A federal proposal to limit
mercury pollution is unacceptably weak. Under the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's plan, Colorado and four other states could experience higher levels
of the neurological poison than they do now.
The EPA isn't setting a
hard limit on how much mercury that coal-fired power plants can produce. Instead,
it plans to let electric utilities trade the right to pollute among themselves.
The result may be cleaner East Coast air, at the price of worse air in Colorado,
Utah, California, Hawaii and New Hampshire. The analysis for our state was done
in part by Environment Colorado, based on EPA data. The EPA acknowledges that
Colorado will see increased mercury levels but says higher emissions will last
only a few years.
However, mercury persists
in the environment. It doesn't dissipate with time; it accumulates. By letting
power plants spew significant amounts of the substance even for a few years,
the EPA could saddle the affected states with long-term environmental problems.
The question of environmental
justice comes down to the community level. In Colorado, many coal-fired power
plants are in poor and minority neighborhoods. One form of mercury lingers near
the plants. Medical experts say mercury stunts brain and nerve development in
fetuses and newborns. So if the EPA's proposed trading program increases mercury
levels in our state, the children of poor may pay the price.
An EPA scientist recently
reported that 630,000 newborns in the U.S. from 1999-2000 had higher mercury
levels than is considered safe. That's double earlier estimates.
The sliver of good news
is that the Bush administration is at least tackling the issue. In 1990, Congress
listed mercury as a pollutant in the Clean Air Act. Medical waste incinerators
and some other facilities have long been required to strictly control mercury
emissions.
But power plants were never
brought into the fold - neither the first Bush nor the Clinton administration
ever confronted the complex problem. The plan advanced by current EPA Administrator
Mike Leavitt is the first real attempt to do so. Power companies, such as Xcel
Energy in Colorado, support the EPA's proposal.
But in rejecting a strict
limit on mercury output, the EPA apparently has assumed that American ingenuity
can't find ways to curb the troublesome toxin. That's contrary to past efforts,
in which specialists invented ways to take such steps as removing ozone-depleting
chemicals from aerosol cans.
The EPA needs to revamp
its proposal. This environmental policy that fails to equally protect Americans
in all 50 states cannot be defended.
