HAMMOND | IDEM has postponed until March 14 a meeting and public hearing on a draft air permit for BP's $3.8 billion Whiting Refinery expansion plan.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management had scheduled the session for Feb. 25, but delayed it to extend the public review period, said BP spokesman Scott Dean. IDEM also has changed the period for the public to submit written comments on the document. The period will run until March 21, rather than until March 8.

"We want to give the public plenty of time to analyze the draft permit and prepare comments," IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock said Friday.

The time and place of the session remain as originally set, with the meeting at 5:30 p.m. and hearing at 6:30 p.m., at the Hammond Civic Center, 5825 Sohl Ave.

Local environmental activist Carolyn Marsh, who is a member of BP's Whiting Citizen's Advisory Committee, believes the agency may have postponed the meeting and hearing because of public outcry about the short time frame between the posting of the draft air permit on the agency's Web site, and at the Whiting Library, and the original meeting/hearing date.

"The permit is over 1,300 pages," she said. "It's a telephone book. There are dozens and dozens of charts. It's hard to make sense of it. Even the experts need more than 30 days. It would take more than that to figure it out."

BP submitted the draft construction and operations air permit application to IDEM Oct. 31. The application "laid out BP's plans for reducing regulated air pollutants, while increasing fuel production through our Whiting Refinery modernization plan," Dean said.

The project would enable BP to refine heavy Canadian crude from the oil sands of Alberta where there is an estimated 1.4-billion-barrel reserve. The project would increase the refinery's gasoline and diesel fuel production by 15 percent, officials said.