How Mercury Can be Controlled
Power plants in New York are a serious part of our mercury contamination problem.
An Ohio study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that 70% of the mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants travels fell within 60 miles.(1). A 2004 New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services study found that a vast majority of mercury pollution from power plants was deposited within 15 miles from the smokestack (2), which points to the potential for very local problems. Every year, New York’s power plants alone report emitting about 1,000 pounds of this highly toxic metal (3). As little as .002 pounds of mercury deposited annually into a 25-acre lake will contaminate fish to a level at which they are unsafe to eat. (4)
The technology exists to clean up mercury pollution from power plants. In fact, the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators (STAPPA) and Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (ALAPCO) determined that "[t]echnology to reduce emissions from coal-burning power plants by more than 90 percent on many plants is now commercially available, cost-effective, and rapidly advancing."(5) For instance, a technology known as Activated Carbon Injection captures up to 95% of the mercury emitted from a coal-fired power plant, and other technologies have demonstrated similar results. (6)
The cost to clean up power plants continues to come down and is projected to be minimal per household. Using National Energy Technology Laboratory estimates, mercury control could add 15 to 60 cents per month to a typical household's electricity bill (7). Governor Pataki estimates that his clean air efforts, which include pollution reduction programs for ozone-smog and acid rain as well as mercury, could increase the average New Yorkers' monthly electricity bill by about 86 cents a month (8). Further advances in technology could bring that cost down even more.
Studies show that the sooner you make the cuts the sooner you see the results. This spring Massachusetts released data that showed a 32% reduction of mercury in local fish less than a decade after setting a stringent mercury standard for incinerators (9). Studies in Wisconsin and Florida have shown similar results.
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