Polluter of the Potomac

Polluter of the Potomac

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Taking the children fishing is a rite of passage. Unfortunately, for Old Town residents such as Jonathon Krieger, who takes his two sons fishing along the Potomac, the rite comes with a warning-don't eat what you catch.

"It's really difficult telling my two little boys that we can't eat the striped bass, largemouth bass, catfish and other fish we catch because of mercury pollution," Krieger says. A major source of the mercury pollution to which Krieger referred comes from the Mirant power plant in Alexandria. We know this because, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. power plants-like Mirant's-are responsible for 41 percent of mercury emissions in this country.

Nearly a year ago, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration issued public warnings about the danger of eating fish with high levels of mercury. Health complications include learning disabilities in children and blood pressure instability in adults. Pregnant women and children are especially vulnerable to mercury contamination. Yet now the EPA is undercutting efforts to keep high levels of mercury out of our air and water.

Under the bipartisan 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, the Mirant power plant in Alexandria would have been required to reduce its emissions of airborne mercury by about 90 percent during the next three years. But after recent rule changes by the EPA, and under a proposed version of the Clear Skies Initiative, the Mirant plant will not have to reduce its mercury emissions one iota.

Last month the EPA took the bizarre step of trying to remove power plants from the list of sources that must reduce "hazardous air pollutants," including mercury. In doing so, the agency enabled these plants to avoid the more stringent and timely reductions of mercury emissions that other major sources of mercury, such as medical waste incinerators, have had to meet. This change in classification carried out by regulatory fiat allows polluting power plants to delay the costs associated with reducing mercury emissions until 2018 -- at the expense of the public's health. The EPA's new rule also will allow some power plants to forgo cleanup by buying pollution "credits" from cleaner facilities.

Now Senate Republicans are trying to exempt from mercury emission reductions any power plant that emits fewer than 30 pounds of mercury per smokestack per year. Roughly 40 percent of the nation's power plants fall into that category, including the Mirant plant in Alexandria. Not only would the plant not have to curb its mercury emissions under this proposal, it would be able to sell its pollution credits to other plants. Yet Mirant's five smokestacks together emit about 83 pounds of mercury a year.

The neighbors of the Mirant plant understand the health threat it represents. I have been working for years with the Alexandria City Council, local leaders and environmental organizations to find ways to reduce mercury emissions from the plant; barring that, we want to find a way to shut it down.

What's more important-the health of the people of this region or a polluter's profit margins?

-Jim Moran

http://www.moran.house.gov/statements2.cfm?id=380