Nebraska Opts to Follow Federal CAMR Standards - Sierra Club and Others Take Exception

The Nebraska Environmental Quality Council opted not to tighten mercury emission limits beyond the Federal standard and now catch heat from environmentalists for that decision. Nebraska is not alone 28 States or so are also going that route, but 13 States along with several groups are challenging the Federal CAMR in court.

This from the Omaha World Herald;

The new rules adopted by the Environmental Quality Council are based on recently written federal regulations that are being challenged in federal court.
[...]
The federal mercury regulations are intended to slowly reduce power plant mercury emissions nationwide by almost 70 percent. The rules have been controversial, in part, because they allow utilities to buy the right to continue polluting if it turns out that installing pollution equipment is not economical.

Nebraska utilities have not decided whether they'll cut back emissions or purchase allowances because they don't yet have enough information to make that decision.

And this from the Southwest Nebraska News;

August 20, 2007 Statement by Camellia Watkins, Sierra Club Conservation Organizer:

“In 2006 the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) held a series of Stakeholder meetings to determine how to address the Federal mandate to adopt mercury regulations. The purpose of the meetings were to bring together utilities and community representatives in hopes of getting to a consensus on mercury regulations that would protect public health by reasonably reducing mercury emissions from coal fired power plants. Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin that when absorbed into the blood stream of children under 6, pregnant women or women of childbearing age can cause various neurological diseases. Currently in the United States it is estimated that 1 in 6 women have high enough levels of toxic mercury in their blood that it could affect their unborn children. That means at least 630,000 infants a year are at risk for mercury poisoning. The NDEQ has classified over twenty lakes and streams in Nebraska as having unsafe levels of mercury contaminated fish.”

Camellia has a lot more to say on the subject and the full text of her statement can be read here.