BP: Big Problem, Bad Publicity, Beyond Pollution

The headlines lately splash BP's name on a daily basis in the Chicago newspapers and throughout the Great Lakes, almost as much as BP splashes pollution into Lake Michigan. It is beyond me to understand how a company that portrays itself as the "Green" choice within its industry can have such a poorly conceived public relations snafu on its hands.

Hg-ATME follows mercury pollution regulations and trends and caters to a fairly small group of concerned citizens and lawmakers keeping abreast of what is going on nationally in this regard. Rarely do we have the opportunity to talk about headlines attracting attention of the masses. BP and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management have given us that opportunity now.

The decision by IDEM to give BP an extension allowing toxic emissions into the lake so BP can expand its refinery in Whiting, IN and create a handful of full time jobs and increase its taxes paid to the State, is by far one of the most ill-conceived decisions a State environmental agency has ever made. It is guaranteed to backfire on both IDEM and BP to the extent that simply doing the right thing and requiring BP to install abatement equipment to prevent the problem in the first place will prove to be the wiser decision for all parties involved.

I don't know how many thousands or millions of dollars BP saves with its sweetheart deal with IDEM but it will lose more, lots more, in the long run as consumers are becoming environmentally aware and using their spending habits to prove it. BP has spent millions of dollars creating an image and could have afforded to do the right thing to maintain it, but in true big business fashion it let short term profits get in the way of long-term goals and set back its environmental movement decades, at least in the eyes of the mid-westerners who live around the Great Lakes.

What a fiasco! BP mismanaged this situation so profoundly that they now cannot win for losing. Even if they come clean and do the right thing, the fact they tried to go the sleazy route will not be forgotten, and if they persist in seeking the permit exception they will muddy their "green" image greater. How can IDEM regain the trust of its constituents? The people it is supposed to protect have lost faith in its ability to look out for their best interests. The perception that big business has gotten the inside track will have political fallout down the road and some IDEM employees will be looking for new jobs in the future. And the rest of the Great Lake States will not forget this selfish little fiasco.

I simply cannot imagine how it came to this. What were they thinking?