Dirty Energy’s Assault on our Health: Mercury

Sherburne County Power Plant in Becker emits 867 pounds of mercury every year—the most in Minnesota—according to the new Environment Minnesota report, Dirty Energy’s Assault on our Health: Mercury. The report found that power plants in Minnesota emitted 1,664 pounds of mercury pollution in 2009.  The report comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to propose a standard by March to limit mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants.

Environment Minnesota Research and Policy Center

Executive Summary

Our dependence on oil and coal-fired power plants has broad detrimental impacts on our health and our environment. Power plants represent America’s single biggest source of air pollution, affecting our waterways, destroying ecosystems, and polluting the air we breathe. Pollution from coal-fired power plants in particular contributes to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the United States: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic respiratory diseases. In Minnesota, the mercury pollution has impacted many of our 10,000 plus lakes, rivers, and streams, as well as the important fishing industry and health of our environment.

Dirty Energy’s Assault on our Health is a series of reports examining the numerous threats that power plants pose to our environment and our health.  Each segment in the series focuses on a different pollutant emitted by power plants.

This report looks at the health and environmental impacts of mercury pollution from power plants.

In Minnesota, Mercury Impairs Environmental and Human Health

Only 15-20% of Minnesota’s waters have been tested for impairments by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Two thirds of the surface waters on Minnesota’s 2004 Impaired Waters List are impaired because of mercury levels in fish and water. The mercury impairments on the list are mainly for fish tissue concentration exceedences, but also include water column mercury concentration exceedences.

Pollution Control Agency research has demonstrated that 70% of current mercury deposition in Minnesota comes from anthropogenic [people] sources and 30% from natural sources, such as volcanoes. There are no known natural sources in the state that emit mercury directly to the atmosphere.

With some exceptions, almost all of the mercury that contaminates Minnesota’s lakes, rivers, and fish comes from the air. Mercury can be carried great distances on wind currents before it is deposited on our land and lakes and streams. As a result, about 90 percent of the mercury deposited from the air in Minnesota comes from other states and countries. Coincidentally, about 90 percent of Minnesota’s mercury emissions are deposited on other states and countries.

Mercury poses a substantial health threat.

Studies show that one in six women of childbearing age has enough mercury in her bloodstream to put her child at risk of the health effects of mercury exposure should she become pregnant.  This means that more than 689,000 out of the 4.1 million babies born every year could be exposed to dangerous levels of mercury pollution.

Children who are exposed to lower levels of mercury in utero can have impaired brain functions, including verbal, attention, motor control, and language deficits, and lower IQs. Additionally, when children exposed to mercury in the womb are monitored at ages 7 and 14, these impairments still exist, which suggests that the effects of even low-level mercury exposure may be irreversible.

While adults are at lower risk of neurological impairment than children, evidence shows that a low-level dose of mercury from fish consumption in adults can lead to defects similar to those found in children, as well as fertility and cardiovascular problems.

Adult and in utero exposure to higher levels of mercury has been linked to mental retardation, seizures, blindness, and even death.

Power plants continue to spew mercury into our air, waterways, wildlife, and bodies.

Wildlife that is exposed to mercury may die or, depending upon the level of exposure, have reduced fertility or complete reproductive failure, as well as slower growth and development. , 

The amount of mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants far exceeds the total mercury pollution from the 10 next biggest sources of the pollutant.  In total, coal-fired power plants emitted over 130,000 pounds of mercury in 2009.

Minnesota’s mercury emissions range from 8 pounds of mercury emitted from Rochester’s Silver Lake Plant, to 867 pounds of mercury from Sherburne County’s Generating Plant. The mercury emitted from across the state varies in emission rates of mercury.

To protect the public and the environment from mercury pollution, the United States should require power plants meet modern pollution standards that will substantially reduce emissions of the toxic chemical.

Under the Clean Air Act, the Obama administration’s EPA is legally obligated to propose the “Maximum Achievable Control Technology” standard to reduce mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants by March 2011.  Using science and the regulatory tools they have at hand, the EPA should implement the strongest standard possible, and specifically cut mercury pollution by more than 90%, to protect our health and our environment. While 19 states have already enacted statewide mercury limits for power plants, the EPA must set a strong federal standard that cuts mercury from power plants by more than 90%, because mercury pollution travels beyond state boundaries and puts all Americans at risk of its harmful effects.

States should take action to promote the U.S.’s transition away from dangerous power plants, and the life-threatening mercury pollution they emit, to a clean energy economy.

Each state can: through a renewable energy standard, help ensure that America generates at least 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar by 2025; strengthen energy efficiency standards and codes for appliances and buildings by 50 percent by 2020 and ensure that all new buildings use zero net energy by 2030;
ramp up investment in solar power through tax credits, specific targets in state renewable electricity standards, requirements for “solar ready homes,” rebate programs, and other measures; and end subsidies to fossil fuel industries.

Minnesota already has a mercury standard, but receives the majority of its mercury pollution from other states and countries. Minnesota needs to be a leader in moving towards cleaner, safer technology. Minnesota has a ban on new coal fired power plants, and is focused on replacing the energy with clean, renewable sources.

The best way to prevent future attacks on public health is to keep this moratorium, and allow Minnesota to grow its own power with wind, solar, and geothermal technology.

In the United States, mercury contamination is widespread.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, mercury impairs 3,781 bodies of water across the country, and 6,363,707 acres of lakes, reservoirs, and ponds in the United States are contaminated by mercury pollution.

Because mercury is the most common contaminant in fish in the U.S., every state has set some sort of fish advisory due to unsafe levels of the toxic pollutant.,
 
Overall, more U.S. waters are closed to fishing because of mercury contamination than because of any other toxic contamination problem.

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