Mercury: A heavy, silvery, toxic univalent and bivalent metallic element; the only metal that is liquid at ordinary temperatures and the periodic table element known as Hg, with an atomic number of 80. Mercury was formerly used to measure temperature. Mercury is an element named for Jupiter’s messenger and the god of commerce in ancient Roman mythology, as a counterpart to the Greek god Hermes. Mercury is also the name of the smallest planet, which is also nearest to the sun. Mercury was thought so harmless that one man, now in his 50s, laughs at how, during his childhood, he and his friends would take the silvery liquid from broken thermometers and rub it over their faces to look like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.
Mercury is such a potent neurotoxin that one measly gram is capable of infecting a 20-acre lake to a point where humans risk being poisoned by so much as entering the water. Mercury poisoning causes the loss of hearing, memory and even vision. Similar to lead, mercury can cause drastic neurological and developmental trouble to unborn fetuses and toddlers whose brains are still developing.
The Bush administration is proposing to allow the single largest unregulated source of mercury, coal fired power plants, to continue emitting high levels for at least another 10 years. When power plants give off pollution, mercury enters the rain cycle and is then deposited in lakes, rivers and the ocean.
Think you are mercury-safe? Not if you’ve got a penchant for eating Nemo. The principal way that people are exposed to mercury is by eating fish that were caught in contaminated water. Despite fish’s undeniable potential to decrease heart disease levels by approximately 50 percent, the EPA and 43 states have issued advisories warning people, especially women and children, to avoid or limit eating the scaly creatures.
According to the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups, regardless of such warnings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that one out of 12 American women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.
Toxicologist reports indicate that pregnant women should eat no fish in Massachusetts, and women of childbearing years should limit themselves to, at most, one can of tuna per month. Fish such as tuna are especially harmful because large fish – particularly those higher on the food chain – have consumed and therefore absorbed greater amounts of mercury through mercury-affected food.
In 2000, the EPA determined that mercury from power plants should be regulated, and in 2001, research associated with the Clean Air Act revealed that available and cost-effective technologies, such as scrubbers, could reduce 90 percent of mercury from power plants.
In the last few years, this positive policy has taken a turn for the worse. In response to Bush’s Clear Skies Initiative, on Dec. 30, 2003, the EPA released what PIRG calls a “weak proposal to reduce the danger posed by mercury from power plants.” Instead of advocating stricter measures protecting Americans from mercury poisoning, the proposal aims to please the non-renewable energy industry. It fixes mercury secretion limits in a manner so lax that the industry will hardly be compelled to use the clean technology necessary to bring emissions down to a safe level.
The EPA also wants to cease defining mercury as a neurotoxin, despite growing medical evidence confirming this classification. If the EPA no longer considers mercury a hazardous pollutant, mercury protections will suffer a huge blow. Power plants will be able to emit up to seven times more mercury pollution than they currently produce for a decade longer than the original 2001 plan recommended.
The president’s plan undermines the risks associated with mercury. The proposed policy only serves to guarantee the campaign funding and votes of the polluters, while ignoring that women and children make up a majority of his constituents.
The EPA has been slightly more perceptive. In response to growing pressure from both the public and interest groups, on Jan. 30, the EPA began a 60-day public comment period, during which people are able to voice their views on the Bush proposal.
PIRG believes that this is the best chance yet for Americans to show the Bush administration that they should act without further delay to cut, rather than increase, mercury emissions.
As citizens, this is also our last chance to prevent a potential environmental and health disaster. By contacting EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt and members of Congress, Bush’s plan can be stalled. If the government realizes that mercury and other forms of pollution concerns voters – not everyone who voted for Bush was CEO of a fossil fuel corporation – the plan to relax mercury standards will fail, benefiting America’s families. Massachusetts can return to its prideful past of seafaring and coastal delicacies, and we can all celebrate with a cup of chowder and a toast to good health.