Fighting Mercury Rollbacks in Georgia

Mercury Facts: Georgia Needs Effective Mercury Controls

Health Impacts of Mercury Pollution

Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin that lowers IQ levels and causes permanent damage to the nervous system. Mercury pollution poses a serious threat to children and women of child-bearing age, leading to severe developmental abnormalities in children such as delayed neurological milestones, cerebral palsy, reduced test scores, and delays and lifelong deficits in learning abilities.
The most commonly identified at-risk populations are fetuses and breast-fed babies, who may be exposed to mercury when their mothers eat mercury-tainted fish and children who ingest mercury-laden fish.
The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that between 8% and 21% of women of childbearing age have dangerous levels of mercury in their blood. Recent results from a national hair-sampling study conducted by the University of North Carolina - Asheville showed that 17 percent of Georgia women of child-bearing age tested have dangerous levels of mercury in their blood.
The Environmental Protection Division (EPD) has estimated that more than 20,000 children within Georgia may be born each year with blood mercury levels of concern related to subtle neurological effects. That's nearly 15% of Georgia's children born every year with dangerous blood mercury levels
Adults exposed to methylmercury through consumption of contaminated fish are also at risk and may experience blurred vision as well as numbness of lips, tongue, fingers, and toes and - alarmingly - may be at higher risk for cardiovascular disease and infertility. Because methylmercury has a half life of approximately six months in the body, eliminating the risk of these adverse effects essentially requires eliminating dietary sources of methylmercury.

Outdoors

All watersheds in the state are under fish advisories for mercury. This means over 2,000 miles of rivers within the state and along the coast have mercury fish advisories. However, studies have shown these warnings are highly ineffective to those that rely on local fish as part of their weekly diet.
In fact, mercury currently accounts for 80% of the fish advisories limiting consumption in Georgia. In particular, Georgia's wetlands are especially prone to methylmercury formation and concentration, because they have low pH, hypoxic and anoxic conditions, and elevated dissolved organic carbon levels. Surface waters in coastal regions, especially in the South Georgia Coastal Plain, are especially prone to mercury formation and have been coined "hot regions" by EPD due to the high concentrations of mercury found in the fish of this region.
According to one study, Georgia fish have two times the average mercury concentration considered safe for women of childbearing age who eat fish twice a week.
Fish advisories have proven in several studies to be ineffective. A Florida study found that of those who were aware of the fish advisories, nearly 75 percent failed to change consumption patterns in response.

National Response to Mercury Pollution

In December of 2000, after many years of meeting with air regulators and studying the issue, EPA determined that mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants was a Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP) and should be controlled by technology that reduces mercury emissions by 90%. In March 2005, however, EPA dismissed its stakeholder group. Ignoring their recommendations, EPA abruptly reversed its prior determination and declared that mercury could be regulated through an unlawfully lax and ineffective cap-and-trade program. EPA formally adopted this weak program as part of its Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR).
Rather than implementing the 90% reduction requirements that the MACT standards would achieve, EPA's rule imposes a two-phase cap, with reductions required by 2010 and 2018. Under the Federal Government's CAMR, coal-fired power plants will have the ability to purchase "credits" from other states that have reduced mercury emissions below their assigned cap. It is unclear when, if ever, Georgia's power plants will meet the Phase II caps under the federal rule.
Contrary to the assumptions that underlie EPA's mercury rule-which assumed that only 8% of mercury emissions deposit near power plants-more recent EPA studies show that about 70% of mercury emissions from power plants deposits locally. That means most of the mercury pollution from Georgia power plants deposits in the state.
This fact is especially troubling since approximately 1.25 million Georgia children live within 30 miles of a power plant.
EPA's 2005 mercury rule is so weak it is currently being challenged in federal court by fourteen states and several national environmental organizations.
In addition, in their first-ever direct legal action against the Environmental Protection Agency, four national health organizations representing some 300,000 medical professionals nationwide filed a legal challenge last summer over CAMR. SELC is representing these public health groups including Physicians for Social Responsibility, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Mercury contamination is only getting worse. Toxic mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants in Georgia increased by approximately 980 pounds from 2003 to 2004, according to new information compiled by environmental and public health organizations from utility reports and EPA. In fact, Georgia is among the top 15 states nationwide with the highest mercury emissions from power plants.
Georgia has the option to implement a more stringent rule that actually reduces mercury within our state. In fact, many other states, even those that produce coal (Pennsylvania) and rely on coal-fired power plants as their main energy source (New Jersey), are passing versions of a mercury rule that require 90% reductions of mercury in their state.

Affordable Controls Can Dramatically Reduce Mercury Pollution from Power Plants

Georgia's main source of mercury emissions is coal-fired power plants. Power plants within the state reported emitting 1.89 tons of mercury in 2004, accounting for 76% of reported in-state mercury emissions. The good news about our mercury pollution problem is that we can do something about it.
Tests of currently available mercury-specific controls consistently achieve 90% or greater reductions in mercury emissions. And EPA recognizes that "controls may be available in the 2010-2015 timeframe . . . to provide mercury removal levels between 90 and 95%."
Moreover, this technology effectively controls mercury pollution at a fraction of the cost of control devices for other power plant pollution, such as acid-rain causing sulfur-about $1 million vs. $100 million. The NWF "Getting the Job Done" report has found that the installation of such controls could add from $1.05/month to $3.16/month to utility bills - or about as much as a cup of coffee.
Even EPA admits that "[t]echnologies available today and technologies expected to be available in the near future can eliminate most of the mercury from utilities at a cost far lower than 1 percent of utility industry revenues."
And studies also show that cleaning up our mercury air pollution will produce public health results. A study by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection showed that cutting mercury emissions from nearby pollution sources resulted in a 75% reduction in mercury levels in largemouth bass and great egret birds in only a few years.