Lake Michigan and BP

I was thinking about driving up to Erie this weekend since it's the closest thing to a beach to me. When I googled it and started reading up on it, I found out information about Lake Michigan as well. I started reading because it's interesting to me to see what people consider to be beaches near the Great Lakes. I'm from Philly/Jersey so the east coast and west coast are the only beaches I know of.

When I started reading about Lake Michigan, BP popped up. I get my gas from BP because they're the most economical. So any information about the company is of interest to me. I read several articles and noticed some discrepancies in the facts. They were saying that BP dumps sludge into Lake Michigan, that they are harming the environment, and dumping excess materials into the lake.

I went to the BP Whiting fact sheet to see what their response was.

First they dump 99.9% water into the lake, sludge is treated separately and not dumped into the lake. Secondly, they follow all state and federal rules and regulations and are not harming the environment. Third, the amount of ammonia that will be released will increase. But they will still discharge less than half of the amount that federal guidelines allow. All this and they're adding over 80 jobs to the community.

This is such a sensitive topic with so much of our oil being imported. In 20 years it's expected that more than 65% of our oil will be imported. So I see why people are so touchy about oil refineries. But I think people should do their due diligence before condemning a company.