Here goes - All Things Mercury Emissions (Hg-ATME) (CLICK HERE FOR LATEST NEWS)

The Die is Cast - 2 Years to Cleaner Air

2009-10-23T10:33:00.003-06:00

Anyone who has planned a wedding or a large conference knows how fast time can fly. While two years may sound like a long time away, it is, in "big plan" terms, coming at us very fast. Big plans take time to make and get right. Hopefully the EPA has not been wasting the last 19 years because they have just agreed to complete in two what should, under normal circumstances, take longer.

If a Federal Judge accepts the terms of a consent decree announced today the EPA will have two years to have new rules in place regulating air toxics, including mercury and soot, from coal and oil fired EGUs. November 16, 2011 is the deadline for these new rules.

It is fair to say that this EPA, the one in place at this time, is not the one(s) that have frittered away the last 19 years since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 stipulated air toxic regulations for large sources. It is also fair to mention that this EPA has already begun the processes involved in getting this accomplished. They have circulated an IRC or information request to several utilities seeking information and have sought comments to proposed rules to guide them in their rule making. In fact the comment period for the initial proposed rules was closed 53 days ago and we can only assume they have reams of comments to go through before any news will come forward.

The task at hand is further complicated by the fact that sound proven measurement methods have not been developed yet to insure compliance with many of the regs with which they may come out. But those test methods, and alternative means of compliance, are also being hotly pursued and debated. So while nothing concrete has happened in 19 years regarding air toxics emissions, several parallel paths have been forged in expectation that someday the laws of the land would be followed.

These parallel paths and the steps being taken by EPA in pursuit of this goal will be the focus of this sight going forward. CAMR is dead, long live the new CAMR.

Its A Whole New Ballgame

2009-08-07T08:57:00.005-06:00

I have taken a long respite to gather my thoughts and decide where I want to go with this blog. The original intent was to follow the federal CAMR and the individual States laws pertaining to compliance with it. Since we all know the CAMR was vacated and all attempts to resurrect it have been dropped it presented a fork in my road.

I could either stop blogging on Mercury Emissions or refocus the effort on what legislation is now moving through the halls of EPA. After much debate, all between me myself and I, I have decided to continue on and follow the mercury emission news. This broad decision still needed refining. One thing I learned in blogging on "All Things Mercury" is, there are many fronts on which the battle against mercury in our environment is being fought.

There are daily articles on mercury in CFLs, mercury in dental amalgum, mercury in immunization shots, mercury from crematoria, mercury in automobile switches, mercury in fish, mercury in old lab instruments and even mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup. This extensive coverage of mercury in the news seems to be getting enough coverage that I am going to leave it to others to report on those issues. I of course have opinions on all of them and they are all important topics, but it is my biggest interest to cover mercury emissions and mainly those emissions from large smoke stacks like those found in coal fired utilities, cement plants, incinerators etc.

With that in mind we will be picking up on the Utility MACT process which includes, among many other things, mercury from coal fired EGUs. We'll follow the EPA regulations relating to cement plants, an industry that has long been a battlefront between environmentalists and EPA regarding mercury emissions and now is in the crosshairs of the new administration. I hope to also cover the final stages of mercury being totally eliminated from the chlorine production process at the last few chlor-alkali plants left in the nation still using the antiquated process, shame on them for continuing to needlessly poison their communities.

I apologize for leaving my post for so long, but I needed to regroup, recharge and refocus. I believe I have done that and feel I am back and ready to follow the exciting world of mercury emissions.

I Told You So

2009-02-24T08:34:00.003-06:00

It is fun being the Supreme Court. It was not difficult to forecast the ruling in the case Utility Air Regulatory Croup vs. New Jersey, 08-352. The groundwork on which it laid was quicksand at best. The idea of delisting EGUs from HAPs concerns and ultimately trading toxic mercury credits was absurd from the beginning. It is a shame it has wasted almost 5 years of the country's time, as well as deferred important decision making by responsible utilities to curb these hazardous emissions. It appears we will now move unfettered into rule making on this subject, but it will probably take a year or more to get final resolution. It was delay, delay from the beginning, we should delay no longer.

An article from CNN Money follows with details;

US Supreme Court Won't Hear Power Plant Case

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by a group of utility companies and industry trade groups to save certain Bush administration regulations on power plants.

The high court's move was not a surprise because the Obama administration recently abandoned the federal government's Supreme Court appeal in the same case. Lawyers for the new administration instead said the Environmental Protection Agency would abide by a lower court ruling that threw out a Bush-era EPA rule that sought to "delist" mercury from a list of pollutants the agency is required to control at each power plant.

The Bush administration plan sought to create an emissions trading market under which power plants, starting in 2010, would have to buy pollution credits instead of actually cutting mercury emissions.

Coal-burning utilities such as American Electric Power Co. (AEP), Southern Co. (SO), and Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) had lobbied for the plan so they would have the flexibility to decide how to produce the cheapest mercury reductions. To create the market, the EPA had to reverse a Clinton administration finding that mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants is a "hazardous air pollutant" under the Clean Air Act.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of the Columbia Circuit threw out the Bush administration's plan in February, 2008.

The Supreme Court on Monday let that ruling stand without comment.

The case is Utility Air Regulatory Group v. New Jersey, 08-352.

-By Brent Kendall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9222; brent.kendall@ dowjones.com

"The time for action on (mercury) pollution is now." - UNEP chief Achim Steiner

2009-02-20T09:11:00.004-06:00

There has been years of talk, the time for action has come. When the US reversed course earlier this week and supported a global treaty on mercury emissions, a window of opportunity was opened and it appears that 140+ nations are ready to jump through.

The following is an AP article released earlier today. There is a much more detailed summary of what took place today in Nairobi today on the UNEP site here.

States agree to mercury treaty talks

NAIROBI (AFP) — More than 140 countries agreed Friday to launch negotiations establishing a treaty on mercury to limit pollution affecting millions of people across the world, the UN environment body said.

They also agreed an interim plan to curb pollution while awaiting the treaty because "the risk to human health was so significant that accelerated action... is needed," the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement.

"Today we are united on the need for a legally binding instrument and immediate action towards a transition to a low-mercury world," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said at the end of the body's governing council meeting in Nairobi.

He added that world ministers who attended the week-long meeting "decided the time for talking was over. The time for action on this pollution is now."

The interim plan includes boosting countries' efforts on safe stockpiling of mercury, reducing supply and use among artisanal miners as well as reducing mercury in products such as thermometers.

Mercury is a heavy metal whose highly toxic compounds -- propagated notably by the production of coal, certain kinds of plastics and improper disposal of fluorescent light bulbs -- poison millions of people worldwide.

Fish-eating is the prime source of exposure among humans. The effects of mercury ingestion include damage to the brain, kidney and lungs.

It feels good to be viewed as a global leader again. Although in this case 140+ nations had to drag us along until we finally changed our own leadership. But let's stop talking and start acting.

Still On Life Support? No! CAMR Is Dead, Let It Go Already

2009-02-18T14:04:00.004-06:00

I have declared the death of CAMR a couple times during the last year, most recently in a Dec 4 post. I acknowledged the Obama administrations withdrawal of the Bush EPA's motion earlier this month and did not declare CAMR's death again specifically at that time because I was getting tired of doing so. But now, should I have to acknowledge reports of a faint pulse somewhere deep in the imaginations of some utility die hards? No!

I will make it easy for the Supreme Court of the United States; Its over! The recent petition from the UARG should not be heard. Even if the DC Circuit Court ruling last Feb 8th had some errors in it, which all rulings probably do, it was ruling on an illegal rule in the first place. Go back to its inception, the CAMR was illegal. You can't delist EGUs haphazardly and you can't cap-and-trade a toxin. So forget it!

A posting by Lyle Denniston from the SCOTUS Blog follows;

Move to keep mercury pollution case alive

A group of electric utility companies and industry trade groups has urged the Supreme Court to go ahead and review a major mercury air pollution case even though the federal government no longer favors that review. In a letter filed with the Court Feb. 12, the Utility Air Regulatory Group contended that its pending case would not be affected even if the separate government case is dismissed.

The two petitions — Utility Air Regulatory Group v. New Jersey, et al., (08-352), and Environmental Protection Agency v. New Jersey, et al. (08-512) — were filed last fall, urging the Justices to overturn a D.C. Circuit Court decision on EPA’s duties in reducing mercury emissions from power plants. Both contended that the Circuit Court was wrong in limiting EPA’s authority to remove power plants from a list of sources that must have their mercury emissions reduced to the maximum extent. EPA had not taken the steps that the Circuit Court said it must before de-listing power plants from that category.

On Feb. 6, the new Obama Administration asked the Court to dismiss EPA’s petition, indicating that it would make the findings that the Circuit Court said it must. (A post discussing the motion to dismiss can be read here; the post includes a link to that motion.)

The alliance of power companies and trade groups had already prepared its reply brief in its case before the EPA made its move for dismissal. It subsequently filed its views in a letter to the Clerk, arguing that dismissal of 08-512 “would not in any way moot the petition filed by UARG.”

It noted that the EPA had previously argued that the Circuit Court ruling contained “fundamental legal errors” that would raise “substantial practical harms.” The change of mind by the new Administration, it added, would deprive the EPA of “an important regulatory tool” under the Clean Air Act.

The government, in urging dismissal of its case, mentioned the utility group’s separate case, but made no recommendation to the Court on what should be done with that petition.

Where Bush Ignored The Problem, Obama Team Plans On Leading Global Fight Against Mercury

2009-02-16T15:16:00.010-06:00

In a complete turnaround of US policy.

Some excerpts from an AP article, and the AP photo by K. Senosi.

Daniel Reifsnyder, the deputy assistant secretary of state for environment and sustainable development, told a gathering of global environmental ministers in Nairobi, Kenya, that the US wants negotiations on limiting mercury to begin this year and conclude within three.

"We're prepared to help lead in developing a globally legally binding instrument," he said. "It is clear mercury is the most important global chemical issue facing us today that calls for immediate action."

The statement represented a "a 180-degree turnaround" from policy under the Bush administration, said Michael Bender, co-coordinator of the Zero Mercury Working Group, a global coalition of 75 environmental organizations working to reduce mercury exposure.

"The change is like night and day. The Bush administration opposed any international legal agreements on mercury and President (Barack) Obama is in office less than one month and is already supporting a global agreement," he said.

Bender said his group has had more discussions over mercury control in the past two weeks than they have in the last eight years and that the U.S. government included many of their ideas in the proposal they are presented in Nairobi.
[...]
A U.S.-drafted proposal obtained by The Associated Press would form a negotiating committee in conjunction with the U.N. environment program to help countries reduce their mercury use, clean up contaminated sites and find environmentally sound ways to store mercury. The European Union has already banned mercury exports starting in 2011. The U.S. has a similar ban that will be effective 2013, legislation that was sponsored by Obama when he was a U.S. senator.

Advocacy groups that have been working on getting such a global pact passed welcomed the U.S. policy change, saying it could encourage other countries such as Canada to make a similar change. Bender said mercury levels in the world had increased two to three times over the past 200 years.

"Given that the United States has pushed the door of resistance in a sense, that will lead others to follow," said Susan Egan Keane of the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

It is actions like these that make me proud to have supported the change we Americans have initiated. It is actions like the ones in the other post today that remind me we have a long way to go.

There is another good article on this subject from Environment News Service here. Change is a coming.

Idaho Board of Environmental Quality Folds Under Industry Pressure

2009-02-16T14:41:00.004-06:00

In a state that doesn't even have a single coal fired EGU, the Idaho Board of Environmental Quality caved in to an industry lead attack on its request for a voluntary program for mercury emission reductions. Idaho, a state that pushed hard to get neighboring Nevada to control mercury emissions from their gold mining operations, can't find the backbone internally to support a voluntary program. Seems sort of strange to me.

A reprint from an Idaho Statesman article quoting a post by blogger Rocky Barker follows;

In a cloud of uncertainty, the Idaho Board of Environmental Quality backed off its efforts to strengthen rules to regulate industries that emit mercury into the air.

The board voted down a motion Feb. 12 that would have asked industries to voluntarily (emphasis added) install the best available technology for removing mercury from their smokestacks under a well-coordinated lobbying effort by the Idaho Association of Industry and Commerce, the Idaho Council on Industry and Environment and Monsanto Corp., whose P4 phosphate plant in Caribou County in Southeast Idaho is the state's largest mercury source.

The industry groups rolled over the Idaho Conservation League, which had petitioned to get the board to regulate mercury in the state in an effort to combat the pollutant that accumulates in fish and can cause brain damage and learning disabilities in babies and young children. The ICL and its program manager Justin Hayes had successfully led the effort to get the state of Nevada to require gold mines in that neighboring state to restrict much higher mercury emissions after studies showed that winds were carrying the neurotoxin into Idaho and that at least one reservoir, Salmon Falls Creek south of Twin Falls, had high mercury levels.

Hayes had convinced federal and Nevada officials that their voluntary program was allowing miners to pump thousands of pounds of mercury into the air. Today, Nevada has one of the strongest mercury abatement programs for mines in the world.

But the case for regulation was not as clear in Idaho, and the industry groups were far more sophisticated about exploiting the uncertainty in the science.

They hired one of the world's top mercury pollution experts, Steve Lindberg, a retired environmental chemist from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He has helped develop mercury rules for states and the EPA and has worked on both sides of the issue throughout his career.

He said in a report and a presentation to the board that the science linking a source like the P4 plant to high mercury levels in fish in nearby reservoirs was not yet clear enough. He raised questions about whether atmospheric mercury pollution was as serious a problem in the American West as it is in the East, where there is more rain and more wet deposition of the pollutant.

And he even raised doubts, based on yet unpublished research, that the high mercury levels in Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir were linked to the massive mercury pollution that had come from the mines in Nevada before they were regulated.

Previously, the board had heard from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency experts that models showed a source like the P4 plant could be linked to the elevated mercury levels in nearby lakes. But even Hayes acknowledged that science was not yet clear.

He urged the board to put in place regulations that would limit mercury pollution, especially in new sources. The current regulations are aimed at keeping mercury inhalation by workers and people near a plant low. But they allow a company to emit huge levels of mercury, as much as 100,000 pounds, which all agree would be harmful to the state's aquatic systems.

But the P4's emissions, at 600-700 pounds, are far below such numbers. They still are higher than coal-fired power plants. Its officials say they have erred on the high side of their estimates because EPA reporting requirements have high penalties for reporting below actual emissions.

And Monsanto says its scrubbers for other pollutants have reduced mercury emissions. It proposed that the state use water quality regulations to control mercury levels in lakes instead of air regulations.

"This confusion and uncertainty makes it hard for us to make rules," said Nick Purdy, a board member from Picabo.

So the state's flawed rules - even by Lindberg's opinion - stay in place for now.

It is situations like this where local industry groups fight a local regulation because they can shed doubt on its local effects that scream for Federal action. No one denies that mercury emissions, like the 600 - 700 pounds per year coming from the Monsanto plant are adding to the global problem of mercury emissions; they simply say our emissions aren't necessarily effecting our waters and thus our citizens, so we should not regulate them. Damn everybody downwind, and oh, by the way, let's get tough with everybody upwind of us and get them to regulate, but not us. What a joke.

Feds Action Signals National Effort; Meanwhile States Struggle In The Void

2009-02-06T15:34:00.004-06:00

The Obama administration took official steps to withdraw a motion made by the outgoing Bush administration for the Supreme Court to re-reverse the Court of Appeals ruling on the CAMR. This is no big surprise as Obama has long been a strong voice against mercury in our environment and its effects on public health. The interesting story here is while the Feds move, and move slowly, as only the Feds can do, States such as Pennsylvania and Kansas are left to grapple this issue out in their courts and legislatures.

From my perspective all this is crying for national leadership, and hopefully Obama can deliver. The Pennsylvania scuffle would be moot if the State hadn't been forced into dealing locally with a problem that was poorly dealt with nationally. The Bush CAMR was illegal from its inception and public health caring states were forced to act on their own. Now since the Federal CAMR was vacated last February, state rules are being tied, rightfully or not (and NOT in my mind), to a vacated rule. Ultimately leaving citizens unprotected, even in states who intended to protect them.

And, I am not a lawyer but this Kansas fiasco appears more onerous to me. From the sounds of it, even if a Federal law is passed the KDHE would have to fight county by county to enforce it. That can't be right, but its what it sounds like in Ms. Sethi's (Kansas) article, excerpts below.

Let's stop all the delay tactics and stop all the partisanship and get down to making rules that protect our citizens, all of them, with sound legislation based of the Clean Air Act and all of its intentions, as delivered from the US Congress and signed into law. It sounds easy enough to me, but then I am not a lawyer.

I'll put up a little info from the Fed action and then some from the battles in Pennsylvania and Kansas that seem to be dominating the mercury headlines lately.

Federal Action
From the AP.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is reversing a previous Bush administration effort on pollution, pulling back legal arguments in a lawsuit over mercury.

The case was soon to come before the Supreme Court. The Obama administration submitted papers Friday to the court asking for the appeal to be dismissed.

An appeals court last year rejected a Bush administration plan for regulating mercury emissions. It said the plan should not have included allowing utilities to purchase emission credits instead of actually reducing emissions.

Scientists fear mercury pollution leads to neurological problems in infants.

The power industry still has a separate petition challenging the appeals court ruling, which is unaffected by the Obama administration's action.

More from Bloomberg.com

The Obama administration withdrew a U.S. Supreme Court appeal filed by the Bush administration and said it will comply with a court ruling governing mercury emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

A federal appeals court last year ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency erred when it decided to change the way it regulates those emissions. The agency had planned to remove plants from a list of polluters regulated under one section of the Clean Air Act and instead establish a “cap and trade” program.

“EPA has decided, consistent with the court of appeals’ ruling, to develop appropriate standards to regulate power plant emissions,” Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said in a court filing released today.
[...]
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency’s decision will promote environmental regulation. “We are probably better off spending all of our resources making rules that will stick instead of fighting the courts,” she told reporters following an appearance at a conference in Washington.

Hopefully they will move on a national mercury rule soon.

Pennsylvania
Late last week a Commonwealth Judge in Pennsylvania, Dan Pellegrini ruled that the States mercury actions were unlawful, invalid, and unenforceable, and for all intents and purposes he tossed them out. An excerpt or two from the Pittsburgh Post Gazzette follow;

Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini ruled Friday that the rule is unlawful, invalid and unenforceable, but the state Department of Environmental Protection has received legal approval from the state Office of General Counsel to file an appeal.
[...]
Pennsylvania's mercury rule was developed in 2006 after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed weakening federal mercury regulations. It requires the state's 34 coal-fired power plants to reduce mercury emissions 80 percent by 2010 and 90 percent by 2015 from 1999 emissions levels. It also prohibits mercury emissions "trading" that would allow older power plants to avoid installing expensive control equipment.

"Pennsylvania's mercury rule is the most effective and timely way to reduce mercury exposure," said Acting DEP Secretary John Hanger. "The ruling makes Pennsylvania's economy less competitive in the long run."

The federal rule, which itself was thrown out by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last February, allowed the trading of mercury emissions credits and would have reduced mercury emissions 70 percent by 2018.

The Pennsylvania rule was challenged by Allentown-based PPL Corp., which has several coal-fired power plants in the state. The company argued that Pennsylvania cannot enforce its mercury rule because it is based on the federal mercury rule that was overturned last year.

Some more details, including link to station audio from the WHYY site are below;

A Pennsylvania judge shot down the state’s effort to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. But the environmental department says the fight isn’t over. From WHYY’s health and science desk, Kerry Grens reports.
[...]
Transcript:
Pennsylvania’s emissions rule would reduce mercury pollution 90 percent by 2015.

Currently, the federal government does not have a reduction plan in place, but the judge ruled that the state could not pre-empt the EPA.

Energy company PPL filed the lawsuit.

George Lewis, PPL’s spokesperson, says the company has already spent more than a billion dollars on reducing mercury emissions.

Lewis:
Allowing Pennsylvania to implement its rule would have required PPL to spend millions of additional dollars on mercury control technology that may not have been acceptable under new EPA regulations that are forthcoming.

Lewis says if those new federal rules require the company to take action similar to the Pennsylvania rule, the company would comply.

DEP spokesperson Teresa Candori says the agency is disappointed by the judge’s ruling.

Candori:
Currently we are reviewing our legal options.

Candori says the Department will decide in the next few days whether to appeal the decision.

And of course a couple days later news of the States appeal of the Commonwealth Judges ruling was announced. From PRNewswire.com

Environmental Protection acting Secretary John Hanger said today the commonwealth has filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court seeking to overturn a recent state court opinion that declared Pennsylvania's Mercury Rule "unlawful, invalid and unenforceable."
[...]
"The Pennsylvania Mercury Rule is a well-crafted, cost-effective program designed to protect our citizens from exposure to mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants," said Hanger. "Our rule accelerates adoption of proven technologies that would protect public health and the environment."

Kansas

In what is becoming one of the hottest battles around, the Kansas legislature is trying to rewrite the laws, stripping the Dept. of Health and the Environment, and its Health Secretary, Bob Bremby, of their power to regulate industry (deny permits) based on air quality and public health concerns.

Even with upwards of 70% of the citezenry in favor of halting construction of 2 large coal burning plants at Sunflower Electric's Holcomb plant, or at least pursuing alternative energy options first, this conservative lead attempt shields it supporters from actually looking like they are for the construction permits to be allowed. This is some pretty slick legislation and there is a wonderful article by Simran Sethi on Huffington Post all about it. Some excerpts follow, but I recommend a more thorough reading of her post if you are interested in this particular showdown.

On October 18, 2007, Kansas made history. Health and Environmental Secretary Roderick Bremby made the landmark decision to deny permits for two new 700 MW coal-fired power plants proposed by Sunflower Electric, on the grounds that carbon emissions from the plants would negatively impact health. "After careful consideration of my responsibility to protect the public health and environment from actual, threatened or potential harm from air pollution, I have decided to deny the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation application for an air quality permit," Bremby said in the official press statement.

Let's be clear, this decision was a game-changer. In his ruling, Bremby stated it would be "irresponsible" to ignore the impacts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases on global warming. It was the first time that climate change was cited in such a context, setting a precedent for other decisions of its kind across the nation. In response, Sunflower proposed three bills to the state legislature in 2008 that would have allowed the plants to be built, but all three were vetoed by Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Now, with the state legislature back in session, Sunflower is continuing their fight to expand the reach of big coal.
[...]
Just 5 weeks into the legislative session, Sunflower has already flooded the state Energy and Utilities Committee with over 40 "energy policy" bills. Though discussions of renewable energy have been included, most fail to take advantage of the state's renewable resources (Kansas is ranked 3rd in the US for greatest wind potential), and instead contain measures that would allow for the expansion of coal, including Sunflower's proposed plants in Holcomb.
[...]
This week, the Kansas legislature is debating Bill 2182. While the bill makes no mention of Sunflower Electric, carbon emissions, or the Holcomb coal plants, it would effectively strip Health Secretary Rob Bremby and the Department of Health and the Environment of their power to regulate industry based on air quality concerns, and therefore force them to grant the permits to Sunflower.

Because of high disapproval rates around the building of new plants, the predominantly Republican legislature has been wary of casting a strictly pro-coal vote. But according to Scott Allegrucci of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy (GPACE), Bill 2182 "is cleverly written to allow some legislators who sustained the 2008 vetoes to vote for the coal plants this time, while giving them the ability to tell their constituents that they only voted for 'regulatory certainty,' not coal plants." In Wednesday's discussion of the bill, proponent Amy Blankenbiller of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce stated, "We are not here today to talk about environmental regulation, but to talk about due process, regulatory process."

Call it "due process" if you want, but the truth is that the bill's environmental repercussions are huge. What would it mean for Kansas if the bill is passed? Scott Allegrucci says, "It would certainly force the Holcomb plants to be given air quality permits; it would force KDHE to file action in local courts county-by-county if it wished to enforce federal Clean Air Act findings or rulings; and it would certainly open Kansas to future attempts by ANY polluting industry that wished to secure air quality permits and could afford to buy enough advertising or enough legislative votes to get their way."

And the rest of the nation would lose the first real stand of public heath officials and government against one of the nation's most polluting industries. Whether you live in New York or Nebraska, this ruling will either allow or limit your own state's ability to protect your health. You can follow the legislature's discussion at the Climate and Energy Project's blog, and on Twitter. To support the cause, shoot a friendly email to Lisa Jackson at the EPA, and let her know that Americans across the nation recognize the importance of this case.

Climate change is boundless. Whatever's the matter with Kansas will hit you, too.

Claims of Mercury In High Fructose Corn Syrup May Be Overstated; At Least Premature

2009-02-03T14:39:00.005-06:00

I was posting on the chlor-alkali industry the other day and added an update that appeared in the literature that same day. I jumped on and added the bit about mercury found in HFCS without noting the research was preliminary and not up to scientific standards. I found a rebuttal post on another site, by Karl Haro von Mogel, on The Inoculated Mind, that I thought deserved to be aired.

I don't take back my contention that using mercury in chlor-alkali plants should be stoppped immediately (not just phased out), but I do want to give science its rightly place in the sunshine. So a couple excerpts from The Inoculated Mind follow;

In science you always.

Always.

Always use controls.

That is the very basis of science, for without a control running next to your experiment, you have no isolated variables, no conclusions that can be drawn from it, and no theories that it can support.

So when I was reading the Ethicurean, as I regularly do, I was simply flabbergasted at this post: Mercury in HFCS. Apparently, a research paper came out proclaiming that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)-containing products had detectable levels of mercury. The explanation given was that HFCS is made using alkali soda, from plants that use mercury in the process of synthesizing it. (Except this has been for the most part phased out)

I took a look at the paper, and the first thing that I noticed was that it was not a peer-reviewed study. So this has not passed through the rigors of experimentation, review, re-testing if needed, and publication in a scientific journal.
[...]
The second thing I noticed was that the paper was mostly an argument about how unhealthy the American Diet is, and the big calorie baddie is HFCS.
[...]
The ’study’ itself consisted of taking samples of foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup and testing them for levels of mercury. Those foods and the brands that made them were in the report, and they found that some of the foods had detectable levels of mercury in them. What levels? Parts per trillion. These are really low levels. Drinking water has a limit of 2 parts per billion, which means that you can have 100 times as much mercury in drinking water as is in these foods. The tap water you use to make your oatmeal might have more mercury than the oatmeal itself.

Their conclusion was that the mercury came from HFCS, and made a list of recommendations about what should be done about this sciency conclusion. But wait, did they actually prove that the mercury came from the corn syrup?

No. In order to demonstrate this scientifically, you have to have controls. There’s no telling where the mercury came from without isolating the variables. Were the oats sucking up mercury in the soil? Were the cows that produced the chocolate milk they tested the actual source of the highest mercury levels they found in their survey?

The article goes on pressing the issue of not reporting unsubstantiated claims as science. It calls this practice "...Science By Press Release", of which in this case I was found guilty.

But Karl goes on to say;

For the record, I’m a big fan of Green Chemistry - changing industrial chemical processes to be more environmentally-friendly. If there are chlor-alkali plants that still use mercury somewhere, they should change their methods of synthesizing it, at least because it will reduce demand for mercury, and eliminate the concomitant emissions. But instant sweetened Oatmeal is not the right rallying cry. It reminds me of when Steven Milloy claimed that Fluorescent Replacement lights were toxic superfund-sites-in-the-home waiting to happen. Same deal, different politics.

Pennsylvania Judge Rules State Mercury Rule Unlawful

2009-01-30T15:21:00.003-06:00

AP is reporting that Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini has thrown out a two-year old rule that forced PA coal fired EGUs to reduce mercury emissions 90% by 2015. PPL Corp. challenged the rule saying it was based on the Federal CAMR which was struck down in the higher courts almost a year ago.

More on this can be found at Philly.com

Diagnosis: Mercury Author To Speak In San Francisco, Feb. 4

2009-01-30T11:17:00.006-06:00

Dr. Jane M. Hightower, author of the recent book Diagnosis: Mercury Money, Politics & Poison, will be speaking at the San Francisco JCC on Feb 4 at 6:30PM. I haven't read the book yet but it looks like a pretty good resource on the subject of mercury in our environment. There is a little more information about this engagement at Enviroblog here. I wish I was in the Bay area to attend, maybe some others can report on it.

Dr. Hightower was one of the co-researchers that discovered how mercury is getting into our food supply through high fructose corn syrup, one of the hottest recent topics in mercury circles. Hg-ATME reported on this Tuesday in the post below this one in the update at the bottom of the post. This discovery has ignited a huge debate in food quality discussions.

Olin Corp. Invites Georgians To See What They Are Willing To Do For Others But Not For Them

2009-01-27T07:58:00.006-06:00

(Interesting update at bottom)
I try to focus on mercury emission legislation and not report on individual plant issues but I have had a soft spot in my heart for the Oceana group and their fight to eliminate mercury from all chlorine manufacturing. So this story jumped out at me.

See older posts on subject here, here, here and here.

Olin has invited the folks living in the Augusta area to watch a program on the Discovery Channel about how cool they are making chlorine without mercury up in Niagara Falls, NY. They must have done this simply to rub Georgians' noses in it, because they refuse to employ the same technique in their Augusta plant. What are the people of Georgia to think about while they watch this show? "Gee, that is really neat how they don't pollute the water anymore up in New York."

A couple excerpts from a Blog called The Outsider at Augusta.com will explain.

Ever wondered how Olin makes chlorine? Next week’s Discovery Channel program, HowStuffWorks, features the company’s modern—and mercury-free—plant in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

“Because we have a production facility in your area, we believe local residents could be interested in watching,” said a news release sent to us this week from Olin’s corporate headquarters.

David Blair, Olin’s plant manager in Augusta, said the episode will help explain how the Niagara Falls plant uses salt brine and electricity to manufacture chlorine. “We want to encourage local residents to watch the Discovery Channel program.”

Olin isn’t the only organization that hopes Augustans will watch the show, which will air at 8 p.m. eastern time on Thursday, Jan. 29.

Jackie Savitz, senior campaign director at the environmental group Oceana, said the episode might help highlight differences between new chlorine factories that do not emit mercury and older ones—like Olin’s Augusta plant—that still use mercury.

“The Niagara Falls plant does not use mercury,” she said. “In fact, it’s a perfect example of our vision for Augusta.”
[...]
Ms. Savitz believes all mercury emissions associated with the chlorine industry should be eliminated. More than 95 percent of U.S. chlorine plants have converted to mercury-free technology, she said, and the only sites still using mercury today include Olin’s 43-year-old Augusta plant and three others in Tennessee, West Virginia and Ohio.

“They used to use mercury in Niagara Falls and they switched to mercury free. As a result, they are running a cleaner, more efficient plant, stabilizing the jobs and their place in the community,” Ms. Savitz said. “That is what we would like to see happen in Augusta.”

This kind of PR move blows my mind. Why call attention to your negligence in an area where it is most felt. I hope the folks in Augusta do watch the show, as well as everyone else, so we can pressure Olin and the other last holdouts to stop this unnecessary practice.

I want to thank Rob Peavy for bringing this to my attention.

UPDATE: Mercury from Chlor-alkali plants not only pollutes water, it potentially makes its way into our food products. I just found this (provisional) abstract on Environmental Health. Just more reason to stop using mercury in the production of chlorine.

Abstract (provisional)

Mercury cell chlor-alkali products are used to produce thousands of other products including food ingredients such as citric acid, sodium benzoate, and high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is used in food products to enhance shelf life. A pilot study was conducted to determine if high fructose corn syrup contains mercury, a toxic metal historically used as an anti-microbial. High fructose corn syrup samples were collected from three different manufacturers and analyzed for total mercury. The samples were found to contain levels of mercury ranging from below a detection limit of 0.005 to 0.570 micrograms mercury per gram of high fructose corn syrup. Average daily consumption of high fructose corn syrup is about 50 grams per person in the United States. With respect to total mercury exposure, it may be necessary to account for this source of mercury in the diet of children and sensitive populations.

Lisa Jackson, Memo To The Troops

2009-01-23T13:12:00.004-06:00

Lisa Jackson the new EPA Administator sent a memo to all EPA employees outlining her's and President Obama's plans for the coming years. Except for a few leftover appointees, I can't imagine anyone in the EPA not being thrilled to get this memo.

Full text of the memo follow;
Photo from NJBiz.

MEMORANDUM

DATE: January 23, 2009

TO: All EPA Employees

FROM: Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator-designate

I can think of no higher calling or privilege than rejoining EPA as your
Administrator. I am grateful and humbled that President Obama has given
me this honor. With his election and with my appointment, President
Obama has dramatically changed the face of American environmentalism.
With your help, we can now change the face of the environment as well.

During my 21 years in public service, I have witnessed firsthand the
dedication and professionalism of EPA’s workforce. Thousands of
committed, hard-working and talented employees for whom protecting the
environment is a calling, not just a job, have made EPA a driving force
in environmental protection since 1970.

EPA can meet the nation’s environmental challenges only if our employees
are fully engaged partners in our shared mission. That’s why I will make
respect for the EPA workforce a bedrock principle of my tenure. I will
look to you every day for ideas, advice and expertise. EPA should once
again be the workplace of choice for veteran public servants and also
talented young people beginning careers in environmental protection –
just as it was for me when I first joined EPA shortly after graduate
school.

In outlining his agenda for the environment, President Obama has
articulated three values that he expects EPA to uphold. These values
will shape everything I do.

Science must be the backbone for EPA programs. The public health and
environmental laws that Congress has enacted depend on rigorous
adherence to the best available science. The President believes that
when EPA addresses scientific issues, it should rely on the expert
judgment of the Agency’s career scientists and independent advisors.
When scientific judgments are suppressed, misrepresented or distorted by
political agendas, Americans can lose faith in their government to
provide strong public health and environmental protection.

The laws that Congress has written and directed EPA to implement leave
room for policy judgments. However, policy decisions should not be
disguised as scientific findings. I pledge that I will not compromise
the integrity of EPA’s experts in order to advance a preference for a
particular regulatory outcome.

EPA must follow the rule of law. The President recognizes that respect
for Congressional mandates and judicial decisions is the hallmark of a
principled regulatory agency. Under our environmental laws, EPA has room
to exercise discretion, and Congress has often looked to EPA to fill in
the details of general policies. However, EPA needs to exercise policy
discretion in good faith and in keeping with the directives of Congress
and the courts. When Congress has been explicit, EPA cannot misinterpret
or ignore the language Congress has used. When a court has determined
EPA’s responsibilities under our governing statutes, EPA cannot turn a
blind eye to the court’s decision or procrastinate in complying.

EPA’s actions must be transparent. In 1983, EPA Administrator
Ruckelshaus promised that EPA would operate "in a fishbowl" and “will
attempt to communicate with everyone from the environmentalists to those
we regulate, and we will do so as openly as possible."

I embrace this philosophy. Public trust in the Agency demands that we
reach out to all stakeholders fairly and impartially, that we consider
the views and data presented carefully and objectively, and that we
fully disclose the information that forms the bases for our decisions. I
pledge that we will carry out the work of the Agency in public view so
that the door is open to all interested parties and that there is no
doubt why we are acting and how we arrived at our decisions.

We must take special pains to connect with those who have been
historically underrepresented in EPA decision making, including the
disenfranchised in our cities and rural areas, communities of color,
native Americans, people disproportionately impacted by pollution, and
small businesses, cities and towns working to meet their environmental
responsibilities. Like all Americans, they deserve an EPA with an open
mind, a big heart and a willingness to listen.

As your Administrator, I will uphold the values of scientific integrity,
rule of law and transparency every day. If ever you feel I am not
meeting this commitment, I expect you to let me know.

Many vital tasks lie before us in every aspect of EPA’s programs. As I
develop my agenda, I will be seeking your guidance on the tasks that are
most urgent in protecting public health and the environment and on the
strategies that EPA can adopt to maximize our effectiveness and the
expertise of our talented employees. At the outset, I would like to
highlight five priorities that will receive my personal attention:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The President has pledged to make
responding to the threat of climate change a high priority of his
administration. He is confident that we can transition to a
low-carbon economy while creating jobs and making the investment we
need to emerge from the current recession and create a strong
foundation for future growth. I share this vision. EPA will stand
ready to help Congress craft strong, science-based climate
legislation that fulfills the vision of the President. As Congress
does its work, we will move ahead to comply with the Supreme Court’s
decision recognizing EPA’s obligation to address climate change under
the Clean Air Act.

Improving air quality. The nation continues to face serious air
pollution challenges, with large areas of the country out of
attainment with air-quality standards and many communities facing the
threat of toxic air pollution. Science shows that people’s health is
at stake. We will plug the gaps in our regulatory system as science
and the law demand.

Managing chemical risks. More than 30 years after Congress enacted
the Toxic Substances Control Act, it is clear that we are not doing
an adequate job of assessing and managing the risks of chemicals in
consumer products, the workplace and the environment. It is now time
to revise and strengthen EPA’s chemicals management and risk
assessment programs.

Cleaning up hazardous-waste sites. EPA will strive to accelerate the
pace of cleanup at the hundreds of contaminated sites across the
country. Turning these blighted properties into productive parcels
and reducing threats to human health and the environment means jobs
and an investment in our land, our communities and our people.

Protecting America’s water. EPA will intensify our work to restore
and protect the quality of the nation’s streams, rivers, lakes, bays,
oceans and aquifers. The Agency will make robust use of our authority
to restore threatened treasures such as the Great Lakes and the
Chesapeake Bay, to address our neglected urban rivers, to strengthen
drinking-water safety programs, and to reduce pollution from
non-point and industrial dischargers.

As we meet these challenges, we must be sensitive to the burdens
pollution has placed on vulnerable subpopulations, including children,
the elderly, the poor and all others who are at particular risk to
threats to health and the environment. We must seek their full
partnership in the greater aim of identifying and eliminating the
sources of pollution in their neighborhoods, schools and homes.

EPA’s strength has always been our ability to adapt to the constantly
changing face of environmental protection as our economy and society
evolve and science teaches us more about how humans interact with and
affect the natural world. Now, more than ever, EPA must be innovative
and forward looking because the environmental challenges faced by
Americans all across our country are unprecedented.

These challenges are indeed immense in scale and urgency. But, as
President Obama said Tuesday, they will be met. I look forward to
joining you at work on Monday to begin tackling these challenges
together.

Sweden Moves To Ban Mercury

2009-01-22T10:30:00.003-06:00

Sweden takes a leadership role in the outright banning of all mercury containing products. In my opinion this will be the wave of the future regarding mercury use. Other countries in the EU will follow first, several states in the US will attempt to follow suit and a US national ban will take quite some time. There are alternatives for almost every commercial use of mercury and although there will always be mercury in our environment it will not be spread through commercial use.

An excerpt from an article in EHS Today sheds some light on this decision.

The Swedish government recently introduced a blanket ban on mercury that will eliminate the use of dental amalgam fillings and prohibit products containing mercury in the Swedish market.

“Sweden is now leading the way in removing and protecting the environment from mercury, which is non-degradable. The ban is a strong signal to other countries and a Swedish contribution to EU and UN aims to reduce mercury use and emissions,” said Minister for the Environment Andreas Carlgren.

The government's decision means that products containing mercury may not be placed on the Swedish market. In practice, this means that alternative techniques will have to be used in dental care, chemical analysis and the chloralkali industry. The Swedish Chemicals Agency will be authorized to issue regulations on exceptions or grant exemptions in individual cases.
[...]
The new regulations go into effect June 1, 2009.

After Nearly 10 Year Fight EPA To Regulate Mercury Emissions From Cement Plants

2009-01-16T13:39:00.003-06:00

Earthjustice announced today a settlement in their long running dispute with EPA over regulating mercury emissions from cement plants. environmental groups along with nine states, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania were parties to the suit.

An excerpt from an AP release on mlive.com follows;

Under the agreement, the agency promises to propose new emission standards by March.

We'll be hearing more on this subject in the coming months.

Agency Memo Asks Power Project Permitting Authorities to Perform MACT Review

2009-01-09T14:34:00.005-06:00

As I stated earlier in this blog, if you want to build new coal (or oil) fired power plants in this country you better plan on MACT standards for mercury and other toxics. A new EPA memo, dated January 7, 2009, has asked for just that consideration when reviewing new plant permits. This will affect all new plants and those that started construction, or re-construction, between March 29, 2005 and March 14, 2008.

Even though most affected construction probably meets the requirements anyway, the EPA is beginning to understand what many states already knew to be so.

Excerpts from a Power Engineering Int'l article follow;

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air and Radiation said in a January 7 memo that power plants under construction may now need to meet new-source maximum available control technology (MACT) standards.

The EPA memo, from Robert J. Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator, states that although electric steam generators may have relied on rules that EPA issued and that were vacated by a federal court in February 2008, EPA now believes those generators are "legally obligated to come into compliance" with the requirements of Section 112(g). Section 112(g) refers to a portion of the Clean Air Act Amendments.
[...]
Units affected by the January 7 EPA memo include coal- and oil-fired facilities that began "actual construction or reconstruction" between March 29, 2005 and March 14, 2008.

EPA said it reviewed permit information for potentially affected facilities and believes that controls in place "may be sufficient" to comply with MACT standards. The agency said, however, it is asking state and local air permitting authorities to make new-source MACT determinations for each affected project.

EPA advised permitting authorities not to consider any MACT options closed simply because permits have been issued, administrative processes have begun or contracts have been let. Instead, "permitting authorities should limit such consideration to actual construction only."

Mercury Threat Could Worsen Along With Global Warming - Happy New Year To You Too

2009-01-08T16:04:00.006-06:00

Just as we are all trying to get back into the swing of our daily lives, along comes some more good news (facetious) on the mercury front. A recent research paper by Sue Natali, a postdoctoral associate in botany at the University of Florida (Go Gators!), suggests soil's ability to glom onto and hold mercury has increased along with the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and should continue to increase if CO2 levels do too.

An excerpt from a e! Science News article follows;

(She) compared mercury levels in soils under trees growing in air enriched with carbon dioxide to soil beneath trees in ambient air. Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, has increased nearly 40 percent since the industrial revolution and is expected to continue climbing unless power plant and other emissions are restricted or curtailed.

Natali's main finding: Soil samples from the carbon dioxide-enriched soil contained almost 30 percent more mercury — apparently because the soil had greater capacity than soil in today's atmosphere to trap and hold on to mercury.

On the one hand, Natali said, that increased capacity could slow the mercury's release into water — its main conduit to aquatic wildlife and the fish that pose a hazard to people. On the other, it means that even if policy makers manage to ban or severely restrict mercury emissions, the metal will remain a source of pollution for a long time.

"From the time you cut off mercury emission to the time it positively affects fish, you might have this lag, because the soils hold on to the mercury better," Natali said.
[...]
Natali said scientists have long recognized mercury levels in soil spike under trees, averaging four times the concentration in open areas.

That's because trees effectively scavenge the poison from the atmosphere. Leaves and stems collect rainwater, and with it mercury; trees drop mercury-laden leaves on the ground, and trees take in the metal through their stomata, or breathing pores on leaves.

Scientists also have shown repeatedly that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to increased plant and tree growth. Natali said she launched her research to find out whether that process would in turn have any effect on pollution from mercury and other metals.

Fortunately, two experimental sites were already in place: the free-air carbon dioxide enrichment experiments at forests in North Carolina and Tennessee, operated by Duke University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, respectively. These sites consist of plots in naturally growing forests surrounded by vertical pipes that constantly pump out carbon dioxide — and have done so since 1996, for the North Carolina site, and 1998, for the Tennessee site. The systems surround deciduous and coniferous trees in the plots with 200 parts per million more carbon dioxide than ambient air, or between 549 and 582 parts per million. That is the anticipated concentration in the air in 2050 without new emissions restrictions, Natali said.

Natali assessed mercury levels in rain that struck the canopy and then flowed down stems and trunks; in rain that fell directly from the canopy to the forest floor, and in leaves that fell below the trees, or "leaf litter."

To her surprise, none contained particularly elevated levels of the poison. In fact, although the trees in the enriched plots produced more leaf litter, mercury concentrations in the leaves actually decreased. The uptick in mercury in the soil apparently happened instead because of "changes in soil properties" that occur in the enriched environments, according to the paper. These changes increase the soils' mercury storage capacity.

Environmental Groups Sue EPA Seeking Strict Deadline for Mercury MACT

2008-12-18T14:39:00.004-06:00

In my opinion the suit should not be necessary. All indications from the Obama transition team, plus the president elect's own policy statement and language during the campaign point to swift action in this regard. The groups filing the lawsuit, lead by Conservation Law Foundation, know their chances are pretty good but they also realize that rule making can take time and they want swift action to begin so a reasonable deadline can be met.

An excerpt form a Boston Globe article on boston.com follows;

A group of conservation and public health groups filed a lawsuit today against the Environmental Protection Agency asking for a strict deadline for the agency to require coal-fired power plants to reduce their emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants.

The Conservation Law Foundation, a New England-based advocacy group; Environment America, based in Boston; and the Natural Resources Council of Maine were among the 12 organizations that filed the complaint in federal court in Washington, D.C.
[...]
The Clean Air Act required that the Environmental Protection Agency regulate mercury and other toxic air pollutants from new and existing coal-fired power plants by the end of 2002. The Bush administration responded in 2005 with the Clean Air Mercury Rule, which allowed utilities to trade mercury emissions. Under the rule, some large power plants could keep emitting pollutants while buying pollution credits from cleaner plants. A federal court struck down the rule in February as unlawful because it did not impose mandatory, strict controls on mercury pollution for large power plants as the Clean Air Act requires.

The coalition that filed the suit today would like to see the incoming Obama administration fulfill the Clean Air Act by controlling mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants “within two years of taking office,” said Ann Weeks, legal director for the Clean Air Task Force and counsel for the Conservation Law Foundation.

She said the group had already met with Obama’s transition team and was hopeful the next administration would regulate the pollutants. She added: “We filed the lawsuit because it’s the tool we have at hand for making sure that there’s action.” (emphasis added)

Reality Sets In - MACT for Mercury If You Want To Build

2008-12-09T14:17:00.005-06:00

See bottom of article for update (12-10-2008).

The writing is on the wall, if you want to have any chance of building a new coal fired EGU in the United States, you better spec in MACT controls for mercury, and even that may not be enough. A large Texas utility, Energy Future Holdings (formerly TXU Corp.), has decided it is better to switch than fight.

In a sign of the times Energy Future Holdings signed a negotiated deal with Sierra Club to go forward and finish the construction of two plants in Texas. These plants were permitted by TCEQ already and potentially could have fought to go forward without the deal. But the sentiment in the country witnessed by the recent ruling in North Carolina with Duke Energy is, CAMR was a misguided regulation, and without further delay, environmentalists through the courts are going to force MACT as stipulated in the Clean Air Act.

A few excerpts from the Dallas News article by Elizabeth Souder follows;

The deal, also negotiated by Public Citizen, marks the second time Energy Future Holdings has struck agreements with environmental groups over plans to build coal-fired power plants. Environmental groups have targeted coal plants as major polluters and carbon dioxide emitters and have won several battles as politicians become more sensitive to environmental arguments.

Luminant, EFH’s power generation business, agreed to meet so-called “maximum achievable control technology” for mercury emissions on two coal units it is building at the Oak Grove site. That plant, which is under construction, already has air permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The company will file for MACT determination with the commission this week.

EFH lawyer Rob Walters said the company won’t change the design of the plants or slow down construction. Instead, the TCEQ will determine whether the plant may operate at full capacity and still meet MACT standards, or whether Luminant must dial down a bit.

When a plant doesn’t operate at full capacity, the plant doesn’t make as much power, but it also doesn’t emit as much pollution.
[...]
Luminant has already received air permits stating that the company will use so-called “best available control technology” on the plants. But since the TCEQ awarded those permits, rules on mercury emissions have changed.

The Sierra Club told Luminant it intended to sue the company because it wouldn’t meet the new standards. Mr. Walters believes the company doesn’t have to meet the new standards, since it received permits under a different set of standards.

The company chose to negotiate a deal rather than risk delaying the new plants because of a lawsuit.

I am sort of surprised Sierra Club yielded to the approach EFH is proposing since it doesn't appear that carbon injection or any other active mercury control is being sought. Limiting power output will reduce emissions and closing other older plants is really at the heart of all good policy. But how long will it be until power demand increases and forces these existing newer assets to produce what they were designed to produce. Perhaps at that point mercury controls will be more mainstream and agreements exist that they will be implemented at that time, although there is no mention of this in the article.

Since these plants were already under construction following an earlier deal EFH cut with Environmental Defense Fund and NRDC the construction will go on with these passive MACT assurances in place. The issue of greenhouse gases is set aside in this case and getting an agreement on mercury when the utility didn't really have to do so is what compromise is all about. I for one, would like to see formal assurances of active mercury control whenever possible.

Update (12-10-2008) - Apparently EFH is installing carbon injection systems at the facilities. This was clarified in another article in the Dallas Business Journal, excerpt below;

Luminant says, at the moment, the Oak Grove plant is installing sorbent injection systems that will use carbon to control the output of mercury emissions.

“This agreement gives us greater legal and regulatory certainty as we complete the Oak Grove generating station, which will help meet growing Texas electricity demand,” said Bill Moore, general counsel for Luminant. “We’re confident that our state-of-the art emissions control technology will continue to meet or exceed all regulatory requirements, reflecting our ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship.”

This Time It Looks Like CAMR Is Really Dead, No, Really!

2008-12-04T16:38:00.003-06:00

A short excerpt from a subscription only article on InsideEPA.com explains;

High Court CAMR Deadline Extension Allows For Likely Obama Withdrawal

The Supreme Court's decision to give states and activists more time to respond to EPA and industry petitions for certiorari in their appeal of the clean air mercury rule (CAMR) vacatur boosts state and activist efforts to kill the rule because their deadline to respond is after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, creating an opportunity for his administration to withdraw the government's cert petition altogether.

The high court Dec. 1 granted New Jersey's request to extend the deadline for responses to the cert petitions, which seek review of the agency's mercury rule, vacated earlier this year by federal court.

The new Jan. 21 deadline opens the door for the Obama administration to act immediately to withdraw the Department of Justice's (DOJ's) petition. Obama is expected to withdraw the appeal because close advisors have opposed CAMR, which established a cap-and-trade program to address mercury emissions from power plants. For example, former EPA Administrator Carol Browner, who sits on Obama's transition team, has urged an evaluation of the need for a strict new mercury emissions control program.
[...]
if Obama were to withdraw the petition on his inauguration day, that would send a strong signal that DOJ is conducting an about face on its strategy of defending controversial Bush EPA policies, supporting recent arguments by former Justice officials for just such a move. Lois Schiffer, a senior DOJ official under Clinton, and Richard Lazarus, who worked in the department during the administrations of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, recommended the abandonment of dubious legal arguments even in ongoing cases under the next administration, in a recent article in the Harvard Law & Policy Review.

While some observers say a change in legal arguments could damage DOJ politically, Schiffer and Lazarus say, “[I]n some circumstances changes of position in either enforcement or defended cases may well be warranted.”

The case for CAMR has been a long shot all along. It has taken on a catlike identity in that its death has been proclaimed several times. But the lives are running out and MACT seems to be in order for mercury controls.

EPA Shocks Environmentalists - Gets It Right!

2008-12-02T15:45:00.005-06:00

This story goes under the heading of "man bites dog." It has been very rare these last few years to hear a well respected environmentalist say good things about an EPA ruling. So this needed to be posted upon.

It appears the EPA back in mid-November decided to crack down on medical waste incinerators. It originally issued standards for these sites back in 1997 (a ruling that was successfully challenged in court by Sierra Club), and the result then was that most small operations, those run at individual hospitals, shut down and shipped their wastes to larger operations. But this latest ruling, published in the Federal Register yesterday takes it all to a new level.

In an article from the Washington Post some startling excerpts follow;

"This is the first time I've ever seen them do an air toxic rule right," said Jim Pew, a lawyer at Earthjustice, a Calif.-based environmental advocacy group that sued the agency over its initial proposal for regulating the incinerators more than a decade ago. "It's a big cut in emissions."
[...]
EPA estimates that the proposed rule would cut the amount of air pollution from medical incinerators by 468,000 pounds to 1,520,000 pounds per year, though it did not provide an estimate of current emissions. Mercury emissions, which cause neurological damage in children, would drop by 637 to 682 pounds annually, and cancer-causing dioxin emissions would drop by about 40 grams.

According to an agency fact sheet, "The proposed emission limits would require improvements in performance for all of the 57 currently operating" medical incinerators. It will cost these facilities $21.1 million a year to comply with the new standards, though they could use alternative disposal methods to meet the rules at half the cost, the agency said.

The rules represent a significant change from the EPA's 1997 proposal, which Earthjustice successfully challenged in court on behalf of the Sierra Club. In almost every instance, the agency has reduced the amount of allowable pollutants by at least a factor of 10: Acceptable hydrogen chloride levels will drop from 15 parts per million in the atmosphere to 0.75 per million.

"This is really remarkable," Pew said.

What's next?

More EIP Data & Comments

2008-11-21T16:28:00.008-06:00

After the full release of the EIP report there was some interesting data released and some very poingnant comments made. A MarketWatch article details some of the highlights and comments. I suggest reading the entire article but some excerpts follow;

The report from the Environmental Integrity Project rates the power plants both in terms of sheer mercury pollution and mercury pollution adjusted per kilowatt hour. The 12 states with the most plants in the top 50 in terms of mercury pollution are Texas (7, including half of the 10 worst), Pennsylvania (5), Alabama, (4, including the worst plant and also 2 of the 10 worst), Georgia (4, including 1 of the 10 worst), Ohio (3), Indiana (3), North Dakota (3), Missouri (2, with 1 of the 5 worst), Kansas (2), North Carolina (2), Wisconsin (2), and Arkansas (2). Minnesota was unique in terms of having one of the 10 worst plants, but no second plant among the 50 worst.
[...]
Highlights of the EIP report include the following:

-- Of the top 10 power plant mercury emitters, all but one reported an
increase as compared to 2006.

-- Southern Company's Miller plant, in Jefferson County, Alabama, is
ranked number one in the nation for 2007, reporting nearly a ton of
mercury air pollution in 2007. This represents a nearly 14 percent
increase over the plant's 2006 reported emissions.

-- Texas power plants claim five out of 10 spots among the nation's
highest mercury emitters. Dallas-based Luminant (formerly TXU) has
four plants - Martin Lake, Monticello, Big Brown, and Sandow - ranked
among the nation's top mercury emitters. Together, these four plants
emitted just over two and a half tons of mercury in 2007 - a
staggering 5 percent of the national total.

-- Eight Southern Company plants in Georgia and Alabama are ranked
among the top 50 power plant mercury emitters.

Environmental Integrity Project Senior Attorney Ilan Levin, of the EIP Austin, TX office, said: "When the original Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, the electric utility industry persuaded Congress to not impose strict pollution controls on old power plants, because they would soon be replaced by newer state-of-the-art facilities. Yet despite the industry's promises, many of the nation's oldest and dirtiest power plants continue to operate. Pollution controls that dramatically reduce emissions are widely available, and already being used at many plants. But, until the public and policymakers hold the electric utility industry to its promised cleanup of the nation's oldest and dirtiest power plants, Americans will continue to bear unnecessary health and environmental costs."

Jan Jarrett, president and CEO of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture), said: "Cleaning up our power plant mercury emissions is vital so that women and their children will not be exposed to unacceptable and dangerous levels of toxic mercury and to reduce mercury levels in our fish and waterways. These continued high mercury emissions from Pennsylvania plants clearly demonstrate the need for Pennsylvania's state-specific mercury rule that was adopted in February of 2007. Our rule requires an 80 percent reduction in mercury emissions from power plants by 2010 and a 90 percent reduction by 2015 and does not allow power plants to trade toxic mercury emissions. We hope that we'll see these emissions drop significantly over the next several years."

Cathy DeSoto, PhD, associate professor of psychology, University of Northern Iowa: "It is important to understand where the current scientific debate actually lies. There are no experts who deny that mercury emissions are causing some damage to developing brains and causing drops in IQ - and there is no debate that there is a monetary cost associated with this loss. There is debate within the scientific community about the actual dollar amount associated with the IQ detriments. Furthermore, recent research has specifically documented the type of damage that low levels of mercury exposure cause to developing neurons. This damage occurs even at levels of mercury exposure that would be unlikely to cause harm in an adult; but at levels that a significant portion of the child-bearing population have circulating in their bodies."

National Parks Conservation Association Program Analyst Bart Melton said: "National parks across the U.S. suffer from high concentrations of mercury pollution - a key source of which are coal-fired power plants. At the Great Smoky Mountains, mercury pollution is continually showered over the park, and then works its way up the food chain, threatening the health of park visitors and wildlife. We need to shut off the toxic mercury spigot at coal-fired power plants to keep national park visitors and wildlife healthy."

For links to the full report, the press release and the streaming audio go here.

States Grapple With Realization They Are Among The Dirtiest When It Comes To Mercury

2008-11-21T15:43:00.003-06:00

As we reported yesterday the new EIP report had bad news for the nation and bad news for some individual states.

Arkansas - from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Based on emissions at two of its three coal-fired power plants, Arkansas is among the nation’s “dirty dozen” states when it comes to mercury pollution, says a group founded by a former Environmental Protection Agency official.
[...]
According to a project report issued Thursday, Independence ranked 30 th nationwide in total pounds of mercury emissions in 2007, belching 596 pounds of the toxic metal into the air. That’s a 16. 3 percent increase over its emissions in 2006. The White Bluff facility ranked 43 rd nationally with 518 pounds of emissions — down 6. 6 percent since 2006, the report states.

SWEPCO’s Flint Creek plant near Gentry was not listed among the top 50.

Independence and White Bluff are both Entergy plants and James Thompson defended Entergy's environmental efforts. Some excerpts from the Arkansas News Bureau follow;

Entergy Arkansas spokesman James Thompson acknowledged the listing but said both plants were operating within federal and state emission limits, at levels that do not pose significant health hazards.

Thompson said Entergy was the first utility in the nation to voluntarily stabilize greenhouse gas emissions in 2000 and has committed to do so through 2010. Also, he said Entergy is among the top 10 cleanest electricity generators with its balance of sources, including 80 percent from its nuclear power plant near Russellville.

"We've done everything that's been asked of us plus more from a voluntary standpoint in cutting the emissions," Thompson said.

"We can't simply eliminate the use of fossil fuels to produce electricity - coal here in Arkansas accounts for about 20 percent of our generation," he said. "But we maintain a balance between reliability, cost and environmental concerns. We're doing what we can do and what we are being told to do by both federal and state regulators."

Alabama - from The Birmingham News

Alabama Power's coal-fired plant in west Jefferson County released more mercury into the air in 2007 than any other power plant in the country, according to a report released Thursday by the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project.

And the company's Shelby County plant ranked No. 8 nationally in mercury emissions for 2007, according to EIP's study of emissions information in the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory report.

Alabama Power spokesman Michael Sznajderman said scrubbers being installed at all of the company's coal-fired plants will significantly reduce those emissions in the coming years.

New EIP Report Shows Very Little Progress In Mercury Emissions, In Fact We Are Going The Wrong Way

2008-11-19T15:08:00.008-06:00

The new Environmental Integrity Project report shows most of the 50 dirtiest coal fired EGUs have actually increased emissions since 2006. The full report will be broadcast live on a two way teleconference at 1:00PM ET.

Some highlights of the report include the "Dirty Dozen", the 12 states generating the most mercury emissions. They are Texas, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Kansas, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

An excerpt from a MarketWatch article follows with more details of how to join the conference call or listen to a streaming audio replay.

Deadly mercury pollution levels have actually risen since 2006 at the majority of the 50 worst coal-fired power plants in the United States, according to a major new report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).

The report rates the power plants both in terms of sheer mercury pollution and mercury pollution adjusted per kilowatt. [...] The worst plant was found in Alabama. Texas accounts for five of the 10 dirtiest plants in terms of mercury emissions.
[...]
The EIP report discusses ways in which mercury removal is achievable. It also points out how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has backed off from strict power plant mercury regulation in the past several years.

News event speakers will be: Environmental Integrity Project Counsel Ilan Levin, of the Austin, TX office; Jan Jarrett, president and CEO of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture); and a representative of the Southern Environmental Law Center, which operates in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1 p.m. ET on November 20, 2008 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the "EIP mercury report" news event.

CAN'T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.environmentalintegrity.org as of 6 p.m. ET on November 20, 2008.

Bush Requests SCOTUS Review of CAMR

2008-10-22T13:32:00.003-06:00

Why am I surprised by this? I should have seen it coming. But all my common sense told me not even 'W' would try for a Hail Mary of this magnitude. Last Friday the Bush administration requested the Supreme Court of the United States to consider hearing arguments to overturn the unanimous US Circuit Court of Appeals vacatur of the Clean Air Mercury Rule.

No one really expects this strategy to do anything but delay future more meaningful attempts at regulating mercury emissions from coal fired power plants. The Clean Air Act is pretty specific in its intentions, and waving mercury as a hazardous pollutant is not one of them. Several attempts to fight this request will be mounted to force EPA and Congress to simply get on with legal regulation of a hazardous toxin.

A brief article and audio broadcast from Pat Bradley at WMAC - Northeast Public Radio has more.

Wisconsin Finalizes 90% Reduction Rule; Univ. of Michigan Researchers Discover Mercury Fingerprinting Technique

2008-10-10T13:45:00.002-06:00

Wisconsin
The State of Wisconsin, known as a haven for fishermen, has taken steps to see that that reputation remains intact. They become one of only a handful of States to pass tough mercury legislation requiring a 90% reduction in mercury emissions by 2015. A state regulation proposed by the Natural Resources Board will go into effect January 1, 2009.

Some excerpts from a Capital Times article follow;

The rule will require a reduction in the amount of mercury sent into the environment by coal-powered power plants by 90 percent by 2015. Coal plants are a major producer of the toxic substance.

Under the rule, those plants also have an option of moving the full mercury reduction target back to 2021 if sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are reduced before then.

"DNR Secretary (Matt) Frank can sign the rule Tuesday morning, and it will be delivered immediately to the Legislative Reference Bureau for publication. It would likely be effective December 1, and January 1 at the latest, depending on when it is published," said Paul Heinen of the Department of Natural Resources.
[...]
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, declared victory after a long fight to cut down on mercury emissions. He first filed a legal petition for rules to limit mercury emissions in May 2000, along with 12 environmental and fishing groups.

"Today is a great day for those of us who love the outdoors, especially all the residents and visitors to Wisconsin who love to fish or to eat fish," Black said. "Almost every lake in Wisconsin is under warning for mercury pollution. This rule will ... help to clean up our valuable water resources."
[...]
"Governor Doyle promised to work for a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions, and he has kept that commitment," Black said. "
[...]
Business organizations including Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Wisconsin Utility Investors and the Wisconsin Paper Council tried unsuccessfully to obtain a court order blocking the rule before the board acted, saying the DNR did not adequately define the scope of the rule. A Dane County Circuit Court judge dismissed the lawsuit.

U of M Mercury Fingerprinting
Excerpts from an article from PhysOrg.com summarizes as follows;

Oct 8, 2008 - (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Michigan researchers have developed a new tool that uses natural "fingerprints" in coal to track down sources of mercury polluting the environment. The research is published in today's online issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
[...]
"There has been a lot of controversy about how much mercury is coming from different types of industrial activities, compared to natural sources, but it has been difficult to figure out the relative contributions," said co-author Joel Blum, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Geological Sciences and a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. "And even if you can determine how much of it is coming from natural versus human sources, there's still the question of how much is from global sources, such as coal-fired power plants overseas, and how much is being produced and deposited locally."
[...]
"For some time, we weren't sure that it was going to be technically possible, but now we've cracked that nut and have shown significant differences not only between mercury from coal and, say, metallic forms of mercury that are used in industry, but also between different coal deposits," Blum said.

The fingerprinting technique relies on a natural phenomenon called isotopic fractionation, in which different isotopes (atoms with different numbers of neutrons) of mercury react to form new compounds at slightly different rates. In one type of isotopic fractionation, mass-dependent fractionation (MDF), the differing rates depend on the masses of the isotopes. In mass-independent fractionation (MIF), the behavior of the isotopes depends not on their absolute masses but on whether their masses are odd or even. Combining mass-dependent and mass-independent isotope signals, the researchers created a powerful fingerprinting tool.

Previously, Blum and coworkers investigated the possibility of using the method to identify sources of mercury contamination in fish. The coal project was more challenging because of the difficulty of extracting and concentrating mercury from coal. The researchers developed a system that slowly burns the coal under controlled conditions in a series of furnaces and then traps the mercury that is released.

More work is needed to perfect the fingerprinting technique, but Blum envisions using it in a number of ways to track mercury and assess its environmental effects.
[...]
"Scientists have models and other ways of estimating how much mercury will be deposited locally, but we may, for the first time, be able to directly differentiate between mercury coming from local plants and mercury that has been transported longer distances."

In a project already underway, Blum's research group hopes to pinpoint which of the many mercury sources in the San Francisco Bay area are contributing most to the contamination of fish and wildlife.

"We don't know whether particular sources of mercury are more biologically available than others and thus more likely to accumulate in animals," Blum said. "If we can figure that out, then we can help local agencies decide where efforts will be most productive in terms of preventing wildlife from being exposed to mercury."
[...]
Blum's coauthors on the Environmental Science & Technology paper are two former postdoctoral fellows, Abir Biswas and Bridget Bergquist; Gerald Keeler, director of the U-M Air Quality Laboratory; and Zhouqing Xie of the University of Science and Technology of China. The researchers received funding from the National Science Foundation, the University of Michigan and Sigma Xi.

Maybe someday we will be able to tell exactly which plant is responsible for which local mercury pollution. Many plants burn coal from the same geologic deposit like the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming. But by refining and improving this technique, adding source spiking for instance, who knows how specific the detection methods will become.

US and EU Both Move Forward with Laws Banning Future Exports of Mercury

2008-10-02T09:33:00.004-06:00

Last week both the US Congress and the EU Ministers adopted regulations banning the export of mercury. The US version, if signed by President Bush, as expected, would go into effect in 2013, while the EU ban kicks in earlier in 2011. Both measures have been in the works for some time now. The US Senate version was introduced by Senators Obama (D-IL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and a House companion version was proposed by Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME), both in 2007. An excerpt from an article on All American Patriots website follows;

"I applaud Congress' overwhelming bipartisan passage of this important bill, which will protect millions of the world's vulnerable citizens, particularly pregnant women and children, from the deadly threat of mercury poisoning," said Senator Obama. "We know that mercury can cause serious developmental problems in children and problems affecting vision, motor skills, blood pressure, and fertility in adults. While the United States has improved its efforts to collect and contain mercury, this country remains one of the leading exporters of this dangerous product. Protecting Americans from the dangers of mercury has been one of my top priorities, and I am proud this bill will now remove a significant portion of mercury from the global market. This bill also represents an important agreement between industry and environmental groups towards that goal. I urge the President to immediately sign this bill into law."
[...]
The Mercury Export Ban Act will:

-Prohibit the commercial export of elemental mercury from the United States in 2013.
-Prohibit the commercial sale or transfer of federal mercury stockpiles held by the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense for any purpose except for transfer into permanent storage.
-Provide for permanent storage of collected mercury by the Department of Energy.

This legislation is supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Council of the States, American Chemistry Council, the National Mining Association, and the Chlorine Institute.

An important issue also covered in the Bill was noted in an article in the Chicago Tribune;

Under pressure from Obama and a handful of other senators, the Energy Department last year agreed to keep its own 1,300-ton stockpile of mercury off the market. The metal once was used to process material for hydrogen bombs.

Meanwhile, EU ministers have been following a mercury strategy since 2005, this measure is the latest embodiment of that strategy. An article on Health & Environment Alliance's website has more.

The Blog, The Great Beyond also picked up on this story and had more insights, an excerpt of which follows;

Europe is the largest exporter of the substance, and concerns about moving mercury prompted the EU to introduce its ban, to both reduce mercury pollution and set an example to the rest of the world. It seems to have worked. The US, also a major exporter, has followed suit and will now have its internal stockpiles safely stored. The EU also plans to lower contamination levels by supply and demand, and protecting the population against exposure.

While all this seems good, and it is, one thing that is unclear is whether shipments within the EU and US will be stopped. Trying to keep the toxin out of the hands of small gold mining operations in third world countries seems to be the focus, but eliminating, (or at least severely limiting and regulating) its use worldwide would be better.

Wayward EPA Seeks More Time, Contemplates Supreme Court Appeal of CAMR

2008-09-09T09:37:00.005-06:00

Talk about dragging out the inevitable, the EPA has requested a second extension of the deadline to appeal to SCOTUS the D.C. Circuit Courts unanimous decision to vacate the CAMR. The D.C. Circuit Court even denied EPA a chance to have it's ruling reviewed. The problems with CAMR were so clear that to pursue this further via appeal is certainly only a delay tactic. Some excerpts from an article in Energy & Environment News (subscription req'd) elaborate below;

For the second time in a month, the Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court for more time to decide whether to appeal a decision by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that struck down a controversial cap-and-trade program for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Acting Solicitor General Greg Garre asked the court to extend its deadline until Oct. 17, a full two months from the date by which a writ of certiorari would normally be required. Garre said the additional time "is needed to complete consultation" with U.S. EPA over a number of recent legal setbacks relating to the agency's Clean Air Mercury Rule.

Chief Justice John Roberts already approved the initial request, pushing the date from Aug. 17 to Sept. 18.
[...]
Last March, the same court that struck down the mercury rule agreed that EPA violated the Clean Air Act by exempting coal- and oil-fired power plants from a list of industries subject to regulation of hazardous air pollutants under Section 112 of the act.

EPA in 2000 included power plants on its list of regulated industries under Section 112 but then reversed itself in 2005, saying it was neither "appropriate or necessary" to include power plants on the source list because the power sector's emissions were subject to other statutes that achieved the same or greater public health benefits.

On the heels of that March 2005 decision, EPA announced its new mercury control program for power plants, drawing upon the largely successful 1990s cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide, which had helped reduce acid rain pollution in the Northeast.
[...]
With the D.C. Circuit's rejection of both CAMR and the Section 112 delisting, EPA now must figure out how to retool its mercury control program within the more narrow confines of the law and, as Garre wrote, "to assess the legal and practical impact of the [D.C. Circuit] court's ruling."

But critics of EPA's regulatory approaches say the request for more time amounts to little more than a stalling tactic. "They need more time because they need more time," John Walke, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the latest application.

This most recent action highlights the wayward nature of the Bush EPA. The politicization of the Agency has long been discussed in oversight hearings on Capital Hill and in the press. An insightful article by Jori Lewis on emagazine.com summarizes some of the more egregious attempts by this off course and out of control agency to hijack the public will in favor of industrial interests and polluters. The mercury rule portion of the article is shown below. The full article can and should be read here.

"What has been most remarkable,” says Vickie Patton, the deputy general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, “is the extent to which the judiciary has provided a very unmistakable check on the EPA’s policies, [policies] that have really strained the nation’s clean air laws in ways that Congress never intended.”

Take the mercury emissions case. Mercury is a persistent neurotoxin that can find its way from fish to humans, where it can cause myriad health problems. Regulations under the Clean Air Act mandated stringent controls—some would have reduced mercury emissions by 90%. In 2005, the EPA passed a regulation that would require coal-fired power plants to reduce emissions by only 70% and use a cap-and-trade system that would allow cleaner plants to trade unused emissions.

“These rules came right out of the White House,” says Dr. Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). She says that EPA scientists were told to come up with the data to justify such a change in policy. “Their own inspector general at the EPA found that EPA scientists were pressured to change their analyses and their findings to agree with a predetermined value for a national cap on mercury emissions.”

A federal court ruled in February that the new rules don’t go as far they should to protect the public from mercury.

Grifo says this is an egregious example, but one that is hardly unique in Bush’s EPA. There have been tales of suppressed research; of reports kept in draft form so they don’t have to be released to the public; and of political retaliation for those who stray off message. Read more.

Thank you emagazine and Jori for a reminder of what has been going on in our EPA.

Anishinabek and Other Indigenous People Still Dealing With Life In A Mercury Polluted Habitat

2008-08-15T15:29:00.004-06:00

It was over a year ago I first brought to light the plight of the Anishinabek of the Gitchi Gami and their struggle with Canadian Government over mercury pollution on their lands. There has recently been published an update to this tragic situation without a lot of good news to add.

The culprit in this case appears to be Dryden Chemicals Limited and now their parent company Reed, Inc. A near decade of raw releases into the English-Wabigoon River have contaminated a large area covering many indigenous peoples' land. These people deserve to be treated better than we have done so far.

Stories like these should be used as warnings to us that uncontrolled mercury contamination can cause real harm. Yes, these releases were massive and directly into the water and today's EGUs and cement plants release mercury into the air over longer periods of time. But mercury and its long-lasting properties could make these sorts of catastrophic events more common and not so hard to imagine if we do not slow the build-up of this toxin in our waters.

An excerpt from the story is below.

In a message posted on the Friends of Anishinabek of the Gitchi Gami website, John H.W. Hummel, a pollution researcher based in British Colombia, explains that “when mercury or lead levels of 5 ppb to 6 ppb are found in the brain, 25 per cent of the glial progenitor stem cells simply ’shut down’! These particular brain cells are absolutely crucial for building the brain during infancy and beyond. This type of brain cell is also found in adults.”

Hummel believes that the thousands of Indigenous who have been ignored by the government should embark on a class-action lawsuit and has contacted Tony Merchant, from Merchant Law Group. Based in Saskatchewan, Mr. Merchant is the lawyer behind the recent compensation settlement for residential-school victims.

In his reply to Hummel, Merchant said he does not believe anything can be done for Grassy Narrows because of the 1985 settlement, however, “If there are identifiable mercury issues elsewhere” then such a lawsuit is a possibility. “We are prepared to pursue this issue,” Merchant says. “We are prepared to fund the battle which includes a battle regarding experts. If there are projects that we might undertake we will undertake them.”

The Mad as a Hatter story is found here. And a reprint of the story with more links for reference is here.

Obama Leads Bipartisan Legislation For Mercury Export Ban, S. 906

2008-07-31T15:33:00.005-06:00

Last November Hg-ATME had a post about House Bill 1534, a bill proposed by Rep. Tom Allen D-Maine that would ban all exports of toxic mercury from the United States. The bill was nearly unanimously received and passed on a voice vote (no roll call required). At that same time Sens. Barak Obama, D-IL and and Lisa Murkowski R-AK were floating a similar bill through the Senate. At the time, the Whitehouse said it would not support the bipartisan legislation. Now almost a year later we have a marked-up version (S. 906, The Mercury Market Minimization Act) of the two bills that everyone has agreed on.

An excerpt from The Earth Times follows;

"Trading mercury is not like trading potato chips," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. "While we spend millions of dollars in the U.S. collecting mercury, ironically it is then sold overseas and used in highly dispersive and dangerous ways, such as in small scale gold mining. Released from these practices, it circulates in the global environment and ends up in the fish that Americans eat."

The free trade of mercury and mercury compounds on the world market, at relatively low prices and in ready supply, encourages the continued use of mercury outside of the U.S.

"We applaud Senator Barak Obama's leadership on this bipartisan legislation," said Bender. "We've got to stop this circle of poison, where for example over 1000 tons of mercury are used annually by more than 10 million small scale gold miners in 50 developing countries, exposing themselves, their families and the local and global environment to this deadly neurotoxin."
[...]
While similar versions of the bill were introduced in the House (H.R. 1534) by Tom Allen (D-ME), and Senate (S.906) by Senators Obama (D-IL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the groups are urging passage of the substitute House-passed version, since it was the subject of subsequent negotiation and compromise, and more accurately reflects the current state of development on this issue.

Lets hope that the President has enough sense at this time to support it.

10 Years, What's the Rush

2008-07-23T15:39:00.007-06:00

Cement kilns across the country are spewing mercury emissions at twice the rate EPA estimated, as recently as 2006. Ten years ago Congress compelled EPA to regulate and reduce these cement kiln emissions, and EPA has pretty much ignored the request. In a recently released study conducted by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project it is revealed that cement kilns are emitting more than twice the mercury EPA estimated.

An excerpt from a MarketWatch article below;

EPA Ignored Problem For 10+ Years Even Though Some Kilns Emit More Mercury Than Power Plants; Report Focuses on Cement Kilns in AL, CA, IA, IL, MD, MI, MT, NY, OR, SC, TX and WA.

For more than a decade after Congress told it to curb dangerous mercury pollution from cement kilns across the nation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refused to take action. Now, a new study from Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) documents the consequences of the EPA's failure: Cement kilns emit mercury pollution -- a threat to the health of pregnant women and children -- at more than twice the level estimated as recently as 2006 by the EPA, which only started to collect data on the problem in 2007.
[...]
Entitled "Cementing a Toxic Legacy? How EPA Has Failed to Control Mercury Pollution From Cement Kilns," the Earthjustice/EIP report outlines specific recommendations for EPA and state agency action based on the following key conclusions:

-- Mercury emissions from cement kilns are almost twice as high as the agency has previously acknowledged, and in many states kilns are among the worst mercury polluters. EPA now estimates that cement kilns emit nearly 23,000 pounds of mercury each year, far more than the Agency's 2006 estimate of 11,995 pounds.

-- A relatively small number of cement plants that use extremely dirty raw materials and fuels are among the worst mercury polluters in their states and, in some cases, in the country. For example, some cement kilns release as much or more mercury as coal fired power plants.

-- Since 1974, cement production has increased 15 percent, and further increases are projected for the future. Rising levels of cement production in the U.S. mean that the cement industry's mercury pollution will grow even worse if left unregulated.

Earthjustice staff attorney James Pew said: "EPA's new data confirm that cement plants are among the worst mercury polluters in this country. EPA has refused to acknowledge this problem for more than a decade, and the mercury contamination in our food and waters has grown worse every year as a result. It is high time for EPA to do its job and make this industry clean up its toxic emissions."

The 23,000 pounds, or 11.5 tons, is roughly one quarter of the estimated mercury emissions from all coal fired EGUs in the country (48 Tons). What I find amusing is, many of the cement plants use EGU flyash in their product, thus emitting some of the mercury (trapped in the flyash) that was captured by the air pollution control devices at the power plant. So we play an industrial game of catch and release.

First CAMR, Now CAIR - The EPA Leaves Us Unprotected Again

2008-07-11T12:49:00.002-06:00

Just as the Clean Air Mercury Rule or CAMR was vacated by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals back in February, the Clean Air Interstate Rule has bitten the dust. Everyone knew CAMR was flawed establishing a cap-and-trade system to handle a toxin, and excusing EGUs from HAPs legislation, but most people, environmentalists included felt the CAIR had merit and was a program on the right track. Problem is the EPA didn't follow the correct procedure for rule-making of this kind.

In a statement by Eric Schaeffer of the Environmental Integrity Project carried by PRNewswire-USNewswire and printed on MarketWatch.com;

"Today, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), which would have required significant reductions of sulfur dioxide and other pollutants in eastern states. The CAIR rule would have established an emissions trading program, which the court found to be illegal because it failed to require each state to analyze its own contribution to poor air quality: 'The trading program is unlawful, because it does not connect state emission reductions to any measure of their own significant contributions.'

"The court's decision will leave millions of Americans exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution from dirty power plants while the Agency goes back to the drawing board to redraft emission standards. For seven years, the Bush Administration has tried to weaken or eliminate Clean Air Act emission standards for power plants and other industries, while promising that its CAIR rule would make up the difference. That promise has proved to be hollow. The DC Circuit's decision today is only the latest in a series of rulings that have roundly rejected the Bush Administration's creative interpretations of the Clean Air Act.

"As of today, EPA is still toiling away to weaken air quality standards for national parks, and to make it easier for the oldest and dirtiest power plants to increase emissions without pollution controls. Elimination of the CAIR rule makes it even more important for Congress to step in and stop these rollbacks. Since this Administration has proved incapable of reading or following the law, Congress and the next President will have to write the standards that we need to protect the public health from air pollution."

The CAIR had the potential to be very, very beneficial to the public welfare, especially in the eastern half of the country. While EPA got its hands slapped in the CAMR case for not doing enough, this rebuke, in the eyes of the judges, says EPA went too far, or interpreted its authority to write rules beyond the scope of their actual power. It is too bad in this case because the rule was not that bad. But EPA has stringent criteria they must follow to create rules and cutting corners is not going to fly. A brief piece from Grist.org and the AP says it well;

Court strikes down clean-air rule that would actually clean air

One of the rare Bush administration clean-air policies favored by enviros has been struck down by a federal appeals court. The Clean Air Interstate Rule would have required 28 Eastern states to reduce soot-causing, smog-forming emissions that easily spread on the wind. The U.S. EPA estimated that the rule would prevent 17,000 premature deaths per year, tens of thousands of nonfatal heart attacks, millions of lost work and school days, and up to $100 billion in health-care costs. But ruling in favor of electric-power producers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the EPA overstepped its authority in instituting the rule and that the regulation contained "more than several fatal flaws." Says Frank O'Donnell of advocacy group Clean Air Watch, "This is without a doubt the worst news of the year when it comes to air pollution."

Sometimes you just can't win for losing.

Wisconsin Judge Clears Way for DNR's Mercury Emissions Plans

2008-06-24T14:28:00.003-06:00

A Dane County Circuit Judge, Stephen Ebert, agreed with the DNR and rejected a lawsuit by business interests that tried to stop them. Although some environmentalists like Mark Redstein of Clean Wisconsin cheer the ruling, others are less so enthusiastic thinking it doesn't go far enough fast enough. The business groups may appeal the ruling too, so, in true compromise fashion the fact that most parties are upset by some portion of the plan, it is probably a pretty good plan.

Some excerpts from local media outlets and Forbes follow;

From WRN.com;
The Dane County Circuit Court Monday dismissed a lawsuit meant to block the DNR's rules on limiting mercury emissions from coal burning power plants. The challenge was brought by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the Wisconsin Utility Investors and the Wisconsin Paper Council. The court rejected the groups' claim that the DNR did not perform the proper economic "scope" of the proposal.

Mark Redstein, Executive Director of Clean Wisconsin, applauds the ruling.

"We believe its time state takes on the important work of reducing mercury pollution."

From WKOWTV.com;
Mercury pollutes our air and water, threatening our health and a Wisconsin fishing tradition," Redsten said. "When technologies exist to reduce mercury pollution, we must hold utilities accountable and ensure they do everything within their power to protect our environment and our health."

The DNR proposal would require coal-fired power plants to reduce mercury emissions by following one of two paths. Operators of such plants could choose between reducing mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2015 or could extend that deadline until 2021 by agreeing to more stringent limits on nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, which increase the methylization of mercury, making it more toxic to people, fish and wildlife.

And from Forbes.com;
Businesses that filed the lawsuit include Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the Wisconsin Utility Investors and the Wisconsin Paper Council.

They are considering appealing Monday's decision or fighting the rules once they are approved, attorney Dennis Birke said.

He argued Monday that the rule-making process should stop until the so-called "scope statement" is done.

The judge said businesses could have asked for the scope statement in 2005 when a rule change dealing with mercury emissions was considered.

"Choosing not to is akin to betting on the wrong horse," Ebert said.

Assistant Attorney General Diane Milligan argued the lawsuit was premature.

"The rule making process is far from over," she said, noting that the rule up for a vote Wednesday also must clear a legislative hearing process.

Opponents of the rules have raised concerns about their cost, the ability to comply within the time required and the fact that they would be more restrictive than federal law.

The DNR estimates that the new restrictions could cost $38 million to $91 million annually. That, in turn, could trigger consumer rate increases of up to 2 percent, according to a state Public Service Commission estimate.

Some environmental groups, doctors and health care workers have argued that the rules are too lenient and give utilities too much time to reduce emissions that they say threaten people's health now.

The DNR stands by the proposal.
[...]
The agency adopted rules four years ago that required Alliant Energy, Dairyland Power Cooperative, We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. to cut mercury emissions by 75 percent by 2015. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle ordered the agency to step that up to 90 percent by 2018 during his re-election campaign in 2006.

Other utilities that would be covered under the new rules include Wisconsin Power & Light, Madison Gas & Electric Co., Manitowoc Public Utilities, Northern States Power Wisconsin and Mid-American Energy Co.

With CAMR Dead What Is There to Post On?

2008-06-11T10:05:00.003-06:00

Well, the world of mercury emission regulations has been put on hold for a while. Everyone remotely involved in this subject, myself included, doubts very much if the EPA will appeal their loss in the Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court. It just does not make any sense, and for that reason alone it still may happen.

Short that possibility the Federal Clean Air Mercury Rule is dead. This leaves everyone with a stake in the issue a lack of direction, or maybe more correctly, a lack of urgency. The mere fact that CAMR was ruled illegal does set some direction. It is clear what the law (The Clean Air Act) does require and a MACT standard for mercury for coal fired EGUs will be forthcoming. But when that will happen, and what it will entail as far as reduction targets, monitoring, compliance timetables and such is left only for speculation.

I will try to stay on top of the debate and keep all of you posted as to the rumblings and grumblings when and if they happen. Meanwhile some immediate fallout from the vacatur is already upon us.

North Carolina Demands MACT for Cliffside
The Division of Air Quality in N.C. has reconsidered the permit they approved for Duke Energy and asked Duke to resubmit with maximum achievable control technologies for hazardous air pollutants including mercury. An excerpt from Asheville, NC's Citizen Times follows;

The division granted Duke an air quality permit in January for a new 800-megawatt boiler at its Cliffside Steam Station near Forest City.

After the division issued the permit, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned the federal Clean Air Mercury Rule, concluding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency acted inappropriately in exempting coal-fired power plants from portions of the Clean Air Act that deal with the control of hazardous air pollutants.

The court's decision means that all new coal-fired plants must demonstrate that they use the most stringent controls for mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.

EPA Moves to Increase Allowed Fugitive Mercury Emissions from Chlor-Alkali Plants
I am not an expert on fugitive emissions and I don't know that increasing them from the few chlor-alkali plants still in existence is a big deal or not. It is my underastanding that the real issue with the outdated chlor-alkali process, that uses lots of mercury unnecessarily, is the effluent streams that immediately pollute the waters in the rivers nearby. Yes, the fugitive emissions are airborne and will add to the problem but they appear to be less significant, I could be wrong. But what I am not wrong about is that all chlor-alkali plants using the old mercury cell technology should be converted to be mercury free. Then there are no mercury laden effluents and no fugitive emissions to worry about.

More than a hundred of these plants have already converted or are in the process of doing so. Why do these four or five remaining plants hold on to the old technology so tightly. Yes, it is an expense to convert, and there may be a lengthy return on investment for the conversion, but undoubtedly ownership and management should be concerned with their neighbors and employees enough to go forward and change. Not doing so is a slap in the face of their surrounding communities and an admission that dollars are more important than lives.

An excerpt from a post on the Georgia Public Broadcasting blog, Georgia News GPB, follows;

A federal agency is proposing a new emissions standard for companies that make chlorine using mercury.

The new standard would release more mercury into the air.

Olin Corporation in Augusta uses mercury in its chlorine production. It's one of five in the nation that still do.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to raise the percentage of mercury, called fugitive emissions, it allows companies to release into the air from the cell room where the chlorine is produced.
[...]
"It's another demonstration of the EPA allowing Olin to continue to pollute the Augusta area," says Tonya Bonitatibus, a field representative for the environmental watchdog group Oceana. She says the group is still studying the proposed rule but opposes the higher emissions.

David Blair, the plant manager at Olin in Augusta, declined to comment on the proposed rule, but did respond to the emissions issue in a written statement. "We've invested millions of dollars in technology and workplace practices during recent years," he said. "We already have in place a system that continuously monitors emissions at the cell room."

Blair said the company had reduced its emissions by more than 85 percent by 2007.

A link to the Proposed Rule is here.

EPA Denied A Rehearing En Banc by DC Circuit Court of Appeals

2008-05-21T12:38:00.002-06:00

The folks at Turtle Talk have a good posting on this denial. Excerpt follows;

Environmentalists, however, doubt that the government will appeal the ruling to the high court, but leave open the option that industry may. “I would be astounded if the Solicitor General’s office walked this dog up to the Supreme Court’s steps to soil those grounds. The utility industry on the other hand follows different public health practices,” John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a May 20 statement.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit May 20 denied EPA’s petition for a rehearing en banc of the Feb. 8 ruling in State of New Jersey, et al., v. EPA that struck down the agency’s rule to establish a cap-and-trade scheme for reducing mercury emissions. The court also rejected a March 24 request by the Utility Air Regulatory Group — which represents electric generating companies — for a full panel rehearing.

The full post can be read here.

Developing Story - DC Circuit Court Denies Rehearing The Case - As Far As They Are Concerned CAMR Is Dead

2008-05-21T07:45:00.004-06:00

The news reports are a little sketchy right now but it appears the US Circuit Court of Appeals has told the DOJ that their appeal for an en banc rehearing of the CAMR decision on behalf of the EPA has been denied. I will get more details as they become available. This leaves the stubborn EPA only one last resort, The Supreme Court of the United States. It is that or get on with MACT. I think everyone involved, the courts, the power companies, the public, everyone would just as soon get it settled. MACT is not that bad and delay will only make it worse, as the delay over the last couple years has.

More to follow.

Senate Holds Hearings on Mercury Emissions - S. 2643 The Mercury Emissions Control Act Takes The Stage

2008-05-15T09:33:00.006-06:00

Taken from Talk Radio News the following excerpt;

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing to discuss various pieces of legislation pertaining to the proliferation of mercury in the environment and in exports. Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) could not be present, so Sen. Tom Carper conducted the hearing in her place. Carper said that “one in 17 women of childbearing age have mercury in their blood at levels that could pose a risk to their unborn children,” emphasizing that these groups are most at risk for health threats.

The senators discussed the merits of various mercury legislation including the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), which Carper said was “flawed” and “did not go far enough to protect the health of America’s vulnerable populations.” He advocated instead the Mercury Emissions Control Act, which “would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue a new, stronger rule to control mercury emissions from power plants, as required by the Clean Air Act.”

And this from FedCenter.gov;

A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to promulgate regulations to control hazardous air pollutant emissions from electric utility steam generating units; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works (Congressional Record: February 14, 2008 [Senate], Page S1054). Text of the Bill is available here.

Sierra Club Pushes MACT In Mother’s Day Campaign Against EGUs, While States “Pare Back” Resolutions On GHG and Mercury

2008-05-08T07:49:00.006-06:00

The Club
The Sierra Club has initiated a coordinated push, just before Mother’s Day, to get all new coal fired EGU permits reviewed to take into account the vacated CAMR, the subsequent mandate, and the resulting MACT hammer required by Section 112 of the Clean Air Act. While the EPA and UARG have asked the DC Appeals Court to reconsider their earlier vacatur, it is unlikely that the ruling will be changed. All we are left with is another delay and the uncertainty that brings. But it seems inevitable that a mercury MACT will become law at some point soon and now is the time to insure new plants meet that standard. A pop from YubaNet.com on this subject;

Just days before Mother's Day, the Sierra Club today is launching a massive, multi-state effort to educate the public about the dangers of mercury pollution, and ensure that all new coal-fired power plants employ modern mercury pollution controls.
[…]
"We want to give moms across the country some peace of mind this Mother's Day," said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign. "That's why we're taking action today to ensure that these coal plants make every effort to keep their toxic mercury pollution out of our communities."

And some more excerpts from a Reuters article describing the Sierra Club actions follow;

The Sierra Club sent letters on Tuesday threatening to file suit to stop construction of eight coal-fired power plants in six states because, the environmental group claims, they violate the Clean Air Act.

"This is the first major ramification on the ground from the (Washington) D.C. circuit kicking out the Bush administration's rules in February," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's effort to stop coal power plants.

In February, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act in not setting mandatory cuts for mercury emissions of power plants.

The suits would be filed in the federal districts where the proposed power plants would be located, Nilles said. The suits would seek to require the plants to go back to state permitting agencies for new permits that meet the tougher emission standards, Nilles said.
[…]
About 30 coal-fired plants may be affected by the Sierra Club suits, Nilles said.
Owners of three plants under construction have already been notified of the intent to sue by the Sierra Club – Entergy […] for a plant in Louisiana, Peabody Energy […] for a plant in Kentucky, and Louisiana Generating, a unit of NRG Energy, […] for a plant in Louisiana.

Another eight letters were sent on Tuesday, for plants in Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas and Wyoming, the Sierra Club said. Among the plants involved are Duke Energy's […] Cliffside plant in North Carolina and Energy Future Holdings, formerly TXU Corp, for its proposed Oak Grove plant in Texas.

The Sierra Club said it is considering whether to send intent to sue letters to owners of a dozen more plants in Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, Wyoming, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

The coordinated effort extended to other plants as well. Sierra Club joined up with GreenLaw and Friends of the Chattahoochie to begin the process to sue Dynegy and LS Power over their planned 1,200 megawatt Longleaf Energy Station in Georgia. From the Atlanta Business Chronicle the following excerpts;

Three environmental groups plan to sue Dynegy and LS Power over potential mercury emissions at the first coal-fired power plant to be built in 20 years in Georgia. Sierra Club, GreenLaw and Friends of the Chattahoochee said they plan to sue Houston-based Dynegy (NYSE: DYN) and East Brunswick, N.J.-based LS Power, claiming the companies' 1,200-megawatt Longleaf Energy Station near Columbus, Ga., would violate the Clean Air Act for alleged failure to have adequate controls on mercury emissions.
[…]
In January, Administrative Law Judge Stephanie Howells upheld the Georgia Environmental Protection Division's decision to issue an air pollution permit to Longleaf Energy Station. The environmental groups had argued the Dynegy did not adequately restrict health- threatening sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfuric acid mist and total particulate matter emissions.

On Tuesday, Sierra Club, Friends of the Chattahoochee and GreenLaw, reported that in another court action, they have challenged the air pollution permit. The case is now before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore and is expected to be heard this summer.

The States

Meanwhile the states, left to their own to figure out how to move forward in a vacuum of mercury guidance from EPA held their Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) meeting in New Orleans in mid April. Without a definitive word from the Feds on either GHG legislation or mercury legislation the states were left to duke it out amongst themselves as to what they would resolve on these issues. I will focus my discussion on the mercury debate, while the GHG argument took on much the same tone.

There was little agreement on whether to approve the earlier resolution on mercury. Some highlights from the Subscription Only Inside EPA’s Clean Air Report follows;

… states also disputed a resolution that as originally written urged EPA to issue a maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standard for mercury, in light of the recent federal court ruling vacating EPA’s clean air mercury rule that would have established a cap-and-trade program rather than imposing technology mandates. Many observers say a so-called MACT hammer under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act now requires states to develop a plant-by-plant MACT standard in light of the court rejection of the trading rule.

The original resolution said EPA should develop a MACT standard that considers “the most stringent performance standards already adopted by the states.”

But Oklahoma’s (DEQ Director Steven) Thompson said, “It’s my understanding that under MACT EPA can consider the top 12 percent” of emissions control technologies, not necessarily only “the most stringent.” Ultimately, states agreed to change the language so that the final resolution says EPA should consider performance standards already adopted by states when developing the mercury MACT.

Nevertheless, the idea of using a resolution to call on the issuance of the MACT drew objections from a handful of states. Indiana’s (IDEM Commissioner Thomas) Easterly said the resolution is “premature” because the court has not yet responded to EPA’s request for a rehearing. A motion to table the resolution until ECOS’ annual meeting in September narrowly failed, by a vote of 16 – 17.

An overwhelming majority of states voted in favor of the watered-down final resolution that simply calls on EPA to consider state standards in setting a MACT, though at least three states verbally objected.

Speaking to Inside EPA after the resolution passed, EPA Office of Air & Radiation Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator Robert Meyers said the agency “will certainly look at them and we respect ECOS,” though he said that EPA views such resolutions mostly as “advisory statements.” – Anthony Lacey (Inside EPA Author)

This whole debate just shows how much the country needs leadership and decisions regarding mercury legislation. The power companies know its coming and MACT is not unreasonable by definition. It promotes already existing technology, which as I see it now, is much less expensive than other air pollution control devices already in existence.

Wisconsin Business Groups - "Not So Fast" - File Suit Against DNR Over Mercury Proposal

2008-04-29T15:14:00.003-06:00

It didn't take long for the opposition to step forward. Several WI business groups have filed suit in Dane County Circuit Court seeking a halt to the DNR's recently proposed rules on mercury emissions (see last post below). The DNR, in response to Gov. Jim Doyle's request, floated the proposal to cut mercury emissions 90% by 2015. There were options included to limit SO2 and NOx below federal and state requirements to buy time to meet the mercury limits until 2021. The fact that environmental groups were disappointed it didn't move faster without the loopholes and that industry was concerned it could meet the stated goals, to me meant it was probably a pretty good compromise.

Now it will move to the courts. The groups are not questioning the limits or timetables set forth in the proposal, they are asking the DNR to follow the procedures for rule making. An excerpt from The Capital Times follows;

The organizations -- including the Wisconsin Builders Association, Wisconsin Utility Investors and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce -- filed the lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court Monday.

The lawsuit is not challenging the merit or substance of the proposed rule, the organizations said in a news release. Instead, they are asking the DNR to comply with public notice requirements of the Job Creation Act of 2004.
[...]
"Had the DNR issued an accurate scope statement for this rule, the affected parties would have had the opportunity to request an economic impact report during a 90-day window provided by the law," the news release said.

"The lack of an accurate scope statement has prevented Wisconsin businesses, lawmakers and electric ratepayers from availing themselves of their due process rights to request preparation of this critical economic report."

"We are still analyzing the lawsuit. We have referred it to the Department of Justice and cannot comment at this point," said Laurel Steffes, a spokeswoman for the DNR.

Back From Costa Rica, Let’s Catch Up On What’s Going On In Mercury Emissions

2008-04-25T12:43:00.011-06:00

I just returned from an eleven-day vacation in Costa Rica. It was fantastic! We visited Torteguero, volcanoes Poas & Arenal, Manuel Antonio National Beach and Manzanillo. What an amazing country. I’ll get some photos up here in the near future.

DOJ’s Heart Not In Appeal
According to Inside EPA’s Clean Air Report the DOJ begrudgingly filed the most recent appeal of the DC Circuit Court’s mercury ruling. In fact they use the term “’violent’ DOJ Opposition” in their April 3, 2008 release by Dawn Reeves. The Inside EPA’s Clean Air Report is a subscription only publication. In this article it states, One informed source says DOJ was “violently opposed” to filing an appeal of the CAMR ruling, as were mid-level staff in EPA’s air and general counsel office. “Clearly, someone higher up leaned on them to file,” the source claims.

The UARG filing only asked the three judge panel to reconsider their ruling while the EPA’s request for en banc hearing was, in one source’s opinion, “because they recognize they have zero chance of convincing the original panel.”

And the source says the agency’s request for review uses “strong language,” such as referring to the earlier ruling as “absurd” and “nonsensical” that the source says is highly unusual for a court filing. The source calls this a “reflection of desperation” particularly because the “next administration, whoever it is, is not going to abide by the view.”

The full DC Court could outright reject the appeal, as many think they will. Most of the parties directly involved in the case are not commenting publicly so we will have to wait and see what happens. A last tidbit from the Inside EPA’s article is;

One legal expert says that in order for the court to accept EPA’s request, a majority of the 10 active judges on the court would need to vote in favor of it. “So, if none of the judges on the original panel changes his/her mind, six of the seven remaining judges would have to vote in favor. Seems unlikely,” the source says.

CAMR Vacuum Leaves States In A Lurch
After the CAMR was vacated by the DC Circuit Court and the resulting swift issuance of the mandate, states around the country had no guidance as to how to assess permit applications for new plants or those requiring new permits.

In another article from the April 3, 2008 edition of Inside EPA’s Clean Air Report EPA’s outgoing General Counsel Roger Martella says “the agency is working toward developing guidance for how states should address mercury limits at power plants undergoing the permitting process, in the absence of a federal mercury rule for reducing emissions. The issue is “very much on our minds at EPA,” he said.
[…]
Many state, industry and environmentalist sources have said if the court issued a formal mandate, then the air act’s section 112(g) would apply. That section requires case-by-case reviews of new permits to impose maximum achievable control technology (MACT) requirements to reduce air toxics.

In the article it was also noted that the EPA has not finalized approval of several of the states plans for mercury and Martella said, “it is unclear whether EPA would complete the process of approving pending state mercury plans. “”That’s a good question,” he said.”

Wisconsin Looks To Move Forward
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is pushing forward with its rulemaking regarding mercury emissions from coal fired EGUs. The DNR recently extended the comment period for its proposal until May 5th allowing industry groups and others a better chance to digest the implications and make informed comments. In an article from Madison, WI’s Capital Times;

"While this rulemaking effort has been ongoing within the department for well over a year, most of us have only just recently seen the rule and underlying documentation," they said in a joint letter. The organizations noted that several materials were not available until early March.

They also asked the department to allow sufficient time to consider all comments before the Natural Resources Board makes a decision, which had been set for its meeting on May 28. The board is now expected to consider the matter at its June 25 meeting.
[…]
"The time allowing for comments isn't huge but, on the other hand, we have been debating mercury since 2000 and the technology has improved a lot in that time," said Keith Reopelle, program director for Clean Wisconsin.

The organization also argues that the deadline for emissions reductions should occur sooner than 2015, the rule's deadline for most changes.
[…]
The proposed DNR rule, supported by Gov. Jim Doyle, would require large power plants (with a capacity of 150 megawatts or more) to either reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent or limit the concentration of mercury emissions to 0.0080 pounds of mercury per gigawatt-hour by Jan. 1, 2015.

Large plants could also choose an option of reducing nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide beyond federal and state regulations by 2015, in exchange for reaching the 90 percent mercury emission cut by 2021.

Smaller power plants would have to reduce mercury emissions to a level defined as best available control technology, also by Jan. 1, 2015.

Oceana and Olin Corp Battle Over Hiwassee River Mercury Contamination
At one of the few remaining Chlor-Alkali plants left in the country (over 100 others have already switched away from mercury in their process), Olin Corp. continues to resist the change. The plant boasts millions of dollars spent combating mercury emissions yet remains a holdout when almost every other plant of its type has switched.

Oceana has fought a very successful battle with chlor-alkali plants around the country and has shown many of them that they actually can save operating dollars for years to come after investing in the switch.

Excerpts from the Cleveland Daily Banner follow;

Oceana is dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans. It is actively engaged in urging Olin Corp. to switch from mercury cell technology to non-mercury technology.

Olin Plant Manager Tom Tirabasi said the Olin Chlor Alkali Products Charleston Plant is carefully operated to protect the health of the community, employees and environment.

“The fact remains that if we converted to non-mercury technology even though we meet or do better than all government regulations, we would be forced to dismantle most of the plant and rebuild it, interrupting production and impacting the lives of people in this area. Our commitments to health, environmental performance and continuous improvement already protect this community. That is our top priority.”
[…]
Oceana Marine Scientist Kimberly Warner has specialized in studying mercury pollution the past eight years in her work for Oceana. She said power plants are the largest sources of the neurotoxin, Olin’s Charleston plant is the single largest source in Tennessee.

While she expressed no doubt Olin is a good corporate citizen, she said Wednesday evening during a public forum in the Bradley County Courthouse it only makes sense the company is the culprit.

Warner’s study of the Hiwassee shows mercury levels in river sediments are highest directly below Olin’s outfalls and remain elevated downstream compared to upstream. Small fish do not travel as far as top-feeding fish such as largemouth bass. Mercury levels in small prey fish are highest directly in front of the plant compared to upstream and farther downstream. Levels of mercury in game-sized largemouth bass are highest at sites nearest the plant where they exceed the EPA methylmercury safe level.

It Is Going To Take More Than Minimata To Save Flipper, OPS May Have The Ticket

2008-04-04T14:26:00.007-06:00

This is a bit off my beat, I cover mercury emission regulations, but this story was one I got hooked into earlier with a post "How Minimata May Save Flipper". This follow-up highlights a covert operation by a brave bunch of Conservationists. The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), with some heavy funding by Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape, secretly filmed something I am sure every one of them wish they never saw, and no one else would ever have to see. But without exposing this tragedy it may continue and that is just unacceptable.

A graphic story of the annual Taiji, Japan murders of thousands of dolphins is brought to life in text form in an article by Boyd Harnell (and soon in film form produced by OPS and Directed by Louie Psihoyos). Boyd tells the story about how and why these brave filmmakers risked their lives to capture the horror so others around the world could see for themselves what was going on in the name of fishing. The ironic part is the dolphins are so contaminated with mercury that their own government warns against eating the meat. So this annual dolphin kill continues, I assume, mainly for tradition.

One scary fact is uncovered in the process and that is that many dolphin trainers and others you wouldn't expect to be complicit apparently watch and laugh as the killing goes on and they select dolphins they want to keep for themselves to train. How could they, how could they show so little compassion for an animal from which they make their livings?

The story is pretty much the same on both these sights but the pictures on Nemo's Notes show a little more of the story. Go to Cyber Diver News Network (CDNN) or Nemo's Notes for details. Not for the squeamish.

Monday's CAMR Appeal Catches Everyone By Surprise

2008-03-27T09:28:00.005-06:00

I follow mercury legislation pretty closely. When the three judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) on Feb 8th I asked in my column headline, What's Next? I considered an appeal en banc, asking the full court to rule. I even considered an appeal to the Supreme Court. I speculated that neither appeal would happen because the panel of judges in the initial ruling, a) included judges deemed both pro environment and pro business, b) the ruling was unanimous and swift, and c) the language in the opinion was very strong and critical of the EPA's positions.

It seemed the die was cast, the EPA and the country were going to move toward a MACT standard for mercury. In support of that prognosis the same Court, on March 14th, fully 2 weeks ahead of schedule, granted petitioners request for issuance of a mandate in the CAMR case. This mandate all but sealed the deal. It seems the operative words in that last sentence are "all but".

As proof this last minute appeal on behalf of the EPA by the DOJ caught everyone by surprise I refer you to the website of a respected industry consulting group RMB Consulting and Research. RMB consults for, amongst others, the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG), who simultaneously with the EPA appeal, asked the Court to reconsider the Feb 8th ruling. However, right on the RMB site (removed as of 3/28) it states (said) in bold letters CAMR is Officially Dead (3/19/08). I point this out not to jab at RMB, hardly, they are a well respected and plugged in consulting group. I point it out because apparently not even they knew this appeal was coming. They do (did) point out in their post that a petition for rehearing was still possible and if granted would recall the mandate, but the headline they chose was more in line with what we all were thinking.

It is unclear to me whether the petition for rehearing has been granted. We will know more in a few days. But you have to feel for the utilities who seem to be going up and down like yo-yos as this all plays out in the courts. I'll try to keep you on top of this story as it unfolds.

CAMR Ruling Appealed by DOJ at the Last Minute

2008-03-26T10:55:00.004-06:00

In what some may call a surprise move the Department of Justice on behalf of the Bush administration and the EPA has filed a last minute appeal of the Circuit Court of Appeals Feb 8 ruling that struck down the CAMR (Clean Air Mercury Rule) and its mercury cap-and-trade program. They have asked the full Court of Appeals to reconsider the ruling that went in favor of New Jersey, 16 other states, several environmental groups, tribes, and some health associations.

Because the ruling by the three judge panel was unanimous and so decisive, using very strong language in rejecting EPA's case for delisting, it seemed unlikely an appeal would follow. But EPA is not going down lightly on this one and is seeking a broader opinion of the case to see if it will result in a more favorable decision.

An excerpt from an AP article is below;

The Justice Department, in seeking a review of the decision, argued in a filing late Monday that the three-judge panel misinterpreted the federal clean air law and required "inappropriate and unnecessary emissions standards for power plants."

It maintained the ruling would needlessly delay mercury emission reductions by forcing the EPA to abandon its 2005 regulation that calls for a 70 percent cut in mercury releases over the next decade.
[...]
Separately, a group of electric utilities also filed a petition with the full appeals court, asking for a review. The Utility Air Regulatory Group, argued that the EPA has the discretion to regulate emissions in a way it considers necessary and appropriate.

The group includes electric generating companies and trade associations representing power companies and coal interests.

And so on it goes.

I'm Back, and the Discussions About Mercury Have Never Been Hotter

2008-03-12T13:29:00.008-06:00

I took a short golf vacation to Hilton Head last week and upon my return found things were still abuzz since the Feb 8 Appeals Court Decision.

The Debate Rages On
The implications of the ruling were the topic of interviews by Monica Trauzzi on E&ETV's OnPoint with John Walke of NRDC and Jeff Holmstead a former EPA official and now lobbyist for Bracewell & Giuliani (as in Rudi Giuliani), a lobbying group specializing in concerns of the electric utility industry. I think both men state their cases quite eloquently, but somewhat diametrically opposed. Interesting listening.

The John Walke transcript and video from March 5th can be found here.

The Jeff Holmstead transcript and video from March 12 can be found here.

Cement Kiln Crackdown?
Elsewhere, the EPA seems to be revisiting its rules regarding cement kiln mercury emissions. In an AP article by John Flesher it is discussed how Michigan and eight other states have forced the issue with a lawsuit. But is EPA really responding or are they simply delaying any decision until the current administration is gone. The following excerpts from John's column will show you what I mean.

Whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changes the rules will depend on test results of technology that could reduce the emissions, spokesman Dale Kemery said Thursday.

But an environmental law firm that has battled the EPA for a decade over the matter said the agency promised in a court filing last month to set standards it previously had resisted.

"They've turned 180 degrees," said James Pew, attorney for Earthjustice, based in Washington, D.C.
[...]
The agency in December 2006 set limits on mercury and hydrocarbon emissions from cement kilns built after Dec. 2, 2005. But for kilns built earlier, the EPA imposed lesser requirements.

The states sued in February 2007, saying the federal Clean Air Act requires mercury emission limits for all plants, not just new ones.
[...]
In a motion filed last month with the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, the EPA asked for more time to gather and analyze data from cement plants.

Peter Tsirigotis, director of the EPA division working on the standards, told the court in a written statement that he expected the agency to issue a proposed regulation by mid-September and a final version nine to 12 months afterward.

Well that ought to get the ball rolling.

More on this subject in an Earthjustice Press Release on CommonDreams News Center;

Under intense pressure from states and local and national environmental and public health groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in a recent court document plans to regulate mercury pollution from over 100 cement kilns across the country by September 2009. The announcement marks a dramatic shift in EPA policy which, until now, had been to resist requiring mercury controls for cement kilns.

"After nearly a decade of litigation and multiple court orders directing EPA to regulate mercury from cement kilns, it seems the agency is finally paying attention," said Earthjustice attorney James Pew.

Three times in the last ten years, federal courts have ordered EPA to set emission standards to control cement kilns' mercury emissions. Until now, EPA has ignored these orders or sought to evade them. EPA finally indicated that it would set mercury emission standards in papers filed on February 20, 2008, in a fourth case brought by Earthjustice on behalf of Sierra Club, Downwinders at Risk (TX), Friends of Hudson (NY), Montanans Against Toxic Burning, Desert Citizens Against Pollution (CA), and the Huron Environmental Activist League (MI). The States of New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania also filed suit.

"Cement kilns are among the nation's worst polluters, and their free ride on mercury pollution needs to end at long last," said Jane Williams, executive director of Desert Citizens Against Pollution.

Maine Judge Seeks More Information on Penobscot River Mercury Pollution
A retired chemical plant HoltraChem owned and operated by Mallinckrodt had deposited significant amounts of mercury containing sludge into the Penobscot river for decades. The long battle and millions of dollars later we still do not have a solid plan for remediation, or even if remediation is possible. Excerpts from the Bangor Daily News follow;

Senior U.S. District Judge Gene Carter concurred last week and has directed the court-appointed research team to conduct more detailed studies into whether it is better to attempt to remove the mercury — likely at enormous costs — or let nature take its course.

"The court is fully satisfied … that the Penobscot River, north of the Fort Point Light, is contaminated with significant quantities of mercury deposited at the HoltraChem site," Carter wrote in his March 7 ruling.

Carter’s decision is the latest in a string of recent legal defeats for the former owners of now-defunct HoltraChem. Attorneys for the company, Mallinckrodt Inc., had sought in court filings to delay beginning the next phase of the study.

Mallinckrodt officials pointed out Tuesday that the company has already spent more than $30 million to clean up the manufacturing site in Orrington. The company has worked cooperatively with state and federal environmental agencies on that ongoing project.

Impacts of the Vacated CAMR

2008-03-03T15:00:00.002-06:00

I promised to keep up to date on fallout from the recently vacated CAMR. It is my understanding that EPA has until the 24th of March to decide if it wants to appeal the Appellate Court ruling, so until that time we are still in some state of limbo.

Environmental Groups Rally Around Ruling
But that is not stopping environmental groups from using the ruling to now add mercury to their fight against permitting new coal burning power plants. Mercury was always an issue but has recently taken a back seat to Greenhouse Gases. At least for now with the courts siding with MACT as the correct avenue for mercury regulations, previously permitted plants and ones close in the process are now facing new hurdles to clear in their path. An excerpt from a Forbes article on the subject follows;

But for now, as lawmakers wrestle with how best to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the plant's opponents are focused instead on a few dozen pounds of mercury as they fight to keep it from ever coming online.
[...]
'It does give environmentalists another tool, another hook to use when arguing that it's time to phase these things out,' said Scott Edwards, a lawyer for the New York-based environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance. 'And the law gives us that argument. And public health gives us that argument. And ecological and aquatic health gives us that argument.'

Duke's new $2.4 billion generator, at its existing Cliffside Steam Station about 50 miles west of Charlotte, is among more than 20 coal-fired plants now under construction nationwide.

While the rate of construction is the most in more that two decades, environmentalist say they have already helped delay or completely block nearly 60 other projects.

An article in EarthTimes, picked up from PRNewswire, echoes the conclusions drawn by NRDC on the impacts the Feb 8th ruling is having on plant construction across the country. Some pieces from that article follow;

The prospects for 32 coal-fired power plants in 13 states have been shaken up in the wake of a February 8, 2008 federal appeals court ruling that requires each new coal-fired power plant in the U.S. to adopt stringent toxic air pollution control measures meeting the most rigorous standards under the Clean Air Act, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRD).

The states identified with the most coal-fired power plants now up in the air are: Michigan (four), Wyoming (four), Illinois (three), Nevada (three), Ohio (three), Pennsylvania (three), Texas (three), Iowa (two), Kentucky (two), Louisiana (two), Georgia (one), New Mexico (one) and North Carolina (one).

The ruling will impact various aspects of three dozen or more coal-fired power plants, including some now already under construction.

Major coal-fired power plants impacted by the ruling include: LS Power White Pine (1500 MW - permit pending in Nevada); Sierra Ely (1500 MW - permit pending in Nevada); Toquop (850 MW - permit pending in Nevada) Desert Rock (Sithe Global's 1500 MW in New Mexico); Longleaf ( LS Power's 1200 MW Plant in Georgia); Cliffside (Duke Energy's 800 MW Plant in North Carolina); Alliant Marshalltown (600 MW - permit pending in Iowa); LS Power Waterloo (750 MW - permit pending in Iowa); AMP (1000 MW - permit challenged in Ohio); LS Power/Dynegy (750 MW in Michigan). For a complete list of all 32 plants, go to http://www.nrdc.org/.

Natural Resources Defense Council Clean Air Director/Senior Attorney John Walke said: "The February 8th court ruling will have far-reaching consequences for coal-fired power plant construction, permitting and pollution controls. This important new legal tool will increase the pollution control obligations for new coal-fired power plants, raise the already considerable expense of these projects, and add to the weight of arguments that the public deploys to oppose conventional coal-fired plants."

Wisconsin DNR Mulls New Mercury Timetable
The WI-DNR may make a trade-off with utilities. They are proposing to extend the deadline for 90% mercury reduction if the utilities will reduce acid rain gases even further. The controversial compromise has received both favorable and critical comments. A few excerpts from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel follow;

State regulators will propose a new plan this month giving utilities more time to cut mercury emissions from power plants if they make reductions in a pair of other key pollutants
[...]
The DNR has called for a 90% cut in the past. But the agency also is offering an inducement for utilities to delay compliance from 2015 to 2021 if they also make reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.
[...]
As the public weighs in, a key business group will complain that the change will lead to higher electricity prices. One environmental group likes the approach, while another says it doesn't go as far as neighboring states. And one large utility thinks a national plan is better than a state approach.
[...]
Keith Reopelle, program director for Clean Wisconsin, said his group believes the DNR's latest proposal has merit. He said utilities' claims about the technology needed to make big cuts in mercury are no longer valid.

He cited data from the Institute of Clean Air Companies of Washington, D.C., showing 82 projects making substantial reductions in mercury.

But environmental groups are split on the issue. The Sierra Club believes Wisconsin is moving too slowly. Eric Uram, conservation chair of the club's John Muir chapter, said Illinois will move to a 90% reduction by 2012.

"It's not far enough; it's not fast enough," Uram said.

Milwaukee-based We Energies declined to comment on the proposal until it has a chance to study it.

A spokesman for Madison-based Alliant Energy, which operates in several Midwestern states, said a state rule should follow a federal rule. Spokesman Rob Crain said Alliant thinks that after the defeat in federal court, the EPA will move quickly with another federal mercury rule.

EPA Unionized Workers Voicing Concerns
Union leadership representing more than 10,000 EPA employees have just withdrawn their cooperation with politically appointed leadership. The recent EPA refusal of the California waiver on GHGs and the Feb 8th Circuit Court ruling on CAMR have emboldened (gotta love that word) rank and file members against what they feel has been a disservice to their service. An AP article details some of their concerns;

Nineteen union local presidents representing more than 10,000 Environmental Protection Agency employees signed a letter to Administrator Stephen L. Johnson last Friday accusing him of "abuses of our good nature and trust."

Under Johnson's leadership EPA has ignored jointly developed principles of scientific integrity "whenever political direction from other federal entities or private sector interests so direct," the unions charged.

Asked for comment, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said only: "As a 27-year career EPA scientist, the administrator values the expertise and advice of his staff and will do so through his time in leadership."

The letter cited the California greenhouse gas waiver denial and several other issues, including mercury emissions from power plants.
[...]
"EPA boasts of the principles of scientific integrity before the Congress and the public as an example of EPA's dedication to using only good science in its decision-making, but refuses to agree to an adjudication process for resolving disputes arising from alleged violations," says the letter, released Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
[...]
Evans said that the purpose of the Clinton-era National Labor-Management Partnership Council was for senior agency officials and workers to deal with workplace and other issues before the decision stage.

Instead, "what we found is decisions are being made and they're being presented to us," said Evans.

The union leaders told Johnson they'd be suspending involvement in the partnership council "until we receive from you a clear commitment and specific direction."

To most casual observers and certainly to those paying any attention at all it is a surprise it took so long for the rank and file EPA employees to step up and voice these concerns. I know EPA has lost a lot of talent in the last seven years but the union leadership has been very quiet to this point. Looking out for the job security of some 10,000 dues paying members will do that I suppose.

Polar Ice Crystals Aid Mercury Deposition - Then What?

2008-02-26T15:45:00.006-06:00

A research team headed by Prof. Joel Blum of the University of Michigan studied how ice crystals formed by rising sea vapors captured almost all of the airborne mercury each polar spring. How the crystals performed their collection and which crystal types were best at it formed the basis of some very interesting research. Aided in his study by others from the Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory and the University of Alaska, Professor Blum hopes to take the study into the next phase where they study the snow melt and its effect on mercury accumulation in the tundra. Look for their full results in the cover article of the March 1, 2008 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, whose lead author is Thomas Douglas of the CRR&EL. A preview excerpt from an article on PhysOrg.com follows;

"Previous measurements had shown that in polar springtime, the normally steady levels of mercury in the atmosphere drop to near zero, and scientists studying this atmospheric phenomenon had analyzed a few snow samples and found very high levels of mercury," said Joel Blum, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Geological Sciences at U-M. "We wanted to understand what's controlling this mercury deposition, where it's occurring and whether mercury concentrations are related to the type and formation of snow and ice crystals."
[...]
"Alaska receives air masses originating in Asia, and with China adding a new coal-fired power plant almost every week, it's not surprising that we find significant amounts of mercury there," Douglas said. "The concentrations we measured in some snow are far greater than would be found right next to a waste incinerator or power plant in an industrialized location."
[...]
Blum and co-workers discovered that certain types of ice crystals—frost flowers and rime ice—contained the highest concentrations of mercury. Because both types of crystal grow directly by water vapor accretion, the scientists reasoned that breaks in the sea ice, where water vapor rises in great clouds, contribute to Arctic mercury deposition.

"The vapor that rises through these openings in the ice brings with it bromine from the sea water. That gets into the atmosphere, where sunlight plus the bromine cause a catalytic reaction which converts mercury gas into a reactive form. If any ice crystals are present, the mercury sticks to them and comes out of the atmosphere," Blum said.

The greater the surface area of the crystals, the more mercury they grab, which explains why frost flowers and rime ice, both delicate formations with high surface areas, end up with so much mercury. The mercury-tainted crystals aren't, however, confined to the edges of breaks in the ice, the researchers determined. Bromine can travel great distances, resulting in mercury deposition in snow throughout the Arctic coastal region.
[...]
"Research like this will help to further the understanding of mercury deposition to a region that is generally considered pristine," he said. "In the next phase of our work, we are expanding our knowledge by tracking the mercury during and following snow melt and studying its accumulation on the tundra."

In addition to Blum and Douglas, the paper's authors are Matthew Sturm of the Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory in Fort Wainwright, Alaska; William R. Simpson and Laura Alvarez-Aviles of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks; Gerald Keeler, director of the U-M Air Quality Laboratory; Donald Perovich of the Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H.; U-M post-doctoral fellow Abir Biswas and U-M graduate student Kelsey Johnson.

The full article which goes into some interesting detail of how hard it is to perform research and capture representative samples in the freezing temperatures can be found here. I look forward to seeing what they uncover in phase two.

Analysis and Speculation "What were they thinking?" - EPAs Contradictory Behavior

2008-02-19T16:39:00.002-06:00

We are all scratching our heads. The more information that comes out the more damning the evidence. As we reported yesterday when we covered the AP Story by Joe Hebert, EPA was pressuring States to abide by the Federal CAMR even when they said they were not. I came across a very well written post by John Walke of NRDC on his blog that picks up on more of the nuances and tries to understand the thinking going on in EPA inner circles. An excerpt follows;

In perhaps the most wan and non-responsive response from an EPA spokesperson this year -- which Hebert highlights as a stand-alone paragraph that reads like a punchline to a bad joke -- "An EPA official said the agency's job 'is not to pressure states.'"

Thanks for clearing that up, Mr. EPA Spokesman. We hope that's not the EPA's "job" -- so why was EPA doing it? Stay tuned as EPA predictably tries to deny it was pressuring states, contradicting numerous state officials and squirming uncomfortably when presented with the agency’s own emails.

As this unfolds before our eyes and ears I am only reminded of the old line "I'm from the government and I am here to help."

Why EPA Pressured States Over Mercury Emissions

2008-02-18T09:54:00.003-06:00

Environmental Defense recently obtained internal EPA documents showing a pattern of pressure and arm twisting the EPA used to get individual States to play along with the Fed's plan for mercury emissions control. The Federal CAMR was based on a cap-and-trade scheme much like the ones used for SO2 and NOx emissions. An excerpt from an AP article over the weekend follows;

"There was an extraordinary degree of aggressiveness by EPA in pressing states to abandon a more protective mercury program. EPA devoted enormous effort to preventing states from doing more," said Vickie Patton, a lawyer for Environmental Defense. The group obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act filing.

The push to rein in uncooperative states continued until the eve of the Feb. 8 appeals court decision that struck down the EPA's program. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the agency did not adequately address the health impact of its plan.

The administration was poised to take even tougher measures against maverick states. A day before the ruling, the White House Office of Management and Budget approved a draft regulation to impose a "federal implementation plan" for mercury reduction in states whose mercury control measures did not meet EPA approval.

It would have required power plants to comply with the national cap-and-trade provisions, even it that meant ignoring state restrictions.

Both the emissions trading approach and any further requirement on states have been put on hold after the court ruling, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar. He denied that the agency was pressuring states.

"Our goal is to have a federal rule. ... Our job is not to pressure states," he said.

It is my opinion that the reason the EPA became so determined to push States into the trading program was simply because if enough States opted out of the trading program there would not be enough credits to run a successful cap-and-trade program. The market would not be big enough to sustain the plan. So, as many States began to opt out and create plans stricter than CAMR, EPA got concerned and tried to "steer" States into the program.

Of course it all became moot with the Feb 8 ruling.

CAMR Gone - Activated Carbon Sales Projections Increase

2008-02-14T16:29:00.002-06:00

In the coming days we will all be watching to see what effect the Appeals Court ruling against the EPA's CAMR will have on industry. Will power plants recently permitted to go forward have to resubmit their applications? Will Mercury Monitoring sales be slowed or halted? What other impacts will there be?

One industry that thinks ultimately the impact will be positive is the activated carbon market. Both Calgon Carbon and ADA have expressed upbeat reactions to the ruling. In an article from the West Virginia State Journal, Gail Gerono, a Calgon spokesperson says, "We think that long-term it is going to be quite positive for us." And investors must believe it will be so as Calgon Carbon stock went up immediately after the ruling and has continued to climb since. Excerpt follows;

"We were estimating before this ruling based on our conversations with various utilities that the market for 2010 would be about 300 million pounds (of powdered activated carbon and), by 2018, the market would be about 750 million pounds," Gerono said.

The company expects the court's decision to increase those numbers at the 2018 end of that projection, she said.

Another activated carbon company ADA-ES from Littleton, CO also sees the recent ruling not affecting their growth plans at all. An excerpt from Environmental Protection follows;

According to (ADA-ES) President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Durham, Ph.D., "We have been pursuing an aggressive strategy to ensure that we will be able to supply the activated carbon needs of our coal-fired power customers. Despite regulatory uncertainty, we have taken steps and invested capital prior to the adoption of final, binding federal regulations, in order to be in position to respond to the market that we believe will result from more stringent limits on mercury emissions."

ADA has plans to build the largest activated carbon production line yet, and does not appear to be altering those plans.

Dems Move Fast To Replace Vacated CAMR With New Federal Legislation

2008-02-13T14:49:00.003-06:00

Senator Tom Carper (D) Delaware plans to introduce a bill that would force the EPA to act quickly to adopt a Rule that would reduce mercury emissions from all EGUs by a factor of 90% by 2010. The bill called the "Electric Utility Steam Generating Unit Emission Control Act", or EUSGUECA for short, sort of, claims it could save the US $5.2 billion per year in health care costs related to the toxin. The bill also claims to accomplish this using existing technology at a cost of only $3.00/kilowatt hour. An excerpt from Environment & Energy Daily (Subscription req'd) follows;

Carper's legislation would require U.S. EPA to write a rule aimed at a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 2010, using available technology like activated carbon injection and fabric filters. By contrast, EPA said the rule struck down by the court would have achieved a 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2018.

Ramped up reductions with a ramped up time-line is exactly why environmentalists applauded the DC Appellate Court's decision the other day. While EPA claimed the court ruling left the country with no mercury rule, the swift call to action to replace the CAMR with legislation consistent with the Clean Air Act should quell any concerns.

CAMR Vacated by DC Appeals Court, What's Next?

2008-02-08T10:44:00.000-06:00

It seemed inevitable, the shaky ground upon which EPA's Clean Air Mercury Rule stood finally crumbled. In the long awaited decision the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the petitioners and vacated the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR). The following excerpt, directly from the ruling, with citations omitted follows;

Accordingly, in view of the plain text and structure of section 112, we grant the petitions and vacate the Delisting Rule. […] This requires vacation of CAMR’s regulations for both new and existing EGUs. EPA promulgated the CAMR regulations for existing EGUs under section 111(d), but under EPA’s own interpretation of the section, it cannot be used to regulate sources listed under section 112; EPA thus concedes that if EGUs remain listed under section 112, as we hold, then the CAMR regulations for existing sources must fall. […] EPA promulgated the CAMR regulations for new sources under section 111(b) on the basis that there would be no section 112 regulation of EGU emissions and that the new source performance standards would be accompanied by a national emissions cap and a voluntary cap- and-trade program […] Given that these vital assumptions were incorrect, the court must vacate CAMR’s new source performance standards and remand them to EPA for reconsideration, for “[s]everance and affirmance of a portion of an administrative regulation is improper if there is ‘substantial doubt’ that the agency would have adopted the severed portion on its own […] In view of our disposition, the court does not reach other contentions of petitioners or intervenors.

So that leaves us with the question, What's next? One option is the EPA could ask the full Appeals Court to rule, this decision was a three judge panel, but that seems unlikely because all three judges signed on. Another option is to appeal to the Supreme Court, the likelihood of that seems dim for the same reason. It was resolved fairly quickly, which may indicate there was little dissent, but we will have to wait and see. Several States have their own laws which were stricter than the CAMR and did not allow trading of mercury credits and those should not be affected. Any State law that did allow for any credit trading is in trouble. And it may be that all State rules that were compelled by the now vacated CAMR need to be revisited.

What happens now? If the ruling stands and is not appealed the ultimate course of action for EPA will probably be a Most Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule for mercury, and now since mercury capture technology has progressed quite a bit, the resulting MACT may be stricter than the one that would have been put in place back in 2005. This will be very interesting to watch and follow now. Earth News has more here. And YubaNet has more here.

How Minamata May Save Flipper

2008-02-01T16:15:00.000-06:00

For centuries fishermen from a small fishing village in Japan have annually corralled thousands of dolphins in a tiny cove and then slaughtered them for meat and fertilizer. For decades environmental and animal activists have protested the slaughters and have attempted to bring public awareness to this unnecessary ritual in an effort to have it stopped, thus far unsuccessfully. But now a threat to the Japanese even stronger than global public opinion may put an end to the senseless killing.

Back in the 1950s and 60s there was a terrible environmental disaster in Japan. A disaster so horrendous that thousands of Japanese people were killed or crippled and many families are still fighting over restitution. The disaster was the mercury poisoning of Minamata Bay caused by dumping vast amounts of industrial waste into the waters near that southern fishing village.

Well recent tests on the meat from the dolphin slaughters has shown very high levels of mercury and may ultimately put an end to the ritual. No one in Japan wants another Minamata, apparently they can live with the senseless killing of dolphins as long as it doesn't jeopardize their food supply with a known toxin. So, their fear of poisoning themselves may end the killing of the dolphins. If only they were smart enough to do something about poisoning the dolphins so our marvelous mammalian brothers and sisters of the sea could live toxin-free too. Oh, and try to find a better source of food and fertilizer.

Nevada Rebuffed, Oklahoma Dawdles & Michigan Boldly Moves Forward

2008-02-01T10:11:00.000-06:00

As the country awaits the decision of the Federal Appeals Court in D.C. on the legality and thus the future of the CAMR, different States are taking different tacks. Nevada sent its plan to comply with CAMR to the EPA back in November of 2006. The plan was recently rejected and sent back for rework. The EPAs decision to reject the plan is open for comment now and has been extended until March 13, 2008.

Oklahoma officials used the pending federal court case as an excuse to delay action altogether. From a recent NewsOK article;

Members of the Department of Environmental Quality's Air Quality Advisory Council voted to delay adopting proposed rules seeking to implement limits within the Sooner State until at least April.

They opted to wait because of an ongoing lawsuit seeking to void the federal rules.
[...]
The advisory council's decision Thursday didn't appear to surprise environmentalists who attended the meeting.

Still, they told council members Thursday stricter standards need to be adopted now.

"When it comes to that decision on the federal lawsuit, whichever way it goes, what is the risk of going ahead with something stricter?” asked Montelle Clark, a member of the Oklahoma Sustainability Network's board of directors.

"You are still allowed to do that” regardless of the lawsuit's outcome, Clark said. "If you went ahead and did it now, you would be ahead of the game.”

Meanwhile, Michigan has all but declared war on mercury in all its forms and releases. A bold 67 point plan, if completely enacted and seen through, would position Michigan as a model for the rest of the country. Some of it requires future legislation but a lot of it is a "call for partnerships with local governments and private groups."

An excerpt from All American Patriots follows;

January 30, 2008 -- The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has released a comprehensive strategy to eliminate the use and release of mercury to Michigan's environment. The DEQ's Mercury Strategy Staff Report contains specific recommendations to ensure the protection of Michigan's wildlife and citizens from this persistent toxic pollutant by proposing a comprehensive approach to controlling mercury, including environmental monitoring, inventory development, collaborations and partnerships, information and outreach, and regulatory controls.

Different strokes...

Cross Border Pollution Disputes & Suits

2008-01-28T15:53:00.000-06:00

It was just a couple weeks ago that the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Canadian mining firm Teck Cominco of a lower court decision in 2006 that "an American environmental law applied to a foreign company when some of its pollution reaches U.S. territory." Indian tribes and environmentalists in the northwest claimed Teck Comincos effluents were polluting the Columbia River.

Now in what appears to be turnabout is fair play, DTE Energy is in the crosshairs of Canadian environmental groups over cross border mercury emissions. An excerpt from CommonDreams.org follows:

On Wednesday, the Superior Court of Justice in Sarnia, Ontario issued an order directing a lower court to summon DTE Energy to face charges for poisoning the St. Clair River with dangerous amounts of mercury. Michigan's DTE Energy Company is being charged for its role in polluting the St. Clair River with mercury.

And this tidbit from Toronto's The Star:

The case will probably be "a really uphill battle," for the Alliance, said Barry Spiegel, at Toronto's Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers.

It's not likely DTE would be legally required to obey a summons from Ontario or be penalized if it didn't appear in court and was convicted anyway, particularly since it has no assets or workers in Ontario.

"It's hard to say how far (the Alliance prosecution) will go," he said.

If the lawyers are right, who wins and who loses? If a company is operating within its permit limits in the country and state it is in, how can it be held accountable in a foreign country? Let's all sue China for its mercury emissions and see how far we get. International understanding and cooperation are required, not cross border lawsuits.

What do Umatilla, Steamboat Springs, TiO2, PG&Es Boardman and Sperm Have In Common? Read On

2008-01-16T15:21:00.000-06:00

The effects of mercury emissions on our planet have brought together this disparate group in this installment of Hg-ATME.

Incineration of chemical weapons at Umatilla has been going on for about three years. Recently it has come under renewed attack by a "DC Watchdog" group stating there are better, safer ways to decontaminate mustard gas and other hazardous waste without mercury and other chemical emissions. KUOW, an NPR affiliate covered this story earlier this week.

Scientists studying in the clouds at DRI"s Storm Peak Laboratory above Steamboat Springs, CO have been witnessing an alarming increase in the amount of airborne mercury. Using some fairly new technology they are capable of detecting the "low" ambient concentrations, but do not be fooled by the word "low". Remember everything is relative. These ambient readings have gone up dramatically in very short order and because of the accumulative nature of mercury in the environment pose real concerns. Both KWGN2 and CBS4 in Denver covered this story.

In some hopeful news this week, Washington University in St. Louis, my sisters alma mater, along with Chrysler and Ameren are experimenting with some promising technology, reusing paint solids from automobile spray booths as supplemental fuel and also removing mercury from the flue gas. The paint solids were landfilled before Dr. Pratim Biswas, Stifel & Quinette Jens recognized the opportunity they possessed in removing mercury from the coal combustion process. See the paint residue is high in titanium dioxide (TiO2) which through a process known as chemisorption bonds with the mercury and is removed with the plants existing air pollution control devices. Sounds like a win-win-win, less waste, less coal, less mercury. A footnote from the Eurekalert release follows;

The project has been recognized with a pollution prevention award from the St, Louis chapter of the National Association of Environmental Managers and with an Environmental Leadership Award from Chrysler.

The Washington University, Chrysler and Ameren team also received the 2007 Chrysler Environmental Leadership Award.

As environmental groups continue to attack coal fired power plants (the activity du jour), Oregon's Boardman Station, the only coal fired plant in the state, is under fire from the Sierra Club and others claiming the plant is violating the Federal Clean Air Act with emissions of mercury and other dangerous substances. Excuse me, but, I think Boardman in all likelihood is operating in legal compliance with its operating permits. You and I and the Sierra Club and others may want stricter limits on pollution but until the laws change suing individual facilities is wasting our judicial system's time. An excerpt from the Bizjournals story follows;

The complaint alleges the Boardman plant is the largest emitter of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in Oregon and that its ongoing emissions of mercury and other substances violates federal law and jeopardizes environmental and public health.

The effort is part of a national campaign by environmental groups to eliminate existing and proposed coal-fired power plants. Such plants provide more than half of the country's power but are also the nation's largest source of carbon dioxide.

I don't know what they think we will do without 50% of our power. Eliminating coal fired plants from our energy mix is an admirable goal but one that is decades away, that is unless you don't like air conditioning, heated homes in winter, night baseball, large screen TVs, and those really cool electric massagers.

And just when I thought I had heard every possible downside to mercury emissions along comes my old friend Wired magazine to zing me with a new one. Sperm in mice, and presumably humans too, have shriveled DNA due to air pollution, including mercury. It seems a team of scientists from Canada of all places (maybe their sperm DNA shriveled because it was too cold, but I digress) set mice in cages out in heavy industrial areas, some cages open to the pollution and others sealed getting only HEPA filtered air. Well, you guessed it, the ones breathing the pollution had sperm with shriveled DNA. And not only that the sperm were also hypermethylated, excessive gene activity. God, I hate when that happens. But seriously they are looking into the possible connection between these sperm mutations and the increase in childhood autism.

Recent CAMR / CAIR Update Slideshow

2008-01-11T08:59:00.000-06:00

One of my colleagues sent me this link to a powerpoint Beth Murray of the EPA used in a training class that shows the current status of the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) and the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR). You may find this interesting and useful.

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

2008-01-09T16:33:00.000-06:00

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.

With China Over Our Shoulder Can We Find Our Way To Clean Air?

2007-12-14T15:39:00.000-06:00

The statistics are mind boggling the growth is enormous, the pace of China's industrialization is simply overwhelming, it has the momentum of a tsunami! What can we and the rest of the world do to cope with it? Do our efforts at pollution prevention pale when we look west and see clouds of industrial gases pouring over the Pacific? Air pollution is only one aspect of the Big C and we are the primary pump sucking all their efforts, good and bad, off shore.

Mercury emissions are my focus, China is a player! In fact they are the big player at the end of the table with the big pile of chips. My bet is they will first dwarf our efforts to reduce mercury emissions, but if the technology here succeeds, and I think it will, they will quickly adopt and be a good steward too. Same with CO2, they will move fast and benefit from technological advancements to "clean up their act" after they achieve some level of economical catch-up. The bet we are all hoping comes through is it won't be too late.

I loved this article in Discover Magazine by Evan Ratliff. Only a small portion dealt with mercury directly, but the industrial movement, well underway in China, is nothing to ignore. An excerpt follows;

...The blowups over tainted products, however, overshadowed landmark news regarding a far more dangerous Chinese export: pollution. Back in 2000, China’s economic planners boldly predicted that the country would double its energy usage by 2020. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in turn, estimated that China would surpass the United States as the world’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide by that same year. Propelled by a decade of blistering growth unfettered by environmental regulations, China managed to hit its energy usage goal in 2007, 13 years ahead of schedule. And depending on whose estimates you accept, the country has already taken the carbon-dioxide emissions crown.

Given that China is home to 20 percent of the planet’s population and a burgeoning, ever more consuming middle class, it’s not surprising that the country’s footprint on the environment is growing. What is shocking is the extent to which that footprint is stomping not just China’s ecology but that of the rest of the planet.

China has become the leading importer of illegally harvested timber. It is the global hub for endangered wildlife trafficking. The Chinese are the world’s largest consumers of grain, meat, coal, and steel. And China is feeding its appetites for those commodities—and increasingly for oil—by investing in resource extraction in less-developed areas like Africa. Even in a government not prone to harsh self-evaluation, a top Chinese environmental official pronounced ominously last year that the pollution crisis at home “allows for no optimism.”

The statistics are staggering. Fourteen thousand new cars hit the road each day, and by the year 2020, China is expected to have 130 million cars. Meanwhile, about 70 percent of China’s nontransportation energy comes from burning 3.2 billion tons of coal each year. The nation is building coal-fired power plants—one of the dirtiest forms of energy production—at a clip of two to three a week. China is also home to 5 of the 10 most polluted cities on the planet, according to China’s own State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA)—including the major coal-mining city of Linfen, the most polluted city in the world. The World Bank estimated in early 2007 that air pollution alone causes at least 700,000 premature deaths in China annually.

The impact of all this extends far beyond China’s borders. Taken as a group, its coal-fired power plants emit the world’s highest levels of sulfur dioxide (a major element of acid rain) and mercury, both of which rise high into the atmosphere and hitch a ride on air currents circling the globe. One study, published last year in the Journal of Geophysical Research, calculated that three-quarters of the black carbon pollution in the atmosphere over the western United States originates in Asia. It is estimated that as much as 35 percent of all the mercury pollution in the western United States comes from abroad, and China is most likely the main culprit. According to the World Wildlife Fund, untreated waste has turned China’s Yangtze River basin into the single largest polluter of the Pacific Ocean. “There’s no doubt,” says Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, “that what China is doing on the domestic front has an enormous effect on the globe.”

Within China, the devastation is more intense. One-third of its land has been hit by acid rain, according to the head of SEPA. One hundred ten of its cities are short of water. Available water is so polluted that nearly 700 million Chinese citizens drink from supplies contaminated by human and animal excrement.

The conventional wisdom has long held that China is merely following the path of the United States and other developed countries that polluted—and in some cases, continue to do so—on their way to a wealthier populace and eventual stricter environmental controls. But the epic pace of China’s development could spawn an ecological catastrophe of a different order. “What China is facing in terms of environmental challenges,” Economy says, “is not comparable to anything we have faced in this country.”

There is some hope though, as I said they are pretty quick to adapt and the masses want changes in environmental conditions in China.

Some nongovernmental organizations in China have been pushing for reform over the last decade. Members of these grassroots outfits, often operating at the risk of arrest or harassment, press for environmental improvements through public demonstrations and the limited legal action allowed. “On the positive side, you have demonstrations, you have marches, you have hundreds of thousands of people writing letters to complain about pollution and request that something get done about it,” says Economy. “On the other hand, you also have citizen activism such that when Beijing said we are going to shut down the factories in advance of the Olympics, factory managers are coming back and saying no.”

The good news is that overhauling outdated technology might easily rein in the devastating pollution. Much of China’s industry uses energy-guzzling equipment from the 1970s, and the NRDC estimates that by using existing technology and enforcing simple building codes, the country could cut its energy demands by half or more in the next decade.

“There is no other country in the world as dynamic and rapidly changing as China,” observes Alex Wang, an NRDC attorney who directs the council’s China Environmental Law Project in Beijing. “It really is a country where things can be dramatically different from one day to the next.”

Just as quickly as China became the world’s leading polluter, it could find a greener path to development. But if it fails, the outcome will be more than just a public relations nightmare.

A Year Later Our First Day In Court - Health Groups and States Appeals Finally Being Heard

2007-12-14T14:06:00.000-06:00

As Hg-ATME reported almost a year ago, major health organizations challenged EPAs rules on mercury emissions. That challenge, joined now by as many as 14 States, several Tribes and numerous Environmental Groups is finally having its voices heard in Federal Appeals Court in Washington D.C. As reported by the PRNewswire - USNewswire and picked up by Forbes on Dec 6th;

Fourteen states and dozens of Native American tribes, public health and environmental groups, and organizations representing registered nurses and physicians appeared in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today seeking to overturn Bush administration proposals that evade legally required cuts in mercury pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants (Case No.: 05-1097). The broad coalition called for the complete reversal of a suite of Environmental Protection Agency rules, including the so-called "Clean Air Mercury Rule," which allows dangerously high levels of mercury pollution to persist under a weak cap-and-trade program that would not take full effect until well beyond 2020.
[...]
The following joint statement can be attributed to the American Nurses Association; the American Public Health Association; Chesapeake Bay Foundation; Clean Air Task Force; Conservation Law Foundation; Earthjustice; Environment America (formerly US PIRG); Environmental Defense; National Wildlife Federation; Natural Resources Council of Maine; Natural Resources Defense Council; Ohio Environmental Council; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Sierra Club; and Waterkeeper Alliance:

"These rules are simply illegal. Despite mercury pollution's significant impacts on human health and the environment, EPA has ignored science, law and human health in allowing coal-fired power plants to churn out dangerous mercury levels. Rather than applying the toughest standards of the Clean Air Act, EPA has proposed an ineffective mercury trading scheme that delays implementation of modern pollution controls for years. EPA has created an illegal loophole for the power generating industry that allows for dangerous emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants now and into the future.

"Power plants spew 48 tons of mercury into the air each year, yet a mere 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury per year is enough to contaminate a 25-acre lake to the point that fish are unsafe to eat. EPA estimates that as many as 600,000 babies may be born annually with irreversible brain damage because pregnant mothers ate mercury-contaminated fish. Mercury risks also include delayed developmental milestones, reduced neurological test scores, and cardiovascular disease. Nearly one-third (32 percent) of America's lakes and nearly one-fourth (24 percent) of our rivers were subject to advisories for mercury contamination in 2003.

"Congress recognized the importance of cleaning up the nation's polluting coal-fired power plants when it passed clean air protections, but the EPA has repeatedly failed to carry out the law and follow the science in protecting human health and the environment from mercury pollution. In this instance, EPA has finalized a plan first drafted by industry attorneys that violates the law and fails to protect human health. We are grateful to have had our day in court to demonstrate EPA's failure to adopt protective mercury emission standards for coal plants as required by law."

And the story was also picked up in USA Today where we get these excerpts;

A Bush administration plan to limit mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants is legal and should not be overturned, a government lawyer said in federal court Thursday.

But two of the three appellate court judges reviewing a lawsuit against the plan appeared skeptical of that argument from Justice Department attorney Eric Hostetler.
[...]
The rule is being challenged by a coalition of environmental groups, 14 states and a number of Native American tribes. They argue that the EPA's plan violates the 1990 Clean Air Act and lets power plants continue emitting mercury in amounts that pose health hazards to humans and animals.

James Pew, an attorney for Earthjustice, called the rule "unlawful."

In 2000, during the Clinton administration, the EPA said coal-burning power plants should be required to use the most high-tech, effective emissions controls available (MACT) to reduce mercury emissions.

During the Bush administration, EPA officials reversed course, saying the original decision didn't account for reductions in mercury emissions that would occur as power plants installed controls aimed at other air pollutants. (What?)

"EPA is acting to correct a mistake," Hostetler said.

Judges David Tatel and Judith Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia questioned Hostetler closely on whether the EPA followed procedures outlined in Clean Air Act amendments passed 17 years ago by a Congress that was frustrated with the agency's slow pace.

"Just because an agency made a decision doesn't mean it's lawful," Tatel said.

It could be months before the appellate judges issue a decision on the lawsuit. If the judges overturn the EPA's emissions credits rule, the agency would have to adopt tougher regulations limiting mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants. That likely would lead to a legal challenge from the electric utility industry.

So this fight is far from over. But at least it is getting underway. I found some more interesting points on this suit from The Institute for Southern Studies;

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility are going to court today to present their legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Mercury Rule -- which despite its name actually exempts power plants from tough Clean Air Act requirements to control the harmful neurotoxin.

The groups -- which together represent more than 300,000 health professionals -- are being represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center. They are joining attorneys general from 14 states (though none in the South), a dozen national environmental groups and several Indian tribes that are also challenging the rule, which was released in May 2005.

"This challenge represents unprecedented legal action by these public health groups, an indication of how severe doctors, nurses and pediatricians and other health workers know the threat of mercury emissions to be," says SELC attorney John Suttles. "With this rule, the EPA not only ignored the requirements of the Clean Air Act, it also ignored the advice of thousands of health experts, choosing a clean up plan that does too little, too late to be protective of public health."

While Clean Air Act requirements would rid the nation of 90 percent of mercury emissions by the end of next year, CAMR would allow power plants to continue to emit much more mercury for much longer -- nearly 20 tons every year until 2025. At the same time, EPA would allow plants to use a cap-and-trade scheme where they could trade mercury pollution credits with other, less-polluting plants. That would create mercury "hot spots" that could lead to dangerous levels of human exposure.

Hg-ATME will continue to cover these proceedings, it is hard to imagine an outcome that would not support the plaintiffs here, but we have all been surprised before. This news broke earlier in December while I was busy with other matters, it deserved more immediate coverage by this outlet but all I can say is better late than never.

Some Nevada Mining Reports Open Eyes On Extent Of Mercury Emissions

2007-11-19T16:41:00.000-06:00

As Hg-ATME has reported (several Nevada Posts are here) Nevada began cracking down on gold mining operations in the state, requiring testing to actually determine the levels of mercury being emitted. Heretofore the amounts were only estimated by the mines, and estimated quite poorly I might add. From Yubanet.com an excerpt from a recent article;

New emissions data, obtained from the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP), show that northern Nevada gold mines are still under-reporting substantial amounts of mercury air pollution. It also reveals that a number of mines that were previously considered small sources of mercury air pollution are actually very large sources, yet these mines have few pollution controls in place. Until 2006, mines were not required to actually measure mercury releases, only estimate mercury emissions.
[...]
"We now know that hundreds of pounds of mercury are needlessly going into our air from mines that have minimal controls in place," said John Hadder of Great Basin Mine Watch. "This new information is a wake-up call. We want the State and industry to agree to get controls in place right away."

Under Nevada's new mercury regulations, the four largest mercury polluters were prioritized as "Tier 1" mines and all the smaller emitters as "Tier 2" mines based on information available at the time. The new emissions data, however, reveals that a number of the Tier 2 mines are actually large sources of mercury air pollution. For example:

* The Florida Canyon mine submitted no mercury pollution reports to the EPA for the last eight years, yet the new information indicates that the mine is a large source of emissions, reporting 440 pounds of emissions in a 2006 report to NDEP.

* The Rawhide Mine submitted reports to the EPA of just 0-1 pound of emissions for each of previous 8 years, yet it reported 351 pounds of emissions to NDEP in 2006. The mine is currently winding down operations.

Other "Tier 2" mines that are now reporting large emissions include the Newmont Lone Tree mine at 622 pounds and the Glamis Gold mine at 1,010 pounds in 2006.

And this added information from Desert News below;

An employee at the Florida Canyon mine referred questions to mine manager Martin Price, who was not immediately available for comment.

The Rawhide mine is owned by Utah-based Kennecott, a subsidiary of the international conglomerate Rio Tinto.

Rio Tinto spokesman Louie Cononelos said he could not comment until hearing back from Rawhide officials.

Mark Amodei, president of the Nevada Mining Association, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The three environmental groups gave the two mines a 60-day notice of their intent to sue over alleged failure to report mercury emissions as required under federal law.

US House Votes to Ban Mercury Export, But Wait, White House Opposes

2007-11-15T16:44:00.000-06:00

And so it goes. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, proposed a bill that would ban the export of highly toxic mercury and force federal agencies to find permanent storage facilities for their stockpiles. This House vote on H.R. 1534 was so unanimous it carried on a voice vote. Sens. Barack Obama, D-IL, and Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, have introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

But even with bi-partisan support the Bush White House opposes the measure. From the AP article below;

The White House said in a statement that an export ban might lead to more mining and an increase in the release of mercury into the environment.

I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that makes no sense to me. How could banning the availability of the substance used in mining gold lead to more mining and an increase of mercury emissions? Someone explain that rationale to me, please.

Bangkok Conference Focuses On Global Mercury Agreement, Will USA Sign On Or Kyotoize It?

2007-11-15T16:06:00.000-06:00

The Open-Ended Working Group on global mercury issues is currently meeting in Bangkok. The need for a global agreement to combat the spread of the toxic chemical in our environment has been discussed and mostly agreed upon. Hg-ATME has said many times that mercury emissions are a global issue and no one nation can solve the problem alone. We can set good examples for others to follow but without a global approach countries that restrict mercury use and emissions will eventually reach their capacity to effect the change and further reductions will have to come from somewhere else.

Hey, doesn't that sound like the Governors and Senators from New England and New York describing their situation with the Midwest? Its funny how we are all downwind of someone and mercury emissions travel around the globe so only a global approach will work.

From ENN.com an excerpt from their conference coverage is below;

UNEP is urging governments, working with industry and civil society, to begin setting "clear and ambitious targets" to get global mercury levels down and to set the stage for mercury-free products and processes world-wide.

Such targets might include:
- an agreement to phase-out mercury from products and processes, such as in the manufacture of medical equipment and in chlorine factories, with an aim of realizing mercury-free products by 2020.

- Reductions in emissions from coal-fired power stations with the additional benefits of reduced greenhouse gases and improved local air quality.

- Support for initiatives like those of the UN Industrial and Development Organization which has a goal to cut by 50 per cent the use of mercury in artisanal mining by 2017 en route to a total phase-out

"The global public has been watching and waiting for action-it is now time to start delivering it. This meeting, aimed at narrowing the options and resolving outstanding concerns, comes against a background of worries over rising levels of mercury emissions and releases in several key areas" said Mr Steiner.

UNEP's flagship report-the Global Environment Outlook-4-launched last month states that that coal burning and waste incineration account for about 70 per cent of the total quantified emissions of mercury.

"As combustion of fossil fuels is increasing, mercury emissions can be expected to increase, in the absence of control technologies or prevention," says the GEO-4, the peer reviewed work of well over 1,000 scientists and experts.

And some additional coverage by the Environmental News Service below;

One of the world's thousands of coal-burning power plants.
This one is in Selangot, Malaysia.
(Photo courtesy Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries)

Governments need to accelerate the effort to deliver an international agreement on mercury, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, UNEP.

Steiner said scientists have been warning about the dangers to human health, wildlife and the wider environment for more than a century. But still, every person alive today is thought to have at least trace levels of the heavy metal in their tissues.

Mercury is linked with a wide range of health effects including irreversible damage to the human nervous system including the brain and scientists have concluded there is no safe limit when it comes to mercury exposure.

It is true that many countries have, in recent decades, taken steps to reduce mercury uses and releases and to protect their citizens from exposure to this toxic heavy metal. However, the fact remains that a comprehensive and decisive response to the global challenge of mercury is not in place and this needs to be urgently addressed," said Steiner.

"There is no real reason to wait on many of the mercury fronts. Viable alternatives exist for virtually all products containing mercury and industrial processes using mercury," he said.

These global efforts have been tried before with big issues like global warming, but if major contributors like the US do not support them they have little chance of success. The Kyoto protocol is a good example. Some in the US are on board with these issues. My next post talks about just some of those efforts.

Big Mercury Meeting In Bangkok

2007-11-12T16:20:00.000-06:00

A News Release from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in their Earth Negotiations Bulletin announces the meeting lasting Nov 12 - 16, 2007, In Bangkok, Thailand.

The First Meeting of the Ad hoc Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) to Review and Assess Measures to Address the Global Issue of Mercury begins today at the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand.

The OEWG is expected to review and assess options for enhanced voluntary measures, and new or existing international legal instruments on mercury. The meeting is also expected to consider the Analysis of Possible Options to Address the Global Challenges to Reduce Risks from Releases of Mercury report.

I'm sure there will be some interesting discussions over Pad Thai and Singha. I will try to keep everyone up to date on what is discussed. I am not in Thailand for the conference. But you can follow the proceedings yourself at this link.

Northeast States Continue To Tout Their Leadership On Mercury Emissions and Slam the Midwest

2007-11-09T16:17:00.000-06:00

It is probably because I am from Illinois that it irks me so much to read the articles day after day coming from the New England States and New York claiming they can do no more on Mercury Emissions in their own States, its up to the midwest if we are goingt to achieve our Clean Water goals.

As far as leadership goes, several Midwest States have stepped up to the challenge and legislated some of the toughest mercury emission laws in the country with compliance dates much sooner than most others. Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan have really done their part. It just doesn't feel right for the Northeast States to keep harping on the Midwest. Face it, the Federal EPA screwed up and left it to individual States to get tough, some have and others haven't.

I agree Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, 5 States with a lot of coal fired units, could have done better, in most cases they have done nothing. But don't come down on Illinois or Minnesota, both passed mandatory 90% reductions across the State, no trading, by 2010. And many Midwest States are signatories to the case against the USEPA working its way through Federal courts now.

The Northeast Governors and Senators are asking the Feds to get tough and that is good, but we should have a National standard that achieves the goal for all States and all US citizens.

This excerpt from All American Patriots;

U.S. Senators Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), John Sununu (R-N.H.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson this week to approve the Northeast Regional Mercury Total Maximum Daily Load cleanup plan. As part of the plan, the region requires enhanced federal guidelines for mercury pollution coming into the Northeast from other parts of the country.

In recent years, the Northeastern states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York have drastically reduced mercury pollution from in-state power plants. Yet the region fails to meet current EPA guidelines because of the mercury pollution brought in from neighboring states. Today’s letter follows a similar plea made recently by the governors of the Northeastern states.

“The Northeastern states, including Maine, continue to be at end of the tailpipe of mercury- spewing coal-fired power plants in the Midwest,” said Snowe. “Maine has led the way in reducing mercury emissions within the state, but we must see strong action on the part of the EPA to reduce mercury emissions that enter our state from sources in other states. The petition from the region clearly identifies that our State simply can not do anything more. The lax approach by EPA in regards to our national problem has failed to protect the health of our children, Maine’s natural resources and the economies that depend on them.”

We are all downwind of someone, the mercury issue is a global issue. US can take a leadership role by demonstrating what can be done economically to reduce this toxin in our environment.

Mercury Emissions in Mainstream Media

2007-11-01T08:25:00.000-06:00

Mostly I report on localized issues regarding mercury emissions that may not be so readily apparent to parties interested in the subject of mercury in our environment. I get an article from page 10 of the New York Times, or a blurb from a submission to a scientific journal. Rarely is mercury emissions Page 1, above the fold material. The last few days has been unique in this regard, first there was an article in Forbes magazine about a few Nevada mines misreporting mercury emissions. Excerpt below;

Nevada-based Great Basin Mine Watch, the Idaho Conservation League and Earthworks threatened legal action against the Florida Canyon Mining Co.'s operation near Imlay and the Kennecott Mining Co.'s Denton-Rawhide Mine near Fallon.

Contrary to recent data reported to the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection, the mines reported little or no mercury emissions over the last eight years to the federal EPA, said John Hadder, staff scientist with Great Basin Mine Watch.

In 2006, the Florida Canyon mine sent 440 pounds of mercury into the air and the Rawhide mine reported 350 pounds of emissions, according to the NDEP.

"We now know that hundreds of pounds of mercury are needlessly going into our air from mines that have minimal controls in place," Hadder said. "This new information is a wake-up call. We want the state and industry to agree to get controls in place right away."

Then USA Today runs a front page exposé on mercury emissions with a nifty state-by-state interactive map, and a very cool global and state-by-state map of where mercury is landing. For any of us who follow mercury emissions on a regular basis, all 23 or so of us, none of the information in USA Today was really new. What is important though is that mercury emissions and the health effects caused thereby is becoming more and more a mainstream topic of discussion.

If the issue remains in front of the average news follower then the chances of making meaningful improvements in global mercury emissions are dramatically improved. I want to thank USA Today for their brilliant coverage. When USA Today takes on a topic like this they do a phenomenal job of bringing technical issues to the average reader so that they are then able to walk away with a better understanding of whats going on in their world.

There were three articles in USA Today on Tuesday Oct 30th. I have made links to all of them below.

Mercury emitters rush to meet new U. S. rules, by Larry Wheeler, of Gannett News Service
&
Opposition takes on coal plants, by Bobby Carmichael, of USA Today
&
Power plants are focus of drive to cut mercury, by Larry Wheeler, of Gannett News Service

New England Lobs A Mercury Bomb at the Midwest

2007-10-24T15:38:00.000-06:00

In move that should really surprise no one, the Governors of six New England States are calling on the USEPA to come down harder to reduce mercury emissions from the Midwest that are depositing in and around New England. While I agree the Feds could do more nationally to address this issue, lobbing "our poop doesn't smell" bombs toward the Midwest is humorous. If the Feds need to do anything it is to get tough nationally, not just in the Midwest.

Its as though the Midwest's mercury is somehow more dangerous than the mercury from out West or even their own belching stacks in New England, of which there are several. Let's get tough as a nation on mercury emissions and stop pointing fingers at one region or another. It is a problem for all of us to deal with, and I am certain we will.

An excerpt from today's Boston.com follows;

Gov. Patrick is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to do more to control the mercury pollution that's blowing into New England from the Midwest.

He's joining the governors of the other five New England states and New York in urging EPA action.

Patrick says pollution from the Midwest's coal-fired power plants is contributing to high mercury levels found in freshwater fish in the Northeast.

I know there are a lot of coal burning plants in the Midwest and New England is downwind, but in the big picture we are all downwind of someone. With mercury emissions this is a global issue that needs to be addressed for everyone's sake. Oh, and by the way Go Bosox!

Forest Fires & Other Similar Blazes Roughly Equal Mercury Emissions From Power Plants

2007-10-17T15:39:00.001-06:00

A newly released study of forest fires and other blazes reveals that large amounts of mercury are emitted from these fires roughly equal to the amount emitted from coal burning power plants. Scientists, Hans Friedli and Christine Wiedinmyer, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have plotted state-by-state estimates of mercury emissions from such fires. It is preliminary research that the authors caution may be subject to 50% error but it is extremely useful information in its current state.

The mercury comes from natural and industrial sources that lands in soil and upon plant matter and gets re-released into the atmosphere when these fire occur. So it is not correct to just say "see, equal amounts are released naturally," and use that as an argument against strict mercury standards because a lot of the mercury is being deposited from industrial sources, so that if they were reduced would reduce these re-emissions too.

An excerpt from this interesting UCAR article follows with a link to the full article here.

The study, "Mercury Emission Estimates from Fires: An Initial Inventory for the United States," is being published online today by the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's principal sponsor, as well as by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The paper estimates that fires in the continental United States and Alaska release about 44 metric tons of mercury into the atmosphere every year. It is the first study to estimate mercury emissions for each state, based on a new computer model developed at NCAR. The authors caution that their estimates for the nation and for each state are preliminary and are subject to a 50 percent or greater margin of error. A metric ton is about 10% larger than a U.S. ton.

Mercury does not originate in fires. Instead, it comes from industrial and natural sources, often settling into soil and plant matter. Intense fires then release the mercury back into the atmosphere, where it poses a new danger because it can reach sensitive waterways and other areas.

"What we are seeing is that mercury from other sources is being deposited into the vegetation and soil and then being released back into the atmosphere, where it can travel far downwind and contaminate watersheds and fragile ecosystems," says NCAR scientist Christine Wiedinmyer, one of the study's co-authors. "It's important for federal and state officials to have this type of information and to know where mercury is coming from so they can better protect public health and the environment."

IDEM Gets Berated By EPA, First It Was BP and Now US Steel, What Are They Thinking?

2007-10-15T15:44:00.000-06:00

It was only a couple months ago that IDEM, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, was giving BP a pass on emissions of heavy metals, including mercury, into Lake Michigan. An immediate outcry from the public sector all around the Great Lakes drew attention to IDEM's plans and they were quickly squashed as BP had to give-in to protect what little integrity they had left after touting themselves as the "green" energy choice and then looking like big time polluters instead. That was then this is now.

Now it is IDEM and US Steel playing lets get lax with emission limits of sludge and heavy metals into our lakes. It is almost unbelievable; who comes up with these ideas? Do they think we are all stupid and won't care?

The outcry on this one is larger and rightly so. The Chicago Tribune ran an article Friday highlighting (or should it be lowlighting) some of the shennanigans IDEM has been playing with US Steel. It not only showed what their plans were for the future, it brought into focus what they haven't been doing for several years. Its as though they want to be exposed as incompetent; mission accomplished!

A few excerpts from the Chicago Tribune story on the subject.

Federal regulators are sending their Indiana counterparts back to the drawing board to ensure that the Gary Works, one of the largest polluters in the Great Lakes basin, cuts the amount of toxic chemicals and heavy metals flowing into a Lake Michigan tributary.

Responding to a Tribune story about a new water permit for the massive steel mill, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it has blocked the proposal, which would scrap, relax or omit limits on pollution the U.S. Steel Corp. mill dumps into the Grand Calumet River before it empties into the lake.
[...]
The letter, dated Oct. 1 but not made public until now, chided the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for giving U.S. Steel five years to limit several pollutants, including mercury, lead, cyanide, ammonia and a cancer-causing chemical called benzo(a)pyrene.

Federal regulators also criticized Indiana for failing to set more stringent pollution standards that would help clean up the Grand Calumet, one of the most contaminated waterways in the Great Lakes region.

"They have to do more to protect water quality," said Peter Swenson, chief of the water permits section in the EPA's Chicago office.
[...]
Federal law requires states to renew water permits every five years to meet the Clean Water Act goal of eliminating pollution. But Indiana hasn't reissued a permit for the Gary Works since 1994.
[...]
The latest fight about a Lake Michigan polluter comes three months after Indiana regulators gave a BP refinery in nearby Whiting permission to significantly increase pollution discharged into the lake, the source of drinking water for Chicago and scores of other communities.

Faced with a storm of public protest and threats of legal action, BP later backed down and promised to meet the more stringent pollution limits in its old permit.
[...]
"People in the Great Lakes region no longer are going to tolerate these attempts to look the other way or wait another five years for things to get better," U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in an interview. "It would be helpful if Indiana officials would get with the program and realize Lake Michigan shouldn't be a dumping ground."

If it wasn't so sad it would be funny. What were they thinking?

Idaho Governor Leans Away From Mercury Emissions

2007-10-15T15:24:00.000-06:00

Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter continues the push of former Governor Jim Risch to keep Idaho out of the mercury "cap-and-trade" program, thus eliminating any chance of a coal fired power plant being built in the State. Currently Idaho has no such plants and thus has a Federally allocated mercury emission allowance of zero. In order for any new plants to be constructed they would have to offset their emissions by purchasing credits. But if they opt out of the program then no credits can be purchased and no plants can be built.

An excerpt from the Magic Valley Times News follows;

Idaho should not join a proposed federal mercury cap-and-trade program, at least for now, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter told the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality Board in a letter dated earlier this month.

The Idaho Legislature and former Gov. Jim Risch took steps last year to keep the Gem State out of the federal program and coal-fired power plants - major emitters of mercury - out of Idaho. But the board has re-examined the issue in recent months, prompting some to speculate the DEQ is interested in joining the program and opening the door for coal-based energy production.

Otter's letter could slam that door.

"I believe it was the right decision at that time," Otter said of the Legislature's actions against mercury, "and I believe it is still the appropriate course of action for the near future."

The federal cap-and-trade program limits the amount of mercury each state can emit, but allows states below the cap to trade their emissions allowances to other states.

The program, which the Bush administration expects will lower nationwide emissions from 48 tons to 15 tons a year, is on hold pending a lawsuit.

Otter wants the board to postpone considering the program at least until the lawsuit is resolved. Meanwhile, he encouraged the DEQ to study mercury in Idaho, a state with no coal-fired power plants or other major mercury emitters but high concentrations of mercury in some areas.

The rest of the article can be read here.

As Expected, Indiana Chooses Federal Plan

2007-10-04T15:06:00.000-06:00

There were no surprises yesterday when the Indiana Pollution Control Board opted to stick with Federal CAMR standards rather than adopt their own tougher mercury laws. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor, 11-1, but there was some debate.

An excerpt from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette follows;

The Indiana Air Pollution Control Board on Wednesday voted 11-1 to move forward with the federal minimum in mercury emissions reductions rather than a more stringent regulation sought by environmental advocates.

The seemingly strong vote, however, was marred by several members of the board expressing disappointment that after years of study and months of negotiating no compromise could be reached.

“I feel like we have spun our wheels unnecessarily to get nowhere,” board Chairman James Miner said.
[...]
Gail Charnley, who works for Health Risk Strategies in Washington, told the panel that only 5 percent to 10 percent of the mercury found in Indiana’s fish is attributable to Indiana power plants.

Most of it, she says, comes from other states as well as China and India.

But concerned citizen Lisa Smith said that China and India are probably blaming Indiana.

“Everybody blames somebody else, and all we get is the bare minimum,” she said.

Board member Thomas Anderson said the board ended up focusing on the wrong issues – such as money and technology – and not enough on public health.

You can read the full article here.

Indiana Votes Today On New Mercury Emission Standards

2007-10-03T15:14:00.000-06:00

Today the Indiana Pollution Control Board was scheduled to vote on a final rule governing mercury emissions from coal burning power plants within the State. It will be no big surprise that they will follow the Federal CAMR guidelines. IDEM, the Indiana Dept of Environmental Management, has made their recommendations to do just that. While there are a couple other proposals for stricter standards it would be a shock if the Board went in another direction.

An excerpt from Inside Indiana Business follows;

FACTS OF THE SITUATION

-- On Wednesday, October 3, the Indiana Air Pollution Control Board will take final action on a rule to control emissions of mercury from Indiana’s coal-fired power plants.

-- IDEM is asking the board to adopt the rule issued by the US EPA which requires a 66 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2018.

-- The Hoosier Environmental Council advocates a 90% reduction in uncontrolled mercury emissions by 2010.

-- Improving Kids’ Environment proposes a middle ground on emission reduction targets and the timetable. It would result in thousands fewer pounds of mercury being released.

The whole story can be found here.

Dr. Charles T. Driscoll, Jr. Inducted Into The National Academy of Engineering

2007-10-01T15:37:00.000-06:00

One of the heros of Hg-ATME, Dr. Driscoll is most deserving of this honor. He was intimately involved in the ground-breaking study that verified the existence of mercury "hotspots" in the environment, and specifically in the northeast United States.

And his interview on NPR can possibly still be accessed here.

Dr. Driscoll a professor at Syracuse University, is from Skaneateles (pronounced "skenny-AT-aless"), NY in the fingerlakes region. More can be read about Dr. Driscoll here, and more with a picture here.

Congratulations Dr. Driscoll, your contributions to the field will always be remembered.

Bayou State Moves To Say "Bye To Mercury Emissions"

2007-10-01T15:22:00.000-06:00

Louisiana is taking further steps to radically reduce mercury emissions in the Bayou State. Plans that were put off because of Katrina are now back on line and mercury emissions are on the run. While it appears that Louisiana will ride the Federal CAMR relating to coal burning power plants, the Chlor -alkali industry is following the lead of Oceana and going mercury free in the next couple years. These changes represent huge reductions in the amount of mercury released into the air and water of the area.

An excerpt from 2TheAdvocate follows;

Interrupted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the process was taken up again and helped along when the Legislature passed the Louisiana Mercury Risk Reduction Act of 2006.

That work culminated in the DEQ release of the “Mercury Risk Reduction Plan” Thursday, available on DEQ’s Web site: http://www.deq.louisiana.gov.
[...]
Some of the biggest reductions are coming in 2008 and 2009 as two chlor-alkali plants in the state switch to a process that uses no mercury.

Pioneer Cos. Inc. in St. Gabriel plans to stop using mercury by the end of 2008, and PPG Industries plant in Lake Charles has already made the transition, Piehler said.

“Those are the few biggest ones,” Piehler said about the future reductions.

The next big releasers of mercury to the air in Louisiana are coal-fired power plants, but relatively recent federal mercury rules will help reduce mercury emissions from those in the coming years, he said. Louisiana has four coal-fired power plants.

More from KATC.com;

Barry Kohl, a member of the working group that helped DEQ draft the report who's also with the Louisiana Audubon Council, called it a "good first step," and one that puts Louisiana ahead of other states. He said few states have plans both to identify mercury pollution sources and to try to mitigate their effects.

Nova Scotia Implements National Mercury Emission Standards

2007-09-26T09:42:00.000-06:00

Nova Scotia announced today the Province will implement the Canadian National Standards for mercury emissions from coal burning power plants. The standard reduces mercury emissions by 70% from pre-2001 levels by 2010.

An excerpt from the press release in Nova Scotia's Canada Environment and Labour follows;

"We're pleased to be able to move forward with the implementation of the national standard," said Mark Parent, Minister of Environment and Labour. "We are committed to reducing our environmental footprint and protecting human health, and these regulations will help us do that."

The full release is here.

Great Falls, MT - Mercury In Its Past, Mercury In Its Future?

2007-09-20T09:25:00.000-06:00

I came across a very nice story written in the Great Falls Tribune by Richard Ecke. He recognizes the 25th anniversary of the falling of an old plant's smokestack and very eloquently remembers the days of a bygone era, when pollution was tolerated, at least to some extent, for the jobs it created in the area. Folks living there knew they were being exposed to nasty stuff but it became a way of life because the plant was most of their livelyhoods.

Great Falls is now in the cross-hairs of another tall stack looking to "cast its shadow" on the locals. The newly proposed Highwood Generating Station is looming and the town and the surroundings can't help but think about the old and the new.

I love this story because it makes one reflect on where we as a nation have been and where we are going. The first couple paragraphs below should get you hooked too. I hope so, it is well worth the read.

Gone are the days when the Anaconda Co. smokestack in Great Falls belched smoke and most residents turned a blind eye to the pollution emitted by the industrial plant.

For a good chunk of the 20th century, the smelter and, later, metals refinery, in Black Eagle were the community's largest employers. In its final 30 years, its mostly union members earned increasingly higher wages and benefits from one of the state's most powerful companies.

Read on.

Beijing Olympics - Plan To Use Mercury Seeding To Clear Skies For Games - MORE Chinese Mercury Emissions!?!

2007-09-19T07:46:00.000-06:00

This one is very hard to believe, but considering the "source" not so very. In an attempt to make the polluted skies in Beijing look clear for the TV cameras for the '08 Summer Olympics, Chinese officials are toying with shooting mercury into the clouds above the city to create a rainfall that will result in micro-pockets of clean air. Like we don't have enough Chinese mercury in the air already.

This excerpt from Sports Business Radio;

Scientists have recently been shooting mercury in to the clouds in Beijing to produce rain and thus clear the air in small pockets of the city. Why? They plan on using anti-aircraft machinery to shoot mercury in to the sky above the Bird's Nest, which will serve as the home to the opening and closing cermonies. Thus, when you watch these ceremonies on TV, for the few hours that these events take place, the Chinese hope to manipulate the air quality and make it look like its clear skies in Beijing to the viewers on TV.

The full article is here.

Its Metalicious - New Study Shows Direct Link - Stack Mercury Emissions to Fish Levels

2007-09-17T15:49:00.000-06:00

Not really metalicious, but close. A yet unreleased study will show the direct link between mercury emitted from coal burning stacks and other industrial sources, to increasing levels in fish. This study may help us understand exactly what our efforts to reduce mercury emissions may have and how long it will take.

An excerpt from EurekAlert follows;

The study concludes that if mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and other industrial activities were to be cut immediately, the amount showing up in fish would begin to go down within a decade.

It will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America online edition next week.

This breakthrough study (called METAALICUS – Mercury Experiment to Assess Atmospheric Loading in Canada and the United States) involved government agencies and universities on both sides of the border. It has global implications.

Pennsylvania Plan Gets EPA Approval

2007-09-17T08:04:00.000-06:00

The mercury emissions reduction plan spear headed by PennFuture and embraced by Governor Edward Rendell, that was contentiously debated for months in Harrisburg, has been approved by the EPA and can be implemented as written. This plan is important because it came through significant opposition in a coal state. But, as we have pointed out before in Hg-ATME, tough mercury laws can actually help local coal companies.

Excerpts from the PR Newswire follow;

"This is excellent news for Pennsylvania," said Governor Rendell.
"Enacting our mercury emission reduction plan protects our citizens,
reduces the levels of this dangerous toxin in our air, and paves the way
for growth in our coal industry."
[...]
"My two-part mercury reduction strategy takes a much stronger stance
than the weaker federal rule that allows companies to reduce mercury
emissions at power plants in other states, and trade those reductions for
higher emissions at Pennsylvania plants. That does a tremendous disservice
to the people of Pennsylvania, as it does nothing to reduce pollution
here."
[...]
Because many power plants are installing scrubbers, Pennsylvania's
mercury reduction plan also creates new opportunities for the coal
producers. Pennsylvania coal has a relatively high sulfur and mercury
content compared to coal from many western states, but with the
installation of scrubbers to remove these pollutants, coal from the
Keystone State will be more desirable for electric power producers.

Not Much Happening in Mercury Regulations World - Idaho Reconsidering

2007-09-07T15:41:00.000-06:00

While I have been away on vacation for some of the last month the lack of posting is more attributed to a lack of movement in mercury regulations from very many States.

While Nebraska opted to stick with the Federal CAMR last month, the only State I see discussing the CAMR is Idaho. They currently have no coal fired units and originally looked to opting out of cap and trade and would thus eliminate the possibility of any new coal fired plants in the State.

Since they have no current plants in existence the CAMR alloted Idaho zero mercury emissions. If they opt out of cap and trade, they have no way to account for any new mercury emissions. By staying in the trade program they can purchase credits to offset any new plants.

From the Times News or magicvalley.com;

The Idaho Conservation League, an environmental group with a hard-line anti-mercury stance, is encouraging its supporters to attend Thursday's meeting at the Red Lion Hotel, 1357 Blue Lakes Blvd. The group says the meeting signals a policy shift that may open the door for coal-based energy production in Idaho via a federal cap-and-trade program.

"I believe this will set the stage for an Idaho plan to opt Idaho into the mercury cap-and-trade program," Courtney Washburn, an ICL spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail circulated in early July.

The full article can be read here.

The meeting was held and quote a few residents chose to speak out against allowing cap and trade. Some highlights from the meeting;

The south-central Idaho residents who filled the Oak Room at the Red Lion Hotel Canyon Springs had only one thing to say about opting in to a federal cap-and-trade program for mercury emissions: No, no and definitely no.
[...]
"We must be the conscience and the mind and the soul of our environment," Twin Falls Dr. David McClusky said. In this case, he said, the board needs to avoid scientific thought "that says you have to support both sides of a scientific argument, not just the one supported by facts."

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

2007-08-22T15:54:00.000-06:00

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.

While I Vacationed on the Golf Course, BP May Have Come To It's Senses

2007-08-22T15:31:00.000-06:00

I have been away tearing up the golf courses of Northern Michigan and Central Ohio. I did take a few divots and hit some greens hard in regulation but always replaced my divots and fixed my ball marks, keeping my green image intact. It appears BP is trying to replace a few divots taken from its green image in this Indiana refinery fiasco.

From the Chicago Tribune;

Responding to a groundswell of protests from politicians and the public, BP and Indiana regulators agreed Wednesday to reconsider a permit that allows the Midwest's largest oil refinery to significantly increase the amount of toxic waste dumped into Lake Michigan.
[...]
"This isn't a trivial controversy," Stephen Elbert, vice chairman of BP America, told a panel of politicians, regulators and advocates. "People want this fixed yesterday. We've got 5,000 BP employees that are concerned, not only about the contamination but about this smack on the company."

And this from the Gary Post Tribune;

Elected officials and environmentalists blasted BP Whiting's controversial wastewater permit at a meeting in Chicago on Wednesday, urging the company to go "beyond compliance."

BP America Vice President Steve Elbert defended the permit, but said in response to mounting public pressure that the company will consider ways to reduce its proposed discharges of ammonia, suspended solids and mercury.

"We have heard, loud and clear, folks believe that's not enough -- meeting the law that protects the environment," Elbert said.

I said in my earlier posts on the subject that BP had hurt their reputation already, regardless if they come clean and do the right thing now. I hope they do go beyond compliance as a 'green' company should.

ERCO Worldwide Finally Decides To Go Mercury Free

2007-08-09T14:32:00.000-06:00

In a move long. long overdue the Port Edwards based ERCO Worldwide plant is going mercury free. Oceana has targeted these chemical plants for decades and has pressured most of them to convert long ago. ERCO tried unsuccessfully last year to get the Wisconsin Public Utility Board to grant them a special rate to facilitate this conversion, but now after more Oceana press they are going forward without the rate break.

From Wisbusiness.com;

In a statement, Paul Timmons, President of ERCO Worldwide, said the membrane technology “provides significant environmental benefits over the existing mercury based technology.

“This conversion significantly extends facility life, increases capacity of the facility by approximately 30 percent, reduces operating costs through enhanced efficiency of electrical energy and maintains flexibility in facility operations.”

I commend the change over, what I don't understand is, if it makes all that sense why did it take so long to happen? But better late than never.

BP: Big Problem, Bad Publicity, Beyond Pollution

2007-08-09T13:35:00.000-06:00

The headlines lately splash BP's name on a daily basis in the Chicago newspapers and throughout the Great Lakes, almost as much as BP splashes pollution into Lake Michigan. It is beyond me to understand how a company that portrays itself as the "Green" choice within its industry can have such a poorly conceived public relations snafu on its hands.

Hg-ATME follows mercury pollution regulations and trends and caters to a fairly small group of concerned citizens and lawmakers keeping abreast of what is going on nationally in this regard. Rarely do we have the opportunity to talk about headlines attracting attention of the masses. BP and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management have given us that opportunity now.

The decision by IDEM to give BP an extension allowing toxic emissions into the lake so BP can expand its refinery in Whiting, IN and create a handful of full time jobs and increase its taxes paid to the State, is by far one of the most ill-conceived decisions a State environmental agency has ever made. It is guaranteed to backfire on both IDEM and BP to the extent that simply doing the right thing and requiring BP to install abatement equipment to prevent the problem in the first place will prove to be the wiser decision for all parties involved.

I don't know how many thousands or millions of dollars BP saves with its sweetheart deal with IDEM but it will lose more, lots more, in the long run as consumers are becoming environmentally aware and using their spending habits to prove it. BP has spent millions of dollars creating an image and could have afforded to do the right thing to maintain it, but in true big business fashion it let short term profits get in the way of long-term goals and set back its environmental movement decades, at least in the eyes of the mid-westerners who live around the Great Lakes.

What a fiasco! BP mismanaged this situation so profoundly that they now cannot win for losing. Even if they come clean and do the right thing, the fact they tried to go the sleazy route will not be forgotten, and if they persist in seeking the permit exception they will muddy their "green" image greater. How can IDEM regain the trust of its constituents? The people it is supposed to protect have lost faith in its ability to look out for their best interests. The perception that big business has gotten the inside track will have political fallout down the road and some IDEM employees will be looking for new jobs in the future. And the rest of the Great Lake States will not forget this selfish little fiasco.

I simply cannot imagine how it came to this. What were they thinking?

Chlor-Alkali Plants Literally Have No Excuse, They Simply Want To Pollute

2007-07-20T10:38:00.000-06:00

The efforts of Oceana have been discussed by Hg-ATME in the past. This group, in the name of clean oceans, has taken on the Chlor-Alkali industry for years. Their successes are numerous and their efforts should be applauded. My way of applauding is to continue focusing on issues they raise for the cause.

This week Oceana has come out with a small list of big polluters. (Their full report is here.) They make the case that these plants simply must change their ways or admit they are trying to pollute the earth moreso than make profit.

I picked up on this from Associated Content and have some excerpts below. The full AC article can be read here.

Oceana's analysis of the use of mercury in chlorine plants is compelling. By switching to mercury-free technology--a method already utilized to produce 90 percent of the chlorine in the United States-the chlorine plants in question would not only increase energy efficiency but also would increase capacity, sales and ultimately profits. However, the five U.S. facilities-dubbed The Filthy Five by the report--remain wedded to 110-year-old technology of using mercy in chlorine production, releasing on average, four times more mercury per each of their five plants than the average power plant using mercury-free technology.

Jackie Savitz, Director of Oceana's Campaign to Stop Seafood Contamination explains. "The chlorine industry's dirty little secret is that five U.S. plants are releasing thousands of pounds of mercury into the environment each year. Their refusal to switch to mercury-free technology -- a cost-effective solution adopted by the majority of plants around the world -- is an outrage that should concern citizens and shareholders alike." The five U.S. chlorine plants that refuse to switch to the mercury-free technology are: Ashta Chemicals in Ashtabula, Ohio; Olin Corporation's two plants in Charleston, Tenn., and Augusta, Ga.; PPG Industries in Natrium, W.Va.; and ERCO Worldwide in Port Edwards, Wis.

Seriously, just STOP.

Wisconsin Moves Closer to Strict Mercury Controls

2007-07-20T10:12:00.000-06:00

As Hg-ATME discussed earlier, Wisconsin has been investigating the right course of action the State should take in dealing with mercury emissions from coal burning power plants. Now, the DNR and State regulators will be deciding what to recommend. An excerpt from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel follows;

At issue are regulations that have moved sporadically for several years and were first pushed by conservation groups concerned about the link between smokestack emissions and mercury found in fish.

If approved when they come before the Natural Resources Board in the fall, the regulations would restrict mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants 90% by 2020
[...]
O. Russell Bullock Jr., a meteorologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Wisconsin power plants contribute 10% to 20% of mercury deposition in the state - and perhaps 30% near power plants.

"On a statewide level, I would say Wisconsin is a state where global factors are more important," Bullock said.

Even if what Mr. Bullock says is true, and I have some doubts, I can say unequivocally that 100% of the mercury Wisconsin power plants emit, falls somewhere.

"When we set the bar, we need to consider the fact that the mercury we produce comes down somewhere," said Eric Uram, an environmentalist active on mercury matters.

"Then we can say, 'We have done as much as we can here to solve the problem. We know it's coming from you. It's time for you to step up to the plate.' "

The full Journal Sentinel article can be read here.

Nations Waterways Focus of Mercury Emissions Attention

2007-07-18T15:36:00.000-06:00

Hg-ATME tries to stick mainly to smokestack mercury emissions issues in this blog but recent concerns over some of the nations most prominent bodies of water and their own battles with mercury is worthy of note.

A recent Indiana Dept of Environmental Management permit for BP's Whiting, IN refinery would allow massive increases in ammonia and toxic sludge releases directly into Lake Michigan. What are they thinking. I read in one article the plant expansion would create 80 full time jobs. Now I'm all for creating jobs but to allow huge increases in refinery emissions into the lake for a measly 80 jobs, not even 800 would justify that.

Our Senator, here in Illinois, Dick Durbin, will not let this go unchallenged. From an excerpt in All American Patriots we see this;

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today sent a letter to Benjamin Grumbles, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to express his strong opposition to a permit that will allow BP’s Whiting refinery in Indiana to discharge more pollution into Lake Michigan. The National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, recently approved by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), will allow BP to increase ammonia and sludge pollution discharges into Lake Michigan by 50 percent and 35 percent respectively.

In today’s letter Durbin said, “Lake Michigan is one of our nation’s greatest natural resources and serves as the drinking water supply for over 40 million people – including the entire Chicago metropolitan area, supports a significant commercial fishing industry, and supports numerous recreational activities… It is our responsibility to support efforts to restore, rather than further degrade Lake Michigan. We should be working toward the goal of eliminating pollution in this fresh water ecosystem.”

The permit runs counter to the Clean Water Act and the State of Indiana’s anti-degradation policy. A specific provision in the federal Clean Water Act prohibits any downgrade in water quality near a pollution source even if discharge limits are met.

You can read full contents of his and IL Congressman Rahm Emanuel's letters here too.

And then a decades long battle over mercury and other toxic pollution in the San Francisco Bay is being addressed with some new standards that are long overdue. It was always a battle over who was responsible. No one disputed that the problem existed they always wanted to know who to blame. Well now we will know who not to blame for future contributions as the standards kick in and limit future releases. This excerpt from KGO-TV/DT;

For decades, there have been concerns about mercury pollution in San Francisco Bay. Environmentalists have fought for changes to protect our water and our health, and today, state officials approved a plan to try to reduce mercury levels.
[...]
For years environmentalists have been pushing the state to adopt a process to identify the sources of mercury and set goals for reducing the pollution.

Today the California Water Resources Board listed the old gold mines as the number one source, but Baykeeper says a contemporary culprit are refineries.

Deb Self: "It probably is coming from the smokestacks and we're urging the state to require the refineries to do the studies to show where the mercury is going. It may be the most important pollutant source."

I guess one cannot totally disassociate mercury stack emissions from Clean Water issues, they are really tied together. Sort of a cause (stacks) and effect (polluted water) situation when it comes to mercury.

Minnesota To Hold Stakeholder Meetings to Discuss Statewide Mercury Emission Reductions

2007-07-18T13:56:00.000-06:00

Stakeholders from around the State will be invited to attend meetings to discuss how to achieve the Mercury Total Maximum Daily Load or TMDL. An excerpt from the International Falls Daily Journal follows;

The first of a series of meetings in which stakeholders will identify ways that mercury air emissions and releases to Minnesota lakes and streams could be reduced to acceptable levels is under way at the Minnesota History Center. Attendees are members of a 16-person strategy work group representing environmental, sports fishing and business interests; the electrical and taconite industries; and local, state and tribal governments.

The Mercury Total Maximum Daily Load stakeholder process will eventually produce recommendations for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to consider for an implementation plan. The plan will enable Minnesota to meet the goals of the MPCA?s Mercury TMDL study, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved in March.

"Reducing annual in-state mercury emissions by about 2,600 pounds from current levels is definitely a challenge," MPCA Assistant Commissioner David Thornton said.

Thornton said the stakeholder process will not consider changes to the goals set in the mercury TMDL study. "Our charge," he said, "is to determine how and by when the goals of the TMDL can be achieved."

It is a formidable challenge and Hg-ATME wishes them success. It looks as though the meetings may be open to the public but that participation may be limited to members of the working group that represents major blocks of constituents. But who knows, when a meeting on mercury emissions is touted as a stakeholder meeting, it is hard to conceive they would exclude public comment. They probably just want to get something accomplished rather than argue with John Q. :-) I would suggest John Q take his/her concerns to the members before the meetings next year.

The Great Lakes Face a Challenge, Canada and USA, Enough Blame To Go Around

2007-07-13T10:33:00.000-06:00

A recent study titled "Up to the Gills: Pollution in Great Lakes Fish" shows that many of the smaller varieties of fish are now demonstrating higher levels of mercury contamination that used to be found only in larger, older fish. The fact that the Great Lakes are experiencing this increased stress from industrial mercury emissions is alarming but not surprising. Anyone who has been following this issue sees the trends nationally and internationally.

What bothered me was the finger pointing in the articles I read that was blaming Canada for not doing enough. From the editorial page of The Record this,

It is not enough to blame Great Lakes pollution problems on the United States. On a per-facility basis, Canadian factories around the Great Lakes emit 93 per cent more pollution than their U.S. counterparts.

Between 1998 and 2002, air pollution from Canadian industries in the Great Lakes basin increased by three per cent, while U.S. facilities decreased their pollution by 24 per cent.

In 2004, President George W. Bush pulled together regional, state and federal agency officials, together with top members of his cabinet, to address health and environmental concerns in the Great Lakes. Major funding for cleanup efforts has followed and a bipartisan bill in Congress would earmark $20 billion for additional measures.

Canada has done almost nothing to match this effort, with the result that, for the first time, the United States is poised to move unilaterally on Great Lakes management.

That is from an editorial by Aaron Freeman the policy director for Environmental Defence, the same group that did the study. Now, I don't doubt the data showing the increased levels of mercury and other toxics, what I have a problem with is holding the Bush administration up as some benchmark environmental advocacy group. They have done little, in my mind, to earn that praise. Everyone, Canada and the US can do a lot better job of caring for one of the greatest fresh water resources in the world.