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Environmental Health Reports
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Executive Summary
Power plants are the largest industrial
source of U.S. air emissions of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that poses
serious health hazards. Mercury is particularly harmful to the
developing brain; even low level exposure can cause learning
disabilities, developmental delays, lowered IQ, and problems with
attention and memory. While current law requires swift, steep
reductions in power plant mercury emissions, the Bush administration
recently promulgated regulations that allow power plants to avoid the
Clean Air Act requirement to reduce mercury and other toxic air
pollutants quickly and by the maximum achievable amount. This report
uses the most recent available data reported to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory to analyze power
plant mercury emissions by state, county, zip code, facility, and
company.
When
power plants burn coal or wastes containing mercury, their smokestacks
emit mercury, some of which is washed out of the air onto land and into
waterways, where it may be converted into methylmercury, an organic
form of mercury that builds up in fish. Scientists found that a gram of
mercury, about a drop, deposited in a mid-sized Wisconsin lake over the
course of a year was enough to contaminate the lake’s fish.
Eating
contaminated fish is the primary pathway for human exposure. Indeed,
mercury pollution is now so pervasive that 44 states, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA), and the EPA have issued fish consumption
advisories warning people to avoid or limit their consumption of
certain types of fish. Moreover, EPA scientists estimate that one in
six women of childbearing age has enough mercury in her blood to put
her child at risk should she become pregnant.
This report
analyzes the most recent EPA data on mercury air emissions from power
plants. Key findings in the report include the following:
•
Power plants in the U.S. collectively emitted 90,108 pounds of mercury
into the air in 2003. Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Alabama
were the states with the most mercury air emissions from power plants
in 2003.
• Counties with the highest mercury air emissions from
power plants were concentrated in states in the Gulf Coast, Midwest,
and Mid-Atlantic regions. More than half of the top 50 counties with
the highest mercury air emissions were located in just seven states:
Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West
Virginia. In the top county, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, power
plant mercury emissions totaled 1,527 pounds in 2003.
• The most
polluting 100 facilities emitted 57,242 pounds of mercury into the air
in 2003, or 64% of power plant mercury emissions. Most of these
facilities—nearly 60%—were located in just nine states: Alabama,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas,
and West Virginia. Five of the 10 most polluting facilities were
located in Texas.
• The most polluting 15 companies emitted
48,353 pounds of mercury in 2003, or 54% of total U.S. power plant
mercury emissions. Three companies— American Electric Power, Southern
Company, and Reliant Energy, which collectively own 57
facilities—emitted 19,694 pounds of mercury in 2003, or 22% of total
U.S. power plant mercury emissions.
Rather than let many of the
nation’s power plants continue to emit or even increase their mercury
emissions, the Bush administration should protect public health by
rewriting its mercury rules to ensure the maximum, timely reductions in
power plant mercury pollution that the law requires.
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