Position of the Adirondack Council
on the USEPA
Clean Air Mercury Rule
(USEPA -- Federal Register--
January 30, 2004)
Click
to see the Council's Summary of the Rule
The Adirondack Council has been
on record in support of the need for new rules regulating mercury
emissions for a number of years. The Council supported legislation
by the late Senator Patrick Moynihan, who, with his colleague
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, urged the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (USEPA) to develop new mercury emission standards.
More recently, the Adirondack Council endorsed legislation by
Adirondack Congressmen John Sweeny and John McHugh, which also
would have required USEPA to issue new mercury regulations.
The Adirondack Council is pleased
that USEPA moved to regulate mercury emissions from power plants
and is especially pleased that they issued a separate rule on
sulfur and nitrogen emissions, the Clean
Air Interstate Rule. Acid precipitation
and acidic soils are known to be aggravating factors that increase
mercury contamination in adjacent water bodies and their fish.
Testing of Adirondack lakes for
fish contamination from mercury has recently expanded and the
results are not encouraging. Already, twenty lakes in the region
have health warnings to children and women of child-bearing age
instructing them to avoid all consumption of select species of
fish found in those waters. Elevated levels of mercury in the
signature bird of the Adirondacks, the common loon, have also
been recorded.
While we commend the USEPA for
moving forward on mercury controls, the Adirondack Council does
not support the Clean Air Mercury Rule for two reasons:
First, the Council does not support
the trading of hazardous air pollutants, such as mercury, between
regions. The aforementioned Sweeney/McHugh legislation, which
we endorse, would prohibit such trading.
Second, the USEPA rule depends
heavily on the co-benefit of new regulations on sulfur and nitrogen
emissions to meet the targeted mercury reductions of 40% projected
for 2010. The most commonly used pollution controls for sulfur
and nitrogen control also capture a significant percentage of
fugitive mercury emissions. USEPA estimates this could be as
high as 40% presuming new pollution controls are installed to
comply with what USEPA calls its companion rule on sulfur and
nitrogen.
This is not an ambitious goal.
USEPA should seek to build on the reductions accomplished by
sulfur and nitrogen controls, and not be content with this passive
accomplishment. Mercury is a neurotoxin, with the potential to
cause great harm to human beings and wildlife. The reduction
of mercury in power plant emissions should be pursued with vigor.
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