Natural Mercury Emissions Dwarf Factory Pollutants, Studies Assert

By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
January 28, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - According to several new studies on mercury levels in the United States, any reduction of such emissions at American power plants would have minimal impact since the factories currently produce less than 1 percent of the total mercury that ends up in our air, land and water.

The studies by the Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP) also reveal that the mercury emissions from Yellowstone National Park and other natural sources dwarf the amount coming from the 1,100 coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

In the Jan. 21 study entitled "Fish, Mercury and Cardiac Health: A Review of the Current Literature," the CSPP reported the latest scientific data show curbing power plant mercury emissions would have no significant impact on atmospheric levels of mercury.

"This hypothesis appears supported by the presence of higher levels of mercury in 550-year-old Alaskan mummies than levels in a recent sample of pregnant native Alaskan women," said Robert Ferguson, executive director of the CSPP, a public policy research group based in Washington, D.C.

The CSPP findings come as the Bush administration prepares to implement a component of the Clear Skies initiative which calls for reducing mercury emissions from U.S. power plants by 70 percent by 2018.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states the agency is "committed to regulating and reducing power plant mercury emissions for the first time ever" beginning March 15, while some environmentalists and members of Congress have called for even greater reductions in mercury emissions -- up to 90 percent.

But according to the CSPP, the scale of these reductions wouldn't have any practical effect on the environment. "Current levels of methyl mercury production ... could simply continue unchanged even if all U.S. coal-powered plants were shut down, resulting in zero emissions," Ferguson told the Cybercast News Service.

Aside from airborne mercury emissions, a companion study released by CSPP also noted: "Strong scientific evidence does suggest that most, if not all, of the trace amounts of methyl mercury contained in ocean fish are not connected to the inorganic form of mercury emitted by power plants."

The CSPP reports also observe that, "mercury is ubiquitous in our environment, the oceans alone containing tens of million of tons of mercury."

One major source of natural mercury emissions noted in the studies is Yellowstone National Park; the CSPP cited an Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Lab report showing that Yellowstone "could emit or exceed as much mercury as all of Wyoming's eight coal-fired power plants combined."

The Idaho study stressed that emissions from Yellowstone National Park, with its network of geothermal features, do not pose a health threat to visitors or park employees but added, "since Yellowstone is the headwaters of important tributaries to the Missouri (Yellowstone River) and Columbia (Snake River), no one knows how far the natural contamination carries through the Earth's air and water systems."

In addition, the CSPP reports state that forests and peat lands in the U.S. also produce more mercury than U.S. power plants.

'Highly skeptical'

While most scientists agree that mercury emissions from power plants constitute a very small percentage of total mercury pollution, some say the risks still demand attention.

Gina Solomon, a senior scientist from the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told the Cybercast News Service she was "highly skeptical" of the new CSPP studies, accusing the group of "treating the world like [mercury] is put in a blender.

"Mercury does not behave that way, it's not spread in an even layer across the earth," Solomon said. "Instead, there are hot spots that are downwind from major mercury sources."

According to Solomon, "U.S. power plant emissions are a huge source (of mercury) for communities that are downwind from them," adding that "mercury pollution can be a serious health threat, especially for children and pregnant women."

The NRDC's website claims that "industrial mercury pollution becomes a serious threat when it is released into the air, primarily by power plants and certain chemical facilities, and then settles into oceans and waterways, where it builds up in fish that we eat."

Solomon also said curbs on mercury power plant emissions are symbolically important. "The U.S.'s failure to deal with its power plant problem sends a horrible signal to the rest of the world," said Solomon. "How will we get China to reduce its mercury emissions if we can't even deal with our own?"

The CSPP reports come at a time when the EPA is looking to restrict power plant mercury emissions, and the CSPP has called on the EPA to "answer confidently whether the proposed CAMR (Clean Air Mercury Rule) to control mercury emissions from U.S. power plants can assure any consequential 'reduction' of mercury deposition in U.S. soils, leading to any reputed public health 'benefits.'"

The CSPP called the EPA's position "not scientifically convincing or correct, and hence the effort is almost certainly wrong-headed, wasteful of the limited resources and potentially harmful to public health generally, and women and children specifically.

"Real world data trumps modeling or alarmist assertions," according to the CSPP.

Ferguson explained that "environmental regulation is a very good thing, however if the regulations are excessive or wrong and based on bad science, they can be dangerous."