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This news story originally provided by
The
Charleston Gazette
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
This week, the Bush administration is scheduled to announce its
final plan to limit mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Industry officials, environmentalists and state regulators are
eager to learn what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
decides.
But in West Virginia, an environmental group is trying a
different tack to get the toxic metal removed from the state’s
rivers and streams.
The Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment wants
the EPA to force the state to toughen its water pollution limits for
mercury.
Currently, two of the state’s three mercury limits are weaker
than EPA recommends — including a key standard for how much mercury
is safe in fish.
As a result, West Virginians statewide are cautioned to limit the
locally caught fish they eat to avoid mercury poisoning.
But, the state Department of Environmental Protection is under no
obligation to develop plans to clean up streams that already contain
too much mercury.
“They’re not protecting the state at all,” said Margaret Janes,
senior policy analyst for the Lewisburg-based Appalachian Center.
“It’s a fundamental breakdown.”
Mercury is a highly toxic metal. When emitted into the air, it
can fall with rain, enter water bodies, and move up the food chain
to humans.
Mercury can cause neurological problems, and is particularly
dangerous to pregnant women and unborn children.
Depending on the dose, human health effects from exposure to
mercury can include subtle losses of sensory and cognitive ability,
tremors, inability to walk and death.
A 2000 study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that
the population at highest risk is children of women who consume
large amounts of fish and seafood during pregnancy. Children are at
risk of having to struggle to keep up in school or needing remedial
classes or special education, the study found.
Recent studies indicate that as many as 600,000 of the 4 million
U.S. babies born every year have been exposed to levels of mercury
significant enough to lower their IQs.
Another study, by the Mount Sinai Medical School, estimated that
mercury pollution costs the U.S. economy $8.7 billion a year in lost
productivity by exposed children. By comparison, that is about twice
the value of all coal mined in West Virginia every year, according
to industry figures.
Coal-fired power plants are among the last unregulated sources of
mercury emissions. These plants accounted for about a third of all
U.S. mercury emissions in 1994-95, according to a landmark,
congressionally mandated study.
Don Blankenship, president of Massey Energy, has noted that U.S.
mercury emissions account for only about 3 percent of global mercury
emissions.
During an industry conference in Charleston last year,
Blankenship said that “billions of dollars of taxpayer money is
spent to control just 489 tons” of mercury, while thousands of tons
of mercury go untreated worldwide.
On Tuesday, the EPA is scheduled to unveil the final version of a
court-ordered rule to limit mercury emissions from coal-fired power
plants.
Last week, the Bush administration’s plan to address mercury and
other air pollution through direct changes to the federal Clean Air
Act stalled in the Senate.
Under this legislative proposal, the Bush administration proposed
to limit mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants to 26 tons
per year by 2008. The EPA however, has found that existing Clean Air
Act language would force power plants to limit their emissions to 5
tons per year by 2008.
Nationwide, at least 45 states have issued fish advisories
because of mercury contamination.
Eighteen states have issued statewide advisories, warning
residents to limit consumption of fish from any streams because of
mercury. In all, the advisories cover more than 12 million acres of
lakes and roughly 473,000 miles of streams, according to the EPA.
In December, West Virginia joined the states that have warned
residents to limit consumption of fish from any rivers or streams.
State public health and environmental officials cited a two-year
study that found high levels of mercury in 78 percent of the fish
samples tested.
At the same time, though, the state lists only about 17 streams
on its official “impaired” list of waterways because of mercury
contamination.
Pat Campbell, a deputy director at the DEP’s Division of Water
and Waste Management, said that is because fish advisories and the
impaired waterways list are based on different numbers.
The state based its fish advisory on the EPA’s recommended limit
of 0.3 parts per million of mercury in fish, Campbell said.
But, the state bases its impaired-waterways list on the official
list of water quality limits written by the Environmental Quality
Board. Currently, the state’s fish-tissue limit on mercury is 0.5
parts per million.
The EPA adopted its 0.3-parts-per-million recommendation in
January 2001, based on updated information about mercury’s impact on
human health.
During the state’s last triennial review of its water pollution
limits, conducted in 2003, the EPA encouraged the environmental
board to adopt its new recommendation.
Board members declined, saying they did not have enough guidance
from the EPA on how to implement the new limit.
Last year, the Appalachian Center repeatedly encouraged the DEP
to list every stream where mercury levels exceeded fish advisory
levels on its cleanup list, as well.
Under federal law, the DEP must develop plans to clean up
pollution in the streams included on this list. Like many states,
West Virginia never did this until environmental groups sued to
force the action.
If mercury-contaminated streams aren’t on the DEP impaired list,
“the public will be denied one of the only available regulatory
mechanisms to identify and quantify sources of mercury pollution
contributing to these exceedences essentially condemned to permanent
consumption restrictions with no end or solution in sight,” the
center wrote in an April 2004 letter to the DEP.
Coal-fired power plants are not the only source of mercury
pollution, the center noted.
The state issued more than 350 water pollution permits with
limits or reporting requirements for mercury discharged directly
into streams, the center said.
If mercury-contaminated streams were put on the state’s impaired
list, the center said, those permits would have to be tightened.
On March 2, the Appalachian Center petitioned EPA regional
administrator Don Welsh to force the state to adopt the tougher
mercury limit.
Under federal rules, the EPA must force the state’s hand if
federal officials find that the state’s water pollution limits are
inadequate.
“Unfortunately, West Virginians and their children live every day
with a heightened risk of mercury-related illnesses and
disabilities,” the center said in its petition.
“The deposition of atmospheric mercury from coal-fired power
plants and direct disposal of mercury to the land and water have
resulted in a recent statewide fish consumption advisory because of
toxic levels of mercury in fish,” the group said. “The advisory is a
clear demonstration that West Virginia has failed to comply with the
law and protect its citizens from mercury poisoning. Part of the
state’s downfall has been its failure to promulgate protective
mercury water quality criteria.
“Clearly, the best way to protect West Virginians from the
deleterious effects of mercury is not through a simple health
warning, but by enforcing laws that prohibit contamination of our
waters.”
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call
348-1702.
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