Chicago ? Insisting they cannot stop BP from dumping more toxic waste into Lake Michigan, federal officials will instead try to persuade the oil company on Wednesday to finance other projects that would help clean up the lake.

At the behest of Mary Gade, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator, a top BP executive and some of the company’s leading critics will gather in Chicago to discuss ways to offset additional pollution from the largest oil refinery in the Midwest.

The meeting is the latest response to growing public outrage about a permit that allows BP to increase the amount of ammonia and suspended solids dumped into the lake by its Whiting, Ind., refinery, which rises along the shore three miles southeast of the Illinois-Indiana border.