A public relations official at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management called a BP official seven times leading up to a public hearing that was heavily attended by proponents of the refinery modernization.
Sandra Flum, director of community relations, also made three calls to the Northwest Indiana Forum, a private business advocacy group.
The phones calls, obtained by the Post-Tribune through public records requests, suggest IDEM might have worked with BP and economic development groups to stack the public hearing in favor of BP's controversial expansion, environmentalists say.
"I don't know that it's inappropriate" to make that number of calls, said Tom Anderson, executive director of Save the Dunes Council, "but the appearance is, the agency is working with the polluter and the (Northwest Indiana) Forum to make it look like there was a lot more support than there is support for this project and the increased pollution."
Anderson said the unusually large attendance at a March 14 hearing in Hammond, when more than 1,000 people showed up mostly in support of the permit, seemed to be a deliberate attempt to orchestrate the hearing and indicate there was more support for the permit than was actually the case.
Governor Daniels asserts the calls were purely "informational," but that doesn't really answer the question as to why BP officials were getting daily phone updates while many of the residents actually affected by this permit process were 
