Original story can be found on the Sioux City Journal website.

By Dave Dreeszen | Posted: Friday, September 25, 2009 PIERRE, S.D.

As promised, opponents have gone to court to try to overturn a state board's decision last month that awarded a key environmental permit for a proposed $10 billion oil refinery and power plant in Union County.

The South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environmental voted unanimously Aug. 20 to grant Dallas, Texas-based Hyperion Refining an air quality permit. Three opposition groups, the Sierra Club, Save Union County and Citizens Opposed to Oil Pollution, recently appealed the ruling in Hughes County Circuit Court in Pierre.

The plaintiffs do not list grounds for an appeal in the one-page document. Robert Graham, a Chicago attorney representing the three groups, said they would lay out their case in subsequent court filings.

A circuit court judge is expected to set a schedule for legal briefs.

During last month's hearing before the state Board of Minerals and Environment, Graham and other opponents argued the state should deny the permit because Hyperion had failed to prove its 400,000-barrel-a-day project would meet federal clean air regulations or use the best available technologies. Opponents argued the refinery and power plant would threaten the health of area residents by emitting pollutants that include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and fine particles.

A day after the three opposition groups appealed the state board's decision, Hyperion filed its own appeal in circuit court, although the company has not decided what, if any, portions of the permit to appeal, according to Hyperion spokesman Eric Williams.

"We're still in the process of doing that,'' Williams wrote in an e-mail Thursday.

Williams noted Hyperion decided not to appeal a state Department of Environment and Natural Resources requirement to install additional pollution controls for its hydrocarbon storage tanks. The thermal oxidizers will cost the company an additional $30 million.

On Wednesday, Hyperion issued a news release to trumpet its decision to accept the oxidizers, which the company noted are not required on any other refinery storage tanks in the country.

"We know some will say it's going overboard because it's handling such a small amount of vapor, but we agree with the state that it's the right thing to do to protect the region's air quality,'' Hyperion executive Preston Phillips said in Wednesday's statement.

The South Dakota Attorney General's Office, which will defend the state Board of Minerals and Environment during the appeals process, declined to comment Thursday.

Hyperion expects to start construction in 2011 and begin operations in 2015. The company has said an appeal would not delay the project.