WASHINGTON, DC, February 24, 2009 (ENS) – The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to consider a Bush-era rule that would have allowed a cap-and-trade approach to mercury, a toxic heavy metal emitted by power plants that burn coal and oil. Power plants are the largest source of mercury in the nation.

The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case invalidates the U.S. EPA’s so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule, which would have allowed dangerous levels of mercury pollution to persist under a weak cap-and-trade program that would not have taken full effect until after 2020.

The Supreme Court in effect denied an appeal, filed last year by a coalition of utilities, seeking reversal of a federal court decision vacating the mercury rule.

The original lawsuit that resulted in the February 2008 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the states and environmental groups maintained that EPA illegally removed coal and oil-fired power plants from the list of regulated source categories under a section of the Clean Air Act that requires strict regulation of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury.

Left standing is the ruling by the appeals court that upheld the lower court ruling and rebuked the Bush-era EPA for attempting to create an illegal loophole for the power generating industry, rather than applying the Clean Air Act’s “maximum achievable control technology” standard for mercury emissions.

The Supreme Court also granted the Obama administration’s request, made two weeks ago, to drop the Bush administration appeal.

“Today’s good news is due in no small part to the leadership of the Obama administration, in renouncing the harmful Bush administration actions and embracing EPA’s responsibilities to protect the American people against mercury and other toxic pollution,” said John Walke, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The James H. Miller coal-fired power plant in Alabama emits more mercury than any other generating station in the United States. (Photo credit unknown)

Newly appointed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has pledged to move swiftly in developing tough new mercury standards for power plants.

Seventeen states and dozens of Native American tribes, public health and environmental groups, and organizations representing registered nurses and physicians, challenged EPA’s suite of rules in 2005.

The plaintiffs maintained that cap-and-trade contributed to “hot spots” for mercury, a neurotoxin linked to birth defects, learning disabilities and neurological problems.

New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said the Supreme Court’s denial of an appeal petition from the Utility Air Regulatory Group ends a long legal fight by New Jersey and other states to compel the federal government to issue tough new standards for mercury and other toxic air emissions from power plants.

“As of today, the protracted legal battle that has delayed proper regulation of mercury emissions from power plants is over, and the practice of allowing those plants to spew harmful quantities of a dangerous neurotoxin into our air in violation of federal law is at an end,” Milgram said.

“The Supreme Court has now confirmed that EPA must follow the law as it is written. We are looking forward to working on rules that reflect the most stringent controls achievable for this industry, as the Clean Air Act requires,” said Ann Weeks, attorney for Clean Air Task Force who represented U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Ohio Environmental Council, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Conservation Law Foundation in the case.

Some 1,100 coal-fired units at more than 450 existing power plants emit 48 tons of mercury into the air each year. Yet only 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury is needed to contaminate a 25-acre lake to the point where fish are unsafe to eat, the plaintiffs pointed out.

More than 40 states have warned their citizens to avoid consuming various fish species due to mercury contamination, with over half of those mercury advisories applying to all water bodies in the state.

“We’re relieved that the Supreme Court has put the final nail in the coffin of this ill-advised regulation, which left the Adirondacks and Catskills vulnerable to continued mercury contamination,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club. “Ninety-six percent of the lakes in the Adirondack region exceed the recommended EPA action level for methyl mercury in fish.”

“In the Catskills, health officials have advised children and women of childbearing age not to eat fish from six Catskill reservoirs, reservoirs that also provide New York City with its drinking water,” said Woodworth. “With this ruling, we can now move forward with sensible mercury controls that will help reverse these trends.”

Among the groups involved in last year’s successful court challenge was Earthjustice, who argued the case before the lower court on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club.

“While we applaud this ruling, mercury contamination from coal-fired utilities continues to grow as new plants are approved for construction,” said Jon Mueller, Chesapeake Bay Foundation director of litigation. “Every year in the Chesapeake Bay region additional fish consumption advisories are issued. EPA must take action quickly to curtail this threat to public health.”

The EPA rules generated controversy when they were proposed in 2004, after it was discovered that industry attorneys had drafted key language that EPA included verbatim in its rule.

EPA’s internal auditor in the Office of Inspector General later discovered that EPA’s senior political management had ordered staff to work backwards from a pre-determined political outcome, “instead of basing the standard on an unbiased determination of what the top performing [power plant] units were achieving in practice.”

The top 50 most-polluting coal-burning power plants in the United States emitted 20 tons of toxic mercury into the air in 2007, finds a November 2008 report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. Of the top 10 mercury emitting power plants, all but one reported an increase as compared to the previous year.

Once released into the atmosphere, mercury settles in lakes and rivers, where it moves up the food chain to humans who eat contaminated fish. The Centers for Disease Control has found that six percent of American women have mercury in their blood at levels that would put a fetus at risk of neurological damage.

Click here [www.earthjustice.org] for a guide to the mercury levels found in various species of fish and shellfish.

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CHICAGO, Illinois, May 8, 2008 (ENS) – Mercury released from products such as thermometers and dental amalgam is much lower now than it was in 1990, but such releases continue to be a dangerous source of environmental contamination, according to new research conducted by an environmental scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.

Releases to air and land caused by products that contain mercury decreased an estimated 88 percent from 1990 to 2005, and estimated releases to water decreased 83 percent, the new study shows.

Mercury released from products contributes nearly one-third of total mercury emissions to the air in the United States. The study shows that in 2000, mercury-containing products accounted for an estimated 32 percent of mercury releases to air, two percent of mercury releases to land, and four percent of mercury releases to water.

Mercury is also released by coal-burning power plants and factories, from transport and storage of waste because of broken mercury equipment, from cremations because of the mercury contained in dental amalgam used for tooth fillings, and from burn barrels used for trash disposal in rural areas.

“Mercury-containing products such as thermometers, switches and dental products release mercury throughout the product life-cycle, including during production, use and disposal,” says Alexis Cain, lead author of the study and an environmental scientist with the EPA Region 5 based in Chicago.

A broken thermometer spills beads
of mercury. (Photo courtesy
Michigan Dept. Community Health)

Mercury, at high levels, may damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances.

When mercury falls on water or land, contact with bacteria results in the formation of methylmercury. This form of mercury accumulates in fish populations, jeopardizing the health of children and women of childbearing age who eat the fish.

Mercury’s harmful effects that may be passed from the mother to the fetus include brain damage, mental retardation, incoordination, blindness, seizures, and inability to speak. Children poisoned by mercury may develop problems of their nervous and digestive systems, and kidney damage.

A number of highly-used products release mercury throughout their lifecycles, often in ways that are difficult to measure directly, says Cain. As a result, there has been uncertainty about the magnitude of mercury release into the environment that is associated with these products.

Cain’s study, published in “Journal of Industrial Ecology,” uses a method called substance flow analysis to develop improved estimates of the environmental releases caused by mercury-containing products.

“Substance flow analysis can be used to estimate the mercury releases to air, land and water at different stages of a product lifecycle,” Cain says. “It can also help identify actions that would be effective in minimizing mercury releases.”

The model can be used as a predictive tool to evaluate the potential impact of measures to reduce the use of mercury, to improve the management of mercury wastes or to reduce mercury releases through the installation of mercury control technologies.

Cain says, “Reductions in the mercury content of some products, along with mercury emissions limitations imposed on municipal and medical incinerators, have resulted in significant reductions in mercury releases.”

Campaigns are underway to eliminate mercury in thermometers and dental amalgam, and to discontinue mercury use in energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs.

In August 2006, the U.S. EPA announced a national program to remove mercury-containing light switches from scrap vehicles before the vehicles are flattened, shredded, and melted to make new steel.

Together with existing state mercury switch recovery efforts, the National Vehicle Mercury Switch Recovery Program is intended to reduce mercury air emissions from the fourth leading source in the United States – the furnaces used in steel making.

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NEW YORK, New York, March 4, 2008 (ENS) – The call of the loon has sounded over the waters of northeast lakes for centuries. Now those lakes are polluted with so much mercury that the loons are being poisoned, new research shows.

A long-term study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the BioDiversity Research Institute, and other organizations has found and confirmed that environmental mercury from human-generated emissions is damaging the health and reproductive success of common loons in the Northeast.

The results of the 18 year study on loons appear in the most recent edition of the journal “Ecotoxicology.”

“This study demonstrates how top predators such as common loons can be used as the proverbial canaries in the coalmine for pollutants that concern humans as well,” said David Evers of the BioDiversity Research Institute, lead author of the study. “Our findings can be used to facilitate national and global decisions for regulating mercury emissions from coal-burning plants and other sources.”

Metallic mercury and inorganic mercury compounds enters the air from mining ore deposits, burning coal and waste, and from manufacturing plants and falls into bodies of water such as the northern lakes inhabited by loons.

Methylmercury is formed in water and soil by bacteria, and this methylmercury builds up in the tissues of fish. Larger and older fish tend to have the highest levels of mercury. Since loons are fish-eating birds, they ingest high concentrations of mercury.

The common loon (Photo by Stephen
Lang courtesy Wisconsin DNR)

The human nervous system is very sensitive to all forms of mercury. Exposure to high levels of metallic, inorganic, or organic mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus. The study was conducted to determine its effects on loons.

The study uses data from nearly 5,500 samples of blood, feathers, and eggs collected from captured and released loons from some 80 lakes in Maine, New York, New Hampshire, and other states and provinces.

With behavioral observations from 1,529 loon territories between 1996 and 2005, the researchers made correlations between the behaviors of individual birds and their levels of methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury that accumulates up the food chain.

Loons with high levels of mercury were found to spend some 14 percent less time at the nest than normally behaving birds. Unattended nests have a higher rate of failure due to either chilling of the eggs or predation by minks, otters, raccoons and other egg robbers.

High levels of mercury were found in about 16 percent of the adult population in the study area.

Researchers found that loon pairs with elevated mercury levels also produced 41 percent fewer fledged young than loons in lakes relatively free of mercury.

Other behavioral impacts due to elevated mercury were sluggishness, resulting in decreased foraging for fish by the adults for both themselves and for chicks.

In addition to behavior, the concentration of mercury in loons has physical impacts as well.

Researchers found that loons with high mercury loads have unevenly sized flight feathers. Birds with wing asymmetries of more than five percent must expend 20 percent more energy than normal birds to fly, a deficiency that may impact their ability to migrate and maintain a breeding territory.

“This study confirms what we’ve long suspected – mercury from human activities such as coal-burning power plants is having a significant negative impact on the environment and the health of its most charismatic denizens, and potentially, to humans, too,” said Nina Schoch of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Adirondack Program.

“Thus, it becomes even more urgent for the EPA to propose effective national regulations for mercury emissions from power plants that are based on sound science,” she said.

Many northeastern states have implemented stringent mercury emission rules, but a nationwide regulation has yet to be passed.

The U.S. District Court of Appeals recently struck down the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed cap-and-trade rule for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, which critics say would have led to localized “hotspots” of mercury.

Schoch says, “The ecological impacts of mercury identified in this study illustrate the need for comprehensive, national regulations to limit mercury emissions.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, February 8, 2008 (ENS) – Environmental and public health groups as well as 14 states, one city, and native tribes declared victory as a federal appeals court today vacated two rules issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that failed to set strict limits on mercury emissions from power plants.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the agency’s 2005 “Clean Air Mercury Rule,” violates the Clean Air Act by evading mandatory cuts in toxic mercury pollution from power plants that burn coal and oil.

The EPA now has two years to develop mercury emissions standards for existing power plants.

The decision invalidates the EPA’s controversial cap-and-trade approach to regulating mercury emissions that would not have taken full effect until well beyond 2020.

Cap-and-trade allows power plants to purchase emissions credits from other plants that have cut emissions below targeted levels, rather than installing pollution controls at their own plants.

Power plants are sources of mercury, arsenic, lead, other heavy metals, and dioxins. Because these toxic pollutants are all classified as “hazardous,” the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to identify their sources and develop the most stringent standards to control emissions from those sources.

The court ruled today that the EPA erred when it took power plants off the list of hazardous pollution sources when issuing its Clean Air Mercury Rule.

The lawsuit was filed by New Jersey on behalf of the coalition of states. The BL England power plant in southern New Jersey burns coal and oil.

New owners Rockland Capital Energy
Investments pledged to reduce the
facility’s mercury and other hazardous
emissions. (Photo by Curt Bergesen)

Calling the decision “an important victory,” New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said, “From the beginning we have maintained that the EPA adopted standards for regulating mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin, which were weak, ineffectual and ran counter to the clear intent of the Clean Air Act.”

“Our persistence has paid off in a tremendous victory that will result in a healthier environment for New Jersey’s residents – especially our children,” said Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson. “I am thrilled that the United States Court of Appeals has agreed with us by voiding the misguided federal cap-and-trade approach. It simply does not work for emissions of a neurotoxin as dangerous as mercury.”

Some 450 existing coal and oil burning power plants emit 48 tons of mercury into the air each year. Yet only 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury is needed to contaminate a 25 acre lake to the point where fish are unsafe to eat.

More than 40 states have warned their residents to avoid consuming various fish species due to mercury contamination, and more than half of those mercury advisories apply to all water bodies in the state.

The states were joined in the legal challenge by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility, representing more than 300,000 doctors, nurses, medical researchers and health care professionals.

“Today’s decision is a huge victory as it requires EPA to get back to the business of protecting people’s health rather than higher profits for electric utilities,” said John Suttles, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who argued on behalf of the public health organizations.

The ruling will have an immediate effect on the nation’s approximately 100 proposed new coal-fired power plants. According to the ruling, new plants must determine on a case-by-case basis how to control mercury pollution at least as well as the best-controlled similar source.

The Conemaugh Generating Station in
western Pennsylvania burns coal and oil.

“The mercury emitted by our nation’s coal-fired power plants poses serious health risks for all Americans,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “Congress and now the courts are recognizing the need for stronger environmental protections to safeguard human health. We call upon the EPA to uphold the intent of Clean Air Act and work to eliminate mercury emissions.”

Mercury emitted from power plants is deposited in water bodies, where it is converted to its most toxic form, methylmercury. This chemical is taken up by fish and then eaten by humans. The EPA estimates that as many as than 600,000 children are born each year with unhealthy levels of methylmercury in their bodies.

Despite this figure, EPA adopted the mercury rule, ignoring the counsel of its own Children’s Health Public Advisory Committee and thousands of health professionals nationwide.

“For pediatricians, who see daily the direct impact dangerous environmental emissions have on children’s health, the D.C. Circuit Court’s decision is an important victory for children, families and communities” said American Academy of Pediatrics’ President Renée R. Jenkins, MD.

“The federal court agrees with the American Medical Association that EPA’s flawed mercury program for coal plants is hazardous to our health,” said Vickie Patton, an attorney with Environmental Defense, which along with Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation was represented by Earthjustice in the lawsuit.

“This decision is a victory for the health of all Americans, but especially for our children who can suffer permanent brain damage from toxic mercury pollution,” Patton said.

The coal-fired Dallman power plant
near Springfield, Illinois (Photo by
Stephen B. Davis)

The lawsuit maintained that the EPA illegally removed coal and oil-fired power plants from the list of regulated source categories under a section of the federal Clean Air Act that requires strict regulation of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury.

The EPA sought to avoid requiring power plants to regulate their mercury emissions by using the criteria of “maximum achievable control technology.”

“The court has now told EPA in no uncertain terms to follow the law as it is written. We are looking forward to working on rules that reflect the most stringent controls achievable for this industry, as the Clean Air Act requires,” said Ann Weeks, attorney for Clean Air Task Force who represented U.S. PIRG, Ohio Environmental Council, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Conservation Law Foundation in the case.

“That’s what is needed now, if we are ever to alleviate the problem of mercury contamination in fish and wildlife,” she said.

The government coalition led by New Jersey involved California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the City of Baltimore.

“Today’s ruling should show power plant companies and the EPA once and for all that they may cheat and delay required clean-up obligations, but the law will catch up to them,” said John Walke, attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Electric power plants are America’s worst polluters of mercury, smog, soot and global warming pollution, and their days of reckoning are long overdue.”

“The Bush administration cannot ignore its responsibilities to bring power plants’ mercury pollution under control,” said Earthjustice attorney James Pew. “We hope the administration will gain some new respect for the law in its last year and start working to protect Americans from pollution and stop working to shield polluters from their lawful cleanup obligations.”

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