What's new
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D. C. has struck down the Bush administration's mercury rule. Environment Maine, as a party to the lawsuit through U.S. PIRG, lauds the justices for pointing out the illegality of the rule.
In December 2005, the EPA announced a plan that will allow power plants to continue emitting high levels of toxic mercury into the air, despite the mountains of evidence that mercury harms human development. This decision is even more callous considering that the technology exists to cut mercury emissions by 90 percent from power plants, the largest source of mercury pollution in our environment. Scientific evidence shows that cutting mercury emissions would reduce levels of mercury in the environment and fish.
Brief summary
Mercury pollution poses serious risks to Maine's wildlife and people. Electric power plants are responsible for approximately 30 percent of the country's mercury emissions and are the only major mercury polluters that remain uncontrolled. Smokestacks spew mercury pollution into the air, where it rains and snows down into our waterways and accumulates up the food chain.
The principal way that people are exposed to mercury is by eating fish, a staple of our diet. Maine and 43 other states, the EPA, and the Food and Drug Administration have issued advisories warning people, especially women and children, to avoid or limit eating fish. Even with such warnings in place, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 1 out of 12 U.S. women of child-bearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.
Loons and other wildlife that eat fish are also at risk from mercury poisoning. In fact, Maine's loons contain more mercury than loons in any other state. Mercury may disrupt their reproductive systems and make them more susceptible to disease, reducing the next generation and potentially thinning the overall population.
We can't wait any longer to protect children and women from the dangers of mercury. Officials can, and should, take immediate action to nearly eliminate the mercury pollution that's spewing into our air from power plants. Two years ago, EPA's own scientists said current technologies could achieve a 90 percent reduction from power plants. The Bush administration should remove as much mercury from power plants as is technologically feasible.
