New Year Brings New Hope and Some Pretty Cool Mercury Pollution Research

Happy New Year to all. After returning from my Christmas vacation there was not much going on within the mercury legislation circles. We all anxiously await the decision by the D.C. Appeals Court on the legality of the Federal CAMR. But that decision appears to be a month or two away.
The Allen S. King coal-fired power plant near Stillwater is the first of three Xcel
Energy plants to go on line with new emissions reduction equipment, as part of a
voluntary cleanup agreement with the state. (Courtesy of Xcel Energy)

Xcel Energy promises to install carbon injection systems on two of its larger units in Minnesota, reducing mercury emissions by as much as 90% or more. The EPA gave its nod to the Northeast States plan to limit mercury in its lakes and streams, but without a National plan to reduce emissions from all coal fired power stations in a timely fashion the approval has little meaning.

Some groups in Virginia are calling on their state to ratchet down mercury emissions by pointing to other more aggressive states and the folks in Grand Island, NE are getting a grasp on what they need to do to bring their cities power plant into compliance by 2010.

While I was skimming through the literature on mercury emissions I came across a notable project being undertaken at Dartmouth University. They are launching an interdisciplinary study on the social and economical impacts of mercury pollution. This promises to be like no other research project in its approach to gaining understanding of what really happens to populations as they are exposed to rising levels of mercury pollution. Not just health effects but a holistic look at all the impacts of a toxin in our environment. An excerpt from VOX of Dartmouth follows;

Even at Dartmouth, where interdisciplinary projects abound, this one stands out, says principal investigator Mark Borsuk, an assistant professor at Thayer School of Engineering. “Not only are we from four different departments, we are overseen by three different deans. The grant proposal needed three times the typical number of signatures.” The team includes Borsuk; Darren Ranco, assistant professor of Native American studies and environmental studies; Richard Howarth, the Pat and John Rosenwald Professor and professor of environmental studies; and Andrew King, associate professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business. The project is funded by a three-year, $300,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Collaborative Science and Technology Network for Sustainability program. The group will apply a combination of economic and social scientific theory, environmental modeling, behavioral experiments, and interviews with “stakeholders,” or those affected by mercury pollution. The goal is to identify compelling “indicators” of mercury pollution—ways of characterizing the pollutant’s impact that are especially meaningful to the public. For example, a “biological indicator” might be the mercury levels in a popular fish or wildlife species, while a “social indicator” may range from the average number of IQ points a child loses when exposed to high levels of the pollutant, to the number of public meetings attended by members from impacted communities to implement the regulations.

I wish this team the best of luck and look forward to their findings as they are released.