Welcome to Smuggle Me

I don’t know if any of you have been reading the news about the BP refinery in Whiting. Here’s a look at one story that the Chicago Tribune wrote about the situation. Just to be fair, here’s a look at the BP Whiting Refinery fact sheet (Be prepared: this is a PDF). Essentially BP’s take on the situation.

One thing I like about articles like the one written by the Chicago Tribune is that it raises people’s awareness of potential situations. When a big company knows that they are being watched, then they are more diligent about making sure they are doing everything right. Sometimes they might just spend more time covering their tracks, but I’m an optimist and my hope is that most are really trying to do things that are right.

I think that BP makes some important points in their fact sheet that make me feel like there is really no news story when it comes to the Whiting refinery. The first point is that they are well within the legal limits. With the second point being that there is no harm to people or the environment. I think a study on these two points from an objective source would be really interesting. However, the legal one I feel pretty comfortable with since they’d be getting all sorts of fines if they are over the limits. However, for me the most important part is that this refinery is offering a bunch of jobs to people in that area. If people found that it was so bad, then they wouldn’t work those jobs. This is America. If you don’t like what you’re doing, then you can get up and do something else. People have choices and they’ve obviously made them.

Maybe someone has more evidence to the contrary, but I think the Tribune article about the BP Whiting Refinery is just Much Ado About Nothing.