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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUPDATE 4-Oil spills into Lake Michigan from BP refinery ...Didn't know Anything about This...
Does anyone in Michigan get their water supply from "Lake Michigan?"
???????? This Reuter's reported seemed to show much less spilled than the local sites..but, couldn't get the local Michigan sites to post...
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UPDATE 4-Oil spills into Lake Michigan from BP refinery
Tue Mar 25, 2014 3:29pm EDT
By Karl Plume and Edward McAllister
(Reuters) - Oil leaked from BP Plc's Whiting refinery in Indiana into Lake Michigan after a malfunction at a recently upgraded processing unit on Monday afternoon, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
Between 10 and 12 barrels, or around 500 gallons, of crude oil spilled into the lake, according to a local CBS report citing a source. That would make this a relatively small discharge; last week, a pipeline owned by Sunoco Logistics Partners spilled 240 barrels into an Ohio nature preserve.
The leak had stopped on Tuesday and no injuries were reported, London-based BP said in a statement. It declined to comment on the volume of oil spilled.
As crews worked on the cleanup on this industrial stretch of shoreline, the effect on Lake Michigan was not immediately clear. Two dozen workers were shoveling up sand on the shore that looked lightly tarred by oil. A vacuum truck was sucking up oily water.
Oil spills are not uncommon in the United States, where drilling is at an all-time high and energy production is on the rise. Still, Monday's spill will probably spur more environmental opposition to the Whiting refinery, which has been under local scrutiny for releasing pollutants into Lake Michigan.
The spill may also be another blow to BP, whose reputation was tarnished by the Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. That was the worst offshore spill in U.S. history, spewing millions of barrels of oil into the ocean.
-------------http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/refinery-operations-bp-whiting-idUSL1N0MM0RQ20140325
OLD DISPUTES
The largest crude distillation unit at the 405,000-barrel-per-day refinery was operating normally again on Tuesday after a malfunction led to the leak, Dean said.
The 260,000-bpd crude distillation unit, called Pipestill 12, was the centerpiece of a $4 billion refit of the Whiting refinery completed late last year to run large amounts of oil from Canada's tar sands fields in Alberta.
A crude distillation unit does the initial refining of crude oil coming into a refinery and provides feedstock for all other units at the plant.
Only this month was BP allowed to bid again on new federal drilling leases after a two-year government ban was lifted.
"It's troubling to hear that this spill occurred," said Lyman Welch, Water Quality Program Director at the Alliance for the Great Lakes group. "It's a reminder that even when precautions are taken, spills occur into the Great Lakes and we need to be vigilant to protect out drinking water supplies."
BP laid down containment boom on the water and said the oil was confined to a cove between the refinery's wastewater treatment plant and a steel mill.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/refinery-operations-bp-whiting-idUSL1N0MM0RQ20140325
MindMover
(5,016 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)because many of us don't hit the LBN as frequently and things scroll down.
Could you repost Link II in the V&MM Forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112767173
You know where i saw this about the Lake Michigan spill? On "Russia America TV this evening. Many DU'ers don't watch US Cable for CNN and elsewhere so we don't know what's going on. The local stations has so much crap I couldn't do the post I wanted to so I had to go to Reuters for a cleaner site.
Old DU we used to get news from posters about stuff going on in our states. It's hard to find these days.
Anyway....I'd think more would like to know about this ...because how could we trust BP not to lie any less than TEPCO about the Nuke Plant leaking into Pacific for THREE F**ING YEARS!
MindMover
(5,016 posts)questionseverything
(9,631 posts)if I remember correctly
so many man made disasters happening it is hard to keep track
ongoing nuke disaster in japan
oil in gulf from the recent crash
oil in great lakes
coal ash disaster ongoing in nc
fracking everywhr
mud slide
so the Great Lakes basin is all connected, and supplies all of the water supply for the Great Lakes region, and is 25% of the world's available fresh water.