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Mississippi Press urges better control of mercury emissions from power plants
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19, 2004

Editorial from the March 19th Issue of the Mississippi Press concerning the Bush Administrations relaxation of mercury emission standards from coal fired power plants.

(Note: The following editorial appeared in the March 19 issue of the Mississippi Press, Pascagoula, Miss.)

The Bush administration has proposed a regulatory change that's not only bad environmental policy, but also could have a negative impact on one of Mississippi's cultural, economic and recreational mainstays, sport fishing.

The proposal, Scripps Howard reports, relaxes standards for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Those standards would take 10 years longer to achieve than reductions that the EPA has said could be achieved using new technology.

How widespread is the mercury problem?

Forty-three states, including Mississippi, have issued mercury-related fish consumption advisories, covering 500,000 miles of river and 12 million lakes.

In 2001, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality issued an advisory urging limited consumption of largemouth bass and large catfish.

In 1995, the same advisory was issued for a stretch of the Escatawpa River from the Alabama border to Interstate 10.

And in May 1998, an MDEQ mercury advisory was issued on consumption of Gulf of Mexico King mackerel less than 22 inches long.

There are a number of reasons to be concerned about the Bush proposal, from scientific and political perspectives.

Rainfall knocks down pollutants, including mercury that will eventually flow into rivers and into large bodies of water like the Gulf of Mexico, not only poisoning fish, but the entire food chain.

A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study provided more startling data: Eight percent of women in the United States have mercury levels that are considered unsafe, putting thousands of American children born annually at risk for birth defects.

According to Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental group aimed at protecting the nation's waterways, the Bush administration gutted proposed regulations crafted over two years by EPA scientists, industry representatives, state officials and environmentalists that would have reduced mercury emissions from power plants by 90 percent by the year 2010. Also, the rule change would reclassify mercury from a "hazardous pollutant" to a "pollutant," meaning less stringent rules on the industry.

The alliance also alleges that the Bush administration quashed an EPA report that warned the public of the increased dangers of mercury pollution, especially to children.

It's no coincidence that the industry contributed $3 million to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000.

And it's also not surprising that the electric power industry has denied a truth that simple logic makes irrefutable: Reducing mercury levels will improve public health.

The Edison Electric Institute, in a statement issued last week, sounded every bit like the tobacco poobahs who a few years back told Congress they believed cigarettes were not addictive. The electric power industry has resisted installing mercury-reducing technology, Scripps Howard reported. To do so, the industry contends, would mean higher power bills, with little benefit to the nation's health.

Said the institute, in a show of contaminated logic: "It is irresponsible to suggest that cutting power plant mercury emissions -- regardless of the size of reductions -- will significantly benefit public health."

But it's not just environmental groups like the Waterkeeper Alliance that believe the Bush proposal is wrongheaded.

The normally politically-passive sportfishing organizations, like Trout Unlimited and the American Sportfishing Association, are concerned about the mercury issue. They've complained to EPA officials about the Bush mercury-reduction rule announced in December.

As Jim Martin, conservation director for Pure Fishing, the nation's largest tackle manufacturer told Scripps Howard, "These are not environmental radicals. These are businessmen and women concerned about the tremendous business of sportfishing in America." That business, by the way, generates $116 billion and 1 million jobs.

For residents of coastal Mississippi, this is more than a business, the ability to pull a good meal, even a livelihood from the state's waters is a legacy that crosses generations.

Industries that pollute those waters -- and the politicians who act as enablers for those industries -- are the irresponsible parties here.

We urge our elected representatives in Washington -- Sen. Trent Lott, Sen. Thad Cochran and U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor -- to declare war on the proposed rule change, for the sake of our health, and the health of our children and grandchildren.