MERCURY EMISSIONS FRONT AND CENTER!!!

I have been following the issue of mercury emissions for a couple years now. Since March of 2005 when the EPA released its Clean Air Mercury Rules (CAMR), one of the most debated issues has been whether a cap and trade program, as proposed, was appropriate for a neurotoxin like mercury. Cap and trade policies have worked with SO2 and NOx because these pollutants only caused acid rain that killed downwind lakes and polluted downwind streams, while undesireable and unfortunate, this did not immediately threaten the health of those unlucky people living under those plumes.

But mercury is different, it has well documented detrimental health effects on people, specifically pregnant women and developing children, and common sense tells us it probably adversely effects everyone who accumulates enough of it in our bodies. The toxicity of mercury is what makes it different than those other pollutants.

The opposition argument has been if we have a cap and trade program for mercury some cleaner plants will sell credits to some dirty ones and those dirty ones will emit more mercury and pollute localized areas creating "hotspots" of elevated mercury deposition.

But EPA and proponents of a cap and trade program (mainly the utility industry and its trade associations) have contended that mercury emissions go into the air and float far and wide, globally, adding to all the naturally occurring, Asian, European and other anthropogenic sources of mercury emissions. In other words, if we can reduce the emissions of mercury collectively (reducing the total US emissions) it doesn't matter if some locations remain as high emitters, as long as the total goes down. Well, this week that all changed. A landmark scientific study by the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation has thrown water all over that contention.

Hotspots "do" exist and they can be traced to local sources of mercury pollution.

I cannot emphasize enough how important this discovery is. The fact that local mercury emissions effect local populations almost forces EPA to reconsider the cap and trade portion of its mercury rules. You see, laws (and morality), do not allow us to knowingly penalize some folks and reward others with healthier environments. Federal and state enviromental agencies are charged with protecting all human health, if they knowingly avoid that responsibility and create different classes of citizens (those in clean areas and those in polluted ones) they are facing serious liability issues.

The two HBRF studies (one by Dr. Driscoll et al and the other by Dr. Evers et al) that were released in the January issue of the scientific journal BioScience are must-read material for anyone concerned with mercury in the environment and its effects on human health. Both of these articles can be downloaded from the HBRF site here. I also recommend the Power Point presentation at the same location, it summarizes the findings quite nicely and graphically shows what is happening.

These studies and the ensuing fallout will be the topics of discussion here at Hg-ATME. I invite any and all to voice your opinions here.