Hyperion Bait and Switch -- Landfill Instead of Refinery?

SDPB and KELO report that opponents of Hyperion's proposed refinery in Elk Point are making the argument that the Texas company is really planning to build not a refinery but a landfill. Argues Jason Quam, leader of Citizens Opposed to Oil Pollution makes the following argument:

1. Hyperion's annual revenues can't cover the cost of building a $10B refinery.
2. Hyperion's subsidiaries have been involved in building landfills elsewhere.
3. Hyperion's zoning request includes all sorts of uses besides a refinery, including "power plants, manufacturing, aggregate mining, residential housing, and garbage dumps" [Katie Janssen, "Group Questions Hyperion's True Intentions," KELOLand.com, 2008.01.15].
   
4. The oil industry folks Quam talks to are all pessimistic about building new refineries.

A stretch? Hyperion's media rep, Eric Williams, calls the landfill suggestion "preposterous." Williams offers more responses to the landfill suggestion in this press release [PDF'd by KELO].

Oil refinery or landfill -- neither project fits the principles of conservation and recycling that we ought to be following to ensure our kids and grandkids get to live better than we do. but if we have to have one, I wonder... maybe a landfill wouldn't be so bad. It wouldn't snarf up 12 million gallons of water a day. It wouldn't have unsightly smokestacks. Plus, some folks are figuring out how to make energy from landfill waste.