The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a settlement with BP Products North America Inc., a subsidiary of BP p.l.c., on Wednesday that will require the company to reduce emissions of harmful chemicals at its Whiting refinery by installing $197 million in pollution-prevention improvements and pay a $40 million fine.

A complaint brought by the federal government and the state of Indiana, which was filed simultaneously with the settlement, claimed that BP’s Whiting refinery violated provisions in the Clean Air Act limiting permitted quantities of benzene in refinery wastewater streams and levels of hazardous air pollutants (HAP) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) in facility emissions.

The settlement will require BP to install control technology that is expected to reduce benzene, a carcinogen, by an estimated seven tons per year. The company’s efforts are also expected to cut HAP emissions by 28 tons per year and emissions of VOCs, which react with other atmospheric chemicals to produce lung-damaging ozone, by 372 tons per year.

The $40 million fine, which includes stipulated penalties for violations of an earlier settlement, is the largest civil penalty ever secured for a Clean Air Act stationary source settlement, according to a statement from the DOJ and EPA.

As part of the settlement, BPP will install at least one permanent benzene stripper to reduce benzene in wastewater streams leading to its lakefront wastewater treatment plant as well as add 10 air pollutant monitoring stations outside of the refinery fence line and a embark on a $5 million supplemental environmental project to reduce diesel emissions in the communities surrounding the Whiting Refinery. A proposed consent decree, which contains the terms of the settlement, has been filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.

“This settlement sends an important message to the refining industry that the United States will take decisive action against illegal benzene and VOC emissions,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement. “Under the settlement, the refinery will implement controls that will greatly improve air quality and reduce health impacts on the overburdened communities that surround the facility.”

Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, lauded Wednesday’s settlement in a statement to the Post-Tribune.

“EPA, the Justice Department, and the state of Indiana deserve our thanks for holding BP accountable for its illegal emissions and for the tough new cleanup standards in this consent decree,” he wrote.

In February, BP announced a record profit of $28 billion for 2022. At the same time, the company announced that it would be slowing down its earlier commitments to dramatically reduce its oil output by 40% from 2019 levels by 2030, now planning for an only 25% cut.

The Whiting facility has been the subject of environmental litigation in the past. In 2012, BP Products agreed to spent $400 million on pollution controls and pay another $8 million in fines as part of a settlement stemming from alleged Clean Air Act violations at the facility. In September, the company agreed to spend $2.75 million on penalties and environmental efforts to settle a lawsuit brought by the Environmental Integrity Project on behalf of the Sierra Club. The group brought the suit in 2019 after nine tests of the refinery’s smokestack emissions between 2015, and 2018, showed that emissions of dangerous, microscopic soot-like particles exceeded permitted levels.