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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NAIROBI, Kenya, February 20, 2009 (ENS) – Environment officials from more than 140 countries today agreed to craft the world’s first treaty to control emissions of mercury, a toxic heavy metal that poses serious risks to human health and the environment. They agreed to voluntarily limit mercury at once, even before a treaty is finalized.

At the close of the UN Environment Programme’s annual Governing Council and Global Ministerial Environment Forum, governments unanimously decided to begin negotiations on an international mercury treaty to deal with worldwide emissions and discharges of the neurotoxin that threatens the health of hundreds of millions of people.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said, “Only a few weeks ago nations remained divided on how to deal with this major public health threat which touches everyone in every country of the world. Today we are united on the need for a legally binding instrument and immediate action towards a transition to a low-mercury world.”

U.S. delegate Daniel Fantozzi (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)

An indicator of that unity came on Monday during the Governing Council’s opening session when the Obama administration reversed the former U.S. position on limiting mercury pollution. Led by Daniel Fantozzi, director of the Office of Environmental Policy, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State, the delegation endorsed negotiations for the new global mercury treaty.

The environment officials attending the meeting agreed to take accelerated action under a voluntary Global Mercury Partnership even before the treaty is finalized because they view mercury exposure as a great risk to human health and the environment.

Under the voluntary partnership, governments will reducing the supply of mercury from primary mining of the heavy metal and increase their capacity to safely store stockpiled mercury.

They agreed to undertake projects that will reduce the use of mercury in artisanal gold mining where an estimated 10 million miners and their families are exposed.

Typically, gravel and mud are combined with liquid mercury, which binds to gold particles in the mix. Then the mercury-gold amalgam is heated to extract the gold. The mercury is vaporized and inhaled by the miners, and it travels far and wide to settle on bodies of water where it moves up the food chain into fish, causing health problems when the fish are eaten.

Mercury is used to extract gold by an artisanal miner in Ghana. (Photo courtesy Government of Ghana)

On the island of Mindanao, Philippines 70 percent of gold miners may have chronic mercury poisoning, and miners in Brazil, Venezuela, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Zimbabwe are suffering from poisoning or exposure. Long-abandoned North American gold mines are an ongoing source of mercury.

The wider economic arguments are compelling, says Steiner. UNEP estimates that every kilogram of mercury taken out of the environment can trigger up to $12,500 worth of social, environmental and human health benefits.

Before a treaty is even negotiated, governments agreed to reduce mercury in products such as thermometers and high-intensity discharge lamps as well as cutting mercury use in some kinds of paper-making and plastics production.

About one-third of the 6,000 metric tonnes of toxic mercury entering the environment annually is emitted by coal-fired power stations and coal fires in homes. Artisanal gold mining is the second-greatest source of mercury pollution in the world, after the burning of fossil fuels.

The World Health Organization says there is no safe limit of mercury exposure, and the ministers were informed that every one of them and everyone else alive today has some level of mercury in their bodies.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner (Photo courtesy ENB)

“UNEP has, for some seven years, coordinated and contributed to an intense scientific and policy debate on how best to deal with the issue of mercury,” said Steiner. Today the world’s environment ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over – the time for action on this pollution is now.”

Meanwhile there is evidence that far from declining, mercury pollution may be on the rise in part as a result of increased coal-burning in Asia.

“I believe this will be a major, confidence-building boost for not only the chemicals and health agenda but right across the environmental challenges of our time from biodiversity loss to climate change,” he said.

Environment ministers also backed a decision requesting UNEP to spearhead a mission to Gaza to assess the environmental impacts of recent hostilities and to carry out an assessment of the costs of rehabilitating and restoring environmental damage there. The UNEP team will be deployed “immediately” after a conference March 2 in Cairo, Egypt, on the reconstruction of Gaza.

Many of the ministers meeting this week believe that investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency alongside investments in natural or nature-based assets such as forests and freshwaters can power economies back to health, said Oliver Dulic, Serbia’s minister of the environment, who served as president of the Governing Council and Global Ministerial Environment Forum.

Serbian Environment Minister Oliver Dulic presided over the UNEP annual meeting. (Photo courtesy ENB)

“Moving to a green economy is overwhelmingly recognized as a means to deliver multiple benefits for the international community and all nations in addressing food, energy, water security and climate change,” said Dulic.

“Ministers of the environment must be ministers for sustained economic success. Creating a green economy goes hand-in-hand with sustainable development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals,” he said.

Steiner agreed, saying, “Ministers from North and South here in Nairobi, through words and through deeds, have signaled that investing in the environment and greening economies is one of the keys to unlocking innovation, job creation, recovery and healthier and more sustainable world – not just on the question of mercury but right across sectors and societies.”

The UNEP chief said this attitude demonstrated by the ministers’ decision to significantly increase UNEP’s budget at a time of financial and economic crisis.

Governments also signaled their determination to stem biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems. Today they called on UNEP to hold an international meeting this year to examine the pros and cons of establishing an “intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services” and an assessment on the scientific gaps in current knowledge.

Ecosystems are estimated to provide services worth many trillions of dollars, from carbon storage by forests to the coastal defense value of coral reefs.

Wangari Maathai addresses the UNEP closing session. (Photo courtesy ENB)

The UNEP executive director will report on the progress at the special session on biodiversity at the 65th session of the UN General Assembly in 2010.

Governments also decided to form a group of ministers from both developed and developing countries to improve the way the world’s environmental architecture is run. They aim to streamline and boost the ability of the global community to tackle persistent and emerging environmental challenges.

The environment ministers also voted to support Africa in the continent’s struggle to mitigate and adapt to climate change, including work with the UN Economic Commission for Africa to establish a climate center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Addressing the closing plenary session today, 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai of Kenya called on delegates to become “soldiers for the environment.”

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NAIROBI, Kenya, February 16, 2009 (ENS) – The Obama administration has reversed the former U.S. position on limiting mercury pollution worldwide. Before astonished environment ministers attending the United Nations Environment Programme Governing Council opening session in Nairobi today, the U.S. delegation endorsed negotiations for a new global treaty to control mercury pollution, to begin this year.

The Bush administration had opposed legally binding measures to control mercury, despite broad support among a majority of countries in the UNEP Governing Council.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said the mercury policy framework is the result of seven years of intense discussions spearheaded by UNEP represents the first, coordinated global effort to tackle mercury pollution.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner share a smile on their way to the opening session of the UNEP Governing Council today in Nairobi. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)

“It covers reducing demand in products and processes – such as high intensity discharge vehicle lamps and the chlor-alkali industry – to cutting mercury in international trade,” Steiner said. “Other elements include reducing emissions to the atmosphere, environmentally-sound storage of stockpiled mercury and the cleaning-up of contaminated sites.”

The nervous systems of humans and wildlife are very sensitive to all forms of mercury. Exposure to high levels of mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, lungs, and developing fetus. Effects on brain functioning may result in irritability, tremors, changes in vision or hearing, and memory problems. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that mercuric chloride and methylmercury are possible human carcinogens.

Among the 120 other countries that have expressed support for a legally binding agreement on mercury are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland and Uruguay.

Environmental groups from the United States and around the world applauded the U.S. policy change.

“The Obama administration has clearly shown a new day has dawned for U.S. leadership and engagement with the rest of the world,” said Michael Bender, director of the U.S.-based Mercury Policy Project, and a coordinator of the international Zero Mercury Working Group. “And the momentum created by the U.S. appears to be galvanizing other governments around the world to step up to address the global mercury crisis.”

Mercury poisoning affects about five million American women. One study in the United States has found that about one in 12 women have mercury levels above the level considered safe by the U.S. EPA.

“Skeptics doubted that the U.S. position on mercury could change so quickly, but the Obama administration made it happen in record time,” said Susan Egan Keane of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “They’ve shown that Obama is serious about a new approach of cooperation and collaboration, rather than obstruction and unilateral action, on the international stage.”

The Harrison power plant in West Virginia burns bituminous coal, emitting mercury into the air. (Photo courtesy Allegheny Energy)

Mercury is a persistent, bioaccumulative, transboundary pollutant that contaminates air, soil, water and fish. Of the 6,000 metric tonnes of mercury entering the environment annually, some 2,000 tonnes comes from coal-fired power stations and coal fires in homes, says Steiner. Once in the atmosphere or released down river systems, the toxin can travel for thousands of miles.

There are also growing worries that, as climate change melts the Arctic, mercury trapped in the ice and sediments is being re-released back into the oceans and into the food chain.

“Because of this potential for global contamination, mercury pollution requires a coordinated international response, including a legally-binding treaty on mercury,” said Elena Lymberidi-Settimo, project coordinator of the Zero Mercury Campaign at the European Environmental Bureau. This coalition includes 143 member organizations in 31 European countries.

Eating advisories relating to fish consumption remain in place in many European countries warning those at risk including pregnant mothers and babies not to consume fish at the top of the food chain that concentrate mercury from all the smaller fish they have eaten.

In Sweden, for example around 50,000 lakes have pike with mercury levels exceeding international health limits. Women of child-bearing years are advised not to eat pike, perch, burbot and eel at all, and the rest of the population only once a week.

The UNEP mercury policy framework has the support of 53 countries in Africa.

Rico Euripidou of groundWork, Friends of the Earth, South Africa believes that “a comprehensive solution to address mercury will directly benefit Africa through the control of unregulated and uncontrolled flows of mercury onto the continent.”

Worldwide there are approximately 50 mercury cell chlor alkali plants in operation, six in the United States. This is Olin Corporation’s plant in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo courtesy Oceana)

Scientists and the NGO Sharkproject are also now flagging yet another cause for concern – the increased consumption of shark meat in some parts of the world. By some estimates shark meat contains up to 40 times more mercury than recommended food safety limits and perhaps a great deal more, said Steiner.

Mercury levels in Arctic ringed seals and beluga whales have increased by up to four times over the last 25 years in some areas of Canada and Greenland with implications for communities where marine mammals are eaten.

Steiner says the good news is that both Europe and the United States have in recent months backed export bans on mercury with the European Union setting a date of 2011.

The U.S. delegation’s proposal on mercury requests the UNEP Executive Director to conduct, concurrent with the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, a study to inventory facilities in sectors including coal-fired power plants, cement production, and non-ferrous metals mining and production in major mercury-emitting countries.

“For all sectors, but especially coal-combustion, the study should include analysis of the levels of existing emissions controls, and the potential to achieve further mercury emission reductions,” the U.S. proposal states.

“The study should also assess the costs and effectiveness of alternative control strategies, considering mercury-specific controls, and reductions that can be achieved as a co-benefit from conventional pollution control measures as well as the relationship with actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the U.S. proposes.

The U.S. requests that the report be prepared to inform the work of the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, and that the Executive Director report the findings of the study at the 2010 UNEP Global Ministerial Environment Forum.

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