bp attempts viral rebuke

The latest opportunity on PayPerPost comes from BP, the behemoth oil and gas corporation. Their wastewater dumping practices have recently come under fire in an article in the Chicago Tribune, and also from a number of environmental groups. BP is asking bloggers to review a PDF factsheet (hosted on a coin pressing machine website? It looks like a copy from the BP website) and help spread both sides of this debate across the blogosphere. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the facts on either side of the case. Nobody is posting facts and providing sources. The article doesn't state where they get their facts, and the BP factsheet doesn't cite any outside regulatory sources to confirm their figures. In fact, the BP factsheet is devoid of any statistical data at all.

Wouldn't a lawsuit have been filed against the Chicago Tribune if what they had printed was untrue? The article from the Tribune states that a newly issued permit allows BP to release "54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day". It also says that "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." BP counters in their own fact-sheet that even with the new permit guidelines, the total ammonia released into the lake will still be less than half of what federal environmental laws would allow.

As for sludge, they state that they don't dump any sludge into Lake Michigan, only treated water. But could they? Does the new permit allow them to dump sludge into the lake or not? Even if they had never dumped any sludge into the lake before, isn't it wrong to issue a permit that would allow them to if they wanted?

It's also hard for me to take BP's side in this debate when they are including such a patriotic "American" spin on their factsheet. They talk of creating 80 new full-time jobs, how this is "fuel for the Midwest" and how it is used in peoples daily lives. Only 80 new jobs? They suggest that this new Canadian oil will reduce our dependence on middle eastern oil, but wouldn't it be better to hire 80 more employees to work on alternative fuels and further reduce our dependence on all oil? I guess that is a silly question to ask an oil company...