Earth Day: Taming the Mercury Menace (Message to Maine)

Press Release

Since 1970, people across America and around the world have set aside April 22nd to celebrate our planet. Earth Day events build support for efforts to protect our air and water, our rivers and streams, our fish and wildlife, our forests and fields and the fragile yet resilient sphere that is our home. On this Earth Day, I want to report on important progress made in taming one of the most toxic menaces to human health, to the fish we eat and to the ecosystem in which we live: mercury.

Mercury is an especially devastating and potent neurotoxin, poisonous even at extremely low levels. Young children, pregnant women, and even women who may become pregnant are at the most risk because mercury exposure poses imminent harm to developing nervous systems.

Mercury enters the food chain after its release into the air and water by industrial and mining activities. Mercury concentrations in predatory mammals, fish and birds are often thousands of times higher than in surrounding land and water—high enough, in fact, to pose a serious health hazard to people who eat them.

Today, Maine and 43 other states warn their citizens to limit their consumption of wild fish from their waters. Maine and 21 other states have issued statewide advisories that mercury levels in all coastal waters, lakes, rivers, and streams are high enough to endanger sensitive populations.

Since I entered Congress in 1997, reducing poisonous mercury emissions from utilities and industry has been one of my top environmental priorities. But for my first ten years in the House, we made tragically little progress to combat this serious public health threat.

Today, with new leadership in the House, I am pleased to report that the tide has turned in the battle to curb mercury pollution.

Up to a third of mercury air pollution in the U.S. comes through the global air transport from Asia, where mercury pollution is extensive, including from mercury used in mining. Americans also import much of the fish that we eat, including tuna, caught off the coast of Asian and South American countries where the use of mercury in mining is widespread. Yet each year, the U.S. exports hundreds of tons of mercury to developing countries where companies use it in ways that have been illegal in this country for decades.

Late last year, the House passed the Mercury Export Ban Act, legislation I wrote to put an end to this lethal trade.

My legislation also requires the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to designate a facility to accept mercury from private sector sources to store it safely. Such a facility will provide a destination for mercury accumulated during environmental clean ups like the one in Orrington at the former HoltraChem factory.

Maine's fish and wildlife are among our most precious resources and a mainstay of our economy. On this, the 39th Earth Day, I urge the Senate to follow the House's lead and pass the Mercury Export Ban. Maine people should not have to fear that consuming our fish and wildlife poses a potential health risk because of pollution originating beyond our borders.

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