News Coverage
Tell EPA to cut mercury pollution
Published March 3, 2004
There's something fishy going on at the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the regulation of mercury, a pollutant known to cause serious human health problems.
Although naturally occurring, mercury is also released by coal-burning power plants into the atmosphere. When it falls to earth, it enters the food chain and accumulates in the tissue of fish.
Pregnant women who eat mercury-tainted fish put their unborn babies at risk because the element can interfere with fetal brain development. Older children and adults who consume contaminated seafood may also suffer irreparable neurological damage and other long-term effects.
In January, the EPA took the unusual step of warning that about 630,000 U.S. newborns -- roughly twice the number first suspected -- may have been exposed to harmful levels of mercury in the womb last year. In 2002, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division issued more than 100 mercury advisories for fish in state waterways, including Lake Allatoona and the Chattahoochee River.
So, of course the EPA is acting forcefully to reduce mercury exposure, right?
Wrong. In its first rules to regulate mercury emissions from power plants, the EPA proposes to allow utilities to "trade" pollution credits for mercury, as well as nitrogen dioxides and sulfur dioxide, two other airborne toxins that cause respiratory problems. Under the proposal, plants emitting too much mercury could continue to do so legally by purchasing credits from cleaner facilities.
The EPA had initially considered a more aggressive control regimen that would have cut mercury pollution by as much as 93 percent within the next four years, compared to its current proposal that would reduce emissions about 70 percent by 2018. The more stringent controls would have mandated that every coal-fired plant install the most effective control technologies available, an approach favored by many state environmental regulators, environmental groups and even some electric utilities.
Those groups fear that pollution-trading would create mercury "hot spots" in areas where a preponderance of power plants were buying credits rather than cleaning up their emissions. EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt has flip-flopped on the hot-spot issue, at first dismissing it, then conceding that if it's a problem, the EPA will do its best to fix it.
That's simply not good enough, and the agency's own Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, in a brazenly welcome moment of candor, has said as much. Until the end of the month, the EPA is soliciting comments from the public about its flawed pollution trading proposal. Americans who want tougher actions to curb mercury and protect human health must act now to make their voices heard.
For more information, visit www.epa.gov/mercury/comment.htm