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The Mercury Is Rising
It’s been really hot this summer and it shows when our thermometers top 90 degrees. Yet, the substance contained within many thermometers – mercury – is what should get people’s blood boiling. Mercury is an extremely dangerous toxic chemical. Exposure to mercury, especially for the developing fetus and infants, can cause severe neurological and developmental problems that include poor attention span, delayed language development, impaired memory and vision, and impaired fine motor coordination. The principal way that people are exposed to mercury is by eating fish, a staple of the American diet. Mercury, emitted from industrial smokestacks, such as electricity-generating power plants, falls to the ground and into the water, where bacteria convert it to a highly absorptive mercury compound. This form of mercury builds up in concentration as it moves up the food chain to the point where the larger fish that humans eat such as bass, swordfish, tuna and trout have levels of mercury hazardous to human health. In fact, fish at the top of the aquatic food chain may have mercury levels that are up to ten million times greater than the levels in the surrounding waters. Mercury exposure is widespread and is a growing concern in New York State. The number of bodies of water with certain fish populations that are unsafe to eat because of mercury has steadily grown in recent years. In 1999, the State Health Department issued mercury health-based fish advisories for 18 bodies of water. In 2005, the number of such advisories had increased to 72, with blanket warnings for all of the Adirondacks and Catskills! The dramatic increase in the number of bodies of water with advisories is in part due to expanded testing. When the state allocated more resources to monitor more water bodies, more mercury contamination was found. The state has also found that certain bodies of water have become more contaminated with mercury over time. Both results show just how serious the problem has become. The technology to reduce power plants mercury emissions is effective and available. Tests show that reducing smokestack pollution reduces the mercury in the environment. For instance, Florida’s stringent mercury emissions standards for garbage-burning incinerators reduced pollution by more than 90% since the mid-1980s. In 1994, state researchers found that cutting mercury pollution from incinerators' smokestacks resulted in a decline of mercury in fish and wildlife of the Everglades by more than 75%. Researchers called this “remarkable” for both the extent of the recovery and how quickly it occurred. The tricky part for policymakers lies in the fact that much of the mercury landing in lakes and streams comes from other states, particularly ones located south and west of New York. In large part this is because the power plants in states upwind from New York, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, have particularly high emissions of mercury. However, New York's dirtiest power plants emit about a thousand pounds of mercury a year, also contributing to the contamination of water bodies. It is clear that in-state action can help mitigate New York’s mercury problem. So, the ultimate solution to the mercury contamination is to develop a national standard requiring all plants to reduce mercury a total of 90 percent. Sadly, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s proposals to date fail to come even close realizing that goal. The Bush Administration’s EPA has been harshly criticized by its ally Governor Pataki. In February of 2002, the Governor stated that he would set in-state standards for mercury if the federal government failed to do its job. In June of 2004, the Pataki Administration stated that the EPA’s proposed weak mercury rule was detrimental to the public health of New Yorkers. In March of 2005, the Pataki Administration wrote the EPA and called the methodology used to create the agency’s mercury rule “unacceptable and unwarranted.” The Governor has talked a good game, now is the time to act. The Governor should follow the lead of Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut in setting stringent mercury standards in New York as well as aggressively challenging the too weak EPA mercury program. That’s all for now. I’ll keep and eye on the Capitol and talk to you again next week.
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