman during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound.

While an early federal study of 11,000 workers involved in the cleanup showed few health problems, Savage said she has suffered from respiratory problems and other ailments ever since she first breathed vaporized oil particles.

“It’s déjà-vu, it’s all over again,” Savage said. “It’s so sad that it’s going to be the same thing repeated because nobody’s listening.”

Cameron Warns Britons of ‘Decades’ of Austerity

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday that Britain’s financial situation was “even worse than we thought” and that the country would have to make savage spending cuts to bring its swelling deficit under control.

Stern and grim-faced in a speech in Milton Keynes, just north of London, Mr. Cameron said, “How we deal with these things will affect our economy, our society — indeed our whole way of life.”

“The decisions we make will affect every single person in our country,” he said. “And the effects of those decisions will stay with us for years, perhaps decades, to come.”

Mr. Cameron said that at more than 11 percent, Britain’s budget deficit was the largest ever faced by the country in peacetime. But he warned that the structural deficit was more worrisome. Britain currently owes a total of more than $1.12 trillion , he said, and in five years will owe nearly double that if nothing is done now.

The country already spends more on interest payments on its debt than it does running its schools, he said, adding that how to reduce the deficit and cut down on borrowing was “the most urgent issue facing Britain today.”

Mr. Cameron’s government, a coalition of Conservatives from his party and Liberal Democrats led by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, faces a difficult political road. With its grip on power untested, it will have to contend with critics on the right and left of both parties to get its spending plans through Parliament.

At the same time, the government risks alienating Britons, particularly workers in the state sector, which Mr. Cameron singled out as an example of a public spending run amok.

Mr. Cameron tried to soften the blow by saying that the cuts would not disproportionately affect the vulnerable. Mr. Clegg told The Observer newspaper over the weekend that Britain would not face “a repeat of the 1980s” and the budget cuts of the Margaret Thatcher years.

Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, a union that represents many public service workers, nonetheless told the Press Association news agency that Mr. Cameron’s speech was “a chilling attack on the public sector, public sector workers, the poor, the sick and the vulnerable, and a warning that their way of life will change.”

The prime minister laid the blame for the situation squarely on what he called “reckless” spending by the Labour government, which was in power for 13 years before being defeated in last month’s election. He said that as the financial crisis was “Labour’s legacy,” so, too, would be the spending cuts.

“Nothing illustrates better the total irresponsibility of the last government’s approach than the fact that they kept ratcheting up unaffordable government spending even when the economy was shrinking,” he said.

Labour argued that spending would help boost the economy, Mr. Cameron said, “conveniently forgetting that if you start with a large structural deficit, ramping up spending even further is likely to undermine confidence and investment, not encourage it.”

Details of proposed spending cuts have not been public. The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, plans to set out the principles underlying his spending plans on Tuesday and to announce an emergency budget on June 22.

Mr. Cameron said that the cuts would come after wide consultation with members of the British public, driving home a recurring theme in his election campaign that “we’re all in this together.”

“It is precisely because these decisions are so momentous, because they will have such enormous implications, and because we cannot afford either to duck them or to get them wrong that I want to make sure we go about the urgent task of cutting our deficit in a way that is open, responsible and fair,” he said.

He said the financial situation had been worsened by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. “The global financial markets are no longer focusing simply on the financial position of the banks,” he said. “They want to know that the governments that have supported the banks over the last 18 months are taking the actions to bring their own finances under control.”

As a cautionary tale, he mentioned Greece, where profligate spending led to a huge budget deficit and eventually a downgrading on financial markets.

While Britain’s economic position is stronger than that of Greece, he said, “Greece stands as a warning of what happens to countries that lose their credibility, or whose governments pretend that difficult decisions can be avoided.”

Yet Another Government Conspiracy Theory

So the feds arrest two Americans they have been spying on, and egging on, for years, for the crime of trying to leave the country allegedly to do bad things overseas, where the US has all authority, of course. The agents provocateur, experts in tricking people for the police state, did get one man to say: “I leave this time. God willing, I never come back. Only way I would come back here is if I was in the land of jihad and the leader ordered me to come back here and do something here. Ah, I love that.” So, as a result, they both face life in solitary punishment in some “supermax” prison, though they have actually done nothing wrong.

AFTER THE MASSACRE: The Global Impact of the Gaza Flotilla Crisis

AMSTERDAM– Israeli commandoes murdered nine humanitarian aid workers in international waters. Nine were Turkish citizens; one a U.S. citizen. They wounded scores more. They imprisoned hundreds, and impounded the ships they hijacked on the high seas. Someone asked me the question: will they get away with it? So far, I answered, they HAVE gotten away with it. And if history repeats itself, if nothing changes, they will continue to get away with it.

Our job is to change history.

And this time, Israel’s savagery may just have made our job a lot easier. When the histories are written, it is certain that Israel’s Flotilla Massacre will be remembered as a key battle in what Richard Falk, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territory, calls Israel’s “war of legitimacy.” And this battle, Israel has already lost.

The Israel’s global propaganda machine had swung into full gear even before the massacre itself, when the Israeli military invited certain foreign journalists to embed with the commandoes as they headed out to sea towards their targets. The talking points were clear, the propagandists were disciplined and stayed on message: The passengers were not humanitarian aid workers but armed al Qaeda operatives. The activists on board the ship were armed and the soldiers were “lynched.” The attacking commandoes leaping onto the deck of the civilian ship from assault helicopters hovering above naturally had the right of self-defense. Israel has the right to impose a blockade on the Gaza Strip and therefore has the right to forcibly board and hijack civilian ships headed in that direction in order to “check for weapons.” The goal of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was not humanitarian but was – gasp! – to break the blockade, so obviously it was a legitimate target. And most important, Israel’s U.S.-backed blockade of Gaza has not created a humanitarian disaster for the 1.5 million ordinary people, half of them under the age of 18, who live in the besieged Strip.

But within the first days following the assault, Israel’s much-vaunted PR operation was collapsing. The problem, it turns out, is that facts are not only inconvenient, they matter. They matter a lot. And the facts were not on Israel’s side.

LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES

The Israeli government was forced to remove its website’s allegations about al Qaeda links when U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley admitted that the U.S. “cannot validate” any such claim, and that the Turkish humanitarian organization coordinating the ship’s voyage “has not been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States.” The “weapons” shown by the Israeli military were a few pieces of wood and metal found everywhere on every ship, along with some ordinary knives, and a couple of bullet-proof vests for protection – hardly evidence of a planned “ambush.” The special forces assaulting the ship pirate-style from helicopters and speedboats were attacking an unarmed civilian vessel in international waters – an act that amounts to an act of war – and commandoes launching such a unilateral act of war obviously have no “right of self-defense.”

Israel claims that it has the “right” under international law to unilaterally declare an armed naval blockade designed to besiege a civilian population, and to forcibly board and seize any civilian ship even in international waters that is heading towards the blockaded zone. In fact, such claims are completely false. The Geneva Convention’s Article 33 prohibits all collective punishment, and thus forbids the economic siege and military blockade of Gaza and the creation of a naval enforcement zone. Sending commandoes to forcibly board and seize a civilian ship, imprisoning its passengers and crew, and impounding its cargo, would be defined as piracy if carried out by an unflagged ship or “non-state actors.” When committed by a sovereign state, such as the Israeli military operating under orders of the government, it amounts to an act of war, in this case against Turkey.

Israel also claimed, almost laughably, that because the stated goal of the Free Gaza Movement was to break the blockade, the Mavi Marmara’s voyage somehow wasn’t really a humanitarian act. In fact, there is an exact parallel in the actions of the early lunch counter sit-ins of the U.S. civil rights movement: while the freedom workers may well have been hungry when they sat down, their goal was not to be served coffee but to end segregation. Of course the ship’s voyage was a political act, repeated by the Rachel Corrie a few days later: to respond to Israel’s politically-driven humanitarian catastrophe and to achieve a humanitarian goal – ending the crippling blockade of Gaza.

Certainly the most dangerous lie from Israeli officials was the claim that “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” I won’t waste time restating the myriad reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Oxfam, UNICEF and others proving precisely the opposite. The following two points should suffice: more than 80% of Gazans are dependent on international aid for food survival, of which 65% are children; and more than 10% are already permanently stunted from lack of decent food. Or, as CNN’s Jerusalem bureau chief Ben Wedeman tweeted yesterday, “Just imagine if 80 pct of Americans lived on food stamps and 50 pct unemployed. That’s Gaza. Humanitarian crisis? Yes.”

POSSIBILITIES

Tragically, it may turn out that it took the murder of nine humanitarian aid activists, the wounding and arrests of hundreds more, the seizure of the Gaza aid ships and their cargo, together to begin to accomplish the political goal that has so far eluded the feeble governmental and multilateral diplomatic efforts, as well as far more committed and powerful Palestinian and global civil society campaigns – to force an end to the blockade and siege of Gaza.

The ferocity of the massacre on the Mavi Marmara has forced even reluctant U.S. allies to criticize Israeli policy, some for the first time. For some countries, the reaction has been exceptionally strong. Turkey, responding to the murders on board the Turkish-flagged ship, withdrew its ambassador from Israel and announced a reduction in overall military and trade relations. Turkish President Abdullah Gul stated that “from now on, Turkish-Israeli ties will never be the same. The incident has left a deep and irreparable scar.” Turkey then issued three demands to Israel as the price for restoring normal relations: apologize for the raid, organize an independent investigation, and significantly, to lift the blockade of Gaza. Losing or even diminishing Israel’s longstanding relations with NATO’s only Muslim-majority country, ties that included access to water, joint military exercises and a ready market for military exports, will have serious consequences for Tel Aviv.

Pressure is mounting. UN officials, despite the U.S. pressure that left the Security Council unable to pass a resolution even condemning the murders at sea, are making stronger statements. The European Union’s response remains anemic, but protests are continuing across Europe and governments face mounting demands to act against Israel’s aggression. NATO has yet to respond, but Turkey is reported to be considering a request to the NATO High Command to answer Israel’s act of war against the Turkish-flagged ship with an act of collective defense as required under the NATO charter.

The question now remains: What will the Obama administration do? To avoid being held directly accountable for Israel’s assault because of the decades of direct U.S. military aid and its assurance of complete impunity for Israeli war crimes, the U.S. will have to begin, at least, by ending its endorsement of Israel’s plan for an internal domestic “investigation” of its own violations. Instead, the U.S. will have to allow (if not actually support) the creation of a truly international, meaning UN-coordinated investigation of the massacre at sea. Longer term, a real change in U.S. policy will be required if the U.S. is to get out from under the rising level of international isolation, by ending its military aid to Israel (currently a ten-year $30 billion package), and allowing, if not actually supporting, efforts towards real accountability for Israeli military and political leaders.

So if those are the necessary first step for the Obama administration and other governments, what should civil society be doing? First, even as we mourn the dead, we should celebrate the courage and commitment of the Free Gaza Movement, the ships’ passengers and crews – for showing the world that when governments and the UN fail to protect the human rights of vulnerable populations, and when they fail to hold violators of those rights accountable, then global civil society will step forward. What the Gaza Flotilla and the massacre of the Mavi Marmara have accomplished, so far, include not only reaching people around the world with unchallengeable new evidence of Israeli violations, but actually forcing policy changes in key governments.

To consolidate and broaden those gains, global civil society will have to continue to mobilize and strengthen our BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigns that bring non-violent economic and other pressure to bear on Israel to end the occupation and end its apartheid policies, and we should note the important new BDS victories that have emerged in the wake of the Gaza Flotilla crisis. Those victories include the decision by the student body of Rachel Corrie’s alma mater, Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation, and to make their campus Caterpillar-free.

Crucially, we must maintain the overall pressure to discredit and break the U.S.-backed Israeli blockade and siege of Gaza – not simply “ease” the blockade for a few days or allow in a few more items. The massive press coverage of the Mavi Marmara massacre has helped break the blockade of ideas, and we must build on that momentum. Governments will never lead – but with sufficient pressure from social movements and civil society around the world, they can be made to follow. That is how we will win the “war of legitimacy” that Israel, with its continuing policies of occupation and apartheid, is already losing.
___________________________
Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, and works with the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. She is author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.

BP: 500,000 pounds of emissions released

TEXAS CITY — At BP’s Texas City refinery, more than 400 pounds a day of benzene — 40 times the state reportable levels — was released during a 40-day period while a subunit of the refinery’s ultracracker unit was offline, according to a company filing with the state’s environmental agency Friday.

In all, BP officials said more than 500,000 pounds of pollutants and nonpollutants were released while the company increased flaring as they tried to repair a compressor on the faulty unit.

Refinery spokesman Michael Marr said in its follow up reporting with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, BP estimated 36,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides and 17,000 pounds of benzene were released in the 40 days. State law requires 10 pounds or more of benzene and 200 pounds or more of nitrogen oxide during a 24-hour period must be reported through the commission’s air emissions database.

Benzene is a carcinogen naturally found in oil that has been linked to some forms of cancer, according to U.S. Health and Human Services records. Nitrogen oxides react to sunlight to form ozone and can damage lung tissue and cause respiratory problems.

However, neither of the levels of the emissions reached levels that required self-reporting to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Marr said. The EPA requires any nitrogen oxides release of more than 1,000 pounds a day be reported, while the federal agency does not require reports of benzene emissions.

According to BP’s filing with the TCEQ, the ultracracker’s hydrogen compressor went offline April 6 and was not repaired or restarted until May 16.

Because of the malfunction, the subunit was shut down, and materials were purged and gasses were rerouted to a flare, according to the company’s filing.

The ultracracker, which remained operable, can process 65,000 barrels of oil per day and mostly produces high-octane blending components for gasoline. The ultracracker also can produce ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane and distillate.

The bulk of the emissions during that time included an estimated 189,000 pounds of carbon monoxide and 61,000 pounds of propane, according to the company’s report to the TCEQ.

“During this time period, the site’s fenceline monitoring did not indicate any excess readings,” Marr said. “Also of note, the site performed modeling of the emissions using TCEQ-approved modeling methods, and that modeling did not indicate an exceedance of regulatory exposure limits to workers or the community at any time during the flaring.”

TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said the filing starts a process that includes a review by the agency that could end up before the commission’s enforcement division. She said depending on why and what caused the emissions, the agency could take enforcement action.

But without knowing the specifics of the BP emissions, she could not comment on what action the agency could or would take.

She did caution the figures BP included in its report likely were estimates that will be higher than what actually was released.

She said companies that underreport emissions face penalties. So the companies often will “shoot high,” Morrow said.

According to BP’s TCEQ filing, all of the figures were estimates.

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Benzene Emissions

According to a 2008 report by the Environmental Integrity Project, BP’s Texas City refinery was among four refineries in the nation that had the largest increases in benzene emissions even as overall benzene emissions among U.S. refiners decreased by more than 18 percent between 2000 and 2008.

The environmental group claims refiners actually underreport how much of the carcinogen is released because of inadequate EPA standards.

However, according to a report to the Texas City-La Marque Community Advisory Council by the Galveston County Health District’s director of Environmental Health last summer, benzene emissions in Texas City decreased by 74 percent between 1993 and 2008. That report does not single out BP nor attribute how much each of the city’s chemical plants or refineries reduced benzene emissions.

SOURCE: Environmental Integrity Project, Texas City-La Marque Community Advisory Council

BP gets break on dumping in lake

The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.

Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs.

Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals.

The refinery will still meet federal water pollution guidelines. But federal and state officials acknowledge this marks the first time in years that a company has been allowed to dump more toxic waste into Lake Michigan.

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BP, which aggressively markets itself as an environmentally friendly corporation, is investing heavily in Canadian crude oil to reduce its reliance on sources in the Middle East. Extracting petroleum from the thick goop is a dirtier process than conventional methods. It also requires more energy that could significantly increase greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Environmental groups and dozens of neighbors pleaded with BP to install more effective pollution controls at the nation's fourth-largest refinery, which rises above the lakeshore about 3 miles southeast of the Illinois-Indiana border.

"We're not necessarily opposed to this project," said Lee Botts, founder of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "But if they are investing all of these billions, they surely can afford to spend some more to protect the lake."

State and federal regulators, though, agreed last month with the London-based company that there isn't enough room at the 1,400-acre site to upgrade the refinery's water treatment plant.

The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day. The additional sludge is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines.

Company officials insisted they did everything they could to keep more pollution out of the lake.

"It's important for us to get our product to market with minimal environmental impact," said Tom Keilman, a BP spokesman. "We've taken a number of steps to improve our water treatment and meet our commitments to environmental stewardship."

BP can process more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily at the plant, which was built in 1889 by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co. Total production is expected to grow by 15 percent by the time the expansion project is finished in 2011.

In sharp contrast to the greenways and parks that line Lake Michigan in Chicago, a string of industrial behemoths lie along the heavily polluted southern shore just a few miles away. The steady flow of oil, grease and chemicals into the lake from steel mills, refineries and factories -- once largely unchecked -- drew national attention that helped prompt Congress to pass the Clean Water Act during the early 1970s.

Paul Higginbotham, chief of the water permits section at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, said that when BP broached the idea of expanding the refinery, it sought permission to pump twice as much ammonia into the lake. The state ended up allowing an amount more than the company currently discharges but less than federal or state limits.

He said regulators still are unsure about the ecological effects of the relatively new refining process BP plans to use. "We ratcheted it down quite a bit from what it could have been," Higginbotham said.

The request to dump more chemicals into the lake ran counter to a provision of the Clean Water Act that prohibits any downgrade in water quality near a pollution source even if discharge limits are met. To get around that rule, state regulators are allowing BP to install equipment that mixes its toxic waste with clean lake water about 200 feet offshore.

Actively diluting pollution this way by creating what is known as a mixing zone is banned in Lake Michigan under Indiana law. Regulators granted BP the first-ever exemption.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been pushing to eliminate mixing zones around the Great Lakes on the grounds that they threaten humans, fish and wildlife. Yet EPA officials did not object to Indiana's decision, agreeing with the state that BP's project would not harm the environment.

Federal officials also did not step in when the state granted BP another exemption that enables the company to increase water pollution as long as the total amount of wastewater doesn't change. BP said its flow into Lake Michigan will remain about 21 million gallons a day.

In response to public protests, state officials justified the additional pollution by concluding the project will create more jobs and "increase the diversity and security of oil supplies to the Midwestern United States." A rarely invoked state law trumps anti-pollution rules if a company offers "important social or economic benefits."

In the last four months, more than 40 people e-mailed comments to Indiana officials about BP's water permit. One of the few supportive messages came from Kay Nelson, environmental director of the Northwest Indiana Forum, an economic development organization that includes a BP executive among its board of directors. She hailed the company's discussions with state and community leaders as a model for others to follow.

Nearly all of the other comments, though, focused on the extra pollution in Lake Michigan.

"This is exactly the type of trade-off that we can no longer allow," wrote Shannon Sabel of West Lafayette, Ind. "Possible lower gas prices (I'll believe that when I see it!) against further contamination of our water is as shortsighted as it is irrational."

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Swine ’flu and Big Pharma: why is there no scandal?

During the swine ‘flu hysteria, this blog kept insisting that the threat was overblown: that a coalition of drugs manufacturers, panicky journalists and cowardly politicians was conniving to talk up the danger.

When it emerged that a billion pounds had been wasted in this outrageous boondoggle, no one apologised. Now we learn that some of the scientists who drew up the guidelines had been in the pay of the pharmaceutical corporations that stood to gain from the stockpiling.

This revelation has received less than a thousandth of the media coverage that attended the original “epidemic”. Why is there not more sense of scandal? Are health correspondents embarrassed about the role they played in stoking the panic? Or is it simply that health scares sell more newspapers than government bungling?