State issues strong mercury protections from coal-fired power plants

Raleigh –The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission today took action to require all the state’s coal-fired power plants to install effective mercury controls at each of their units by no later than 2017. The rule is the first mercury-specific regulation of the state’s utilities and is stronger than the federal mercury rule from which it was prompted.

Mercury is a neurotoxin emitted by coal-fired power plants that can cause lowered intelligence and learning disabilities in children. North Carolina is among the top 12 states with the highest mercury emissions from power plants.

“This rule marks an important and aggressive step forward in controlling mercury pollution in North Carolina and should stand among the strongest mercury regulations in the country,” said John Suttles, Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The real winners here are North Carolina residents, who will reap the health benefits of lower emissions of this toxic pollutant.”

The rule passed by the EMC today will require existing power plants to install the “maximum level of reduction” of all units no later than 2017 regardless of the level of controls the plants already receive through the Clean Smokestacks Act. New sources will be required to install the best available control technology, which is expected to result in state of the art levels of mercury control.

Existing units can avoid installing the necessary controls if they are determined not to be technically or economically feasible. However, this determination can only be made if the utility proves that continued operation of the unit without such controls will not contribute to health problems and that they will achieve deeper controls at other units. Industry trade groups have said that technology that will effectively control mercury is affordable and available. In North Carolina, significant mercury reduction technology can be installed at a cost of less than one percent of utility profits – as little as 33 cents per month on the average household utility bill.

The rule passed today will also allow state utilities to save up excess credits if their mercury emissions fall below the limits established by EPA. They will then be allowed to sell those credits to utilities in other states. Environmentalists and public health professionals have opposed this provision as it could lead to mercury “hot spots”—local areas of high mercury contamination and human exposures.

“While this rule should clean North Carolina’s house, we remain concerned and disappointed that it buys into EPA’s discredited pollution trading scheme, which may lead to mercury ‘hot spots’ in other areas of the Southeast,” said Suttles.

After installing pollution control technology to comply with the state’s Clean Smokestacks Act, which requires controls for pollutants that contribute to smog and soot, some of the state’s power plant units will also see a reduction in mercury as a “co-benefit.” But the Clean Smokestacks Act is not designed to control mercury pollution and will leave many of the state’s largest mercury emitters uncontrolled or under-controlled for mercury.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and other environmental and public health organizations as well as medical professionals around the state pushed the EMC to adopt strong mercury rules that would cut emissions of the toxic pollutant as deeply and quickly as possible. Prior proposals by the EMC, however, failed to require deep but achievable mercury reductions from some of the state’s largest sources.

The rule passed today represents a significant strengthening of prior proposals because it requires the deepest mercury reductions feasible as soon as possible at all sources and will result in lower mercury emissions throughout the state.

Coal-fired power plants are the leading source of mercury pollution, which is emitted into the air and deposited in water bodies where it is consumed by fish before it works its way up the food chain. Unborn children, breast-fed infants and young children exposed to mercury are at risk for mental retardation, lowered intelligence and learning disabilities. Adults exposed to even low amounts of mercury may also be at higher risk for heart disease and heart attacks, altered sensation, impaired hearing and vision, and motor disturbances linked directly to exposure from eating contaminated fish.

Power plants account for more than 70 percent of North Carolina mercury emissions. The state’s high number of old, coal fired power plants combined with our normally high rainfall levels and numerous water bodies turns mercury into its toxic form – methlymercury – faster in North Carolina than in other parts of the country.