Grounding mercury

Some encouraging news on the amount of mercury being deposited in lakes and bogs around Maine supports recent legislation in Congress that would further restrict mercury’s use. The research suggests that changes in policy toward pollutants can lead to direct improvements in the environemtn.

Geologists at the University of Maine, Stephen Norton, Gordon Evans and Steve Kahl, reported reduced levels of deposits recently in several study sites in the state, with the reductions beginning in the 1970s, coinciding with the passage of the Clean Air Act. The finding is significant. Mercury, most often in the form methylmercury and found in fish, is a neurotoxin and is especially harmful to pregnant women and young children. In wildlife, mercury has been found to cause death or reduced fertility, impair growth and cause behavioral abnormalities.

The UMaine report comes as the Environmental Protection Agency has issued to Congress a draft of a long-overdue study on mercury. It is expected to help set the tone for policy for regulating this pollutant, yet it arrives with a warning for members of Congress who might try to use the report as a platform for sweeping environmental changes. “It cannot be assumed,” the EPA report states, “that a change in total mercury emissions will be linearly related to any resulting change in methylmercury in fish, nor over what time period these changes would occur.”

A bill co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Allen takes a more direct approach toward mercury. For example, it requires battery recycling, takes mercury out of packaging materials and requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to make a list of foods that containing intentionally introduced mercury compounds. That is, the bill tries to reduce human contact with mercury by taking it out of the things we use or eat.

The bill has a long way to go before approval and, naturally, it will be opposed by representatives of industry. A trade group for coal-burning power plants already has questioned the assumptions made by the EPA. Just as intense lobbying delayed the relase of the report for almost two years, the added scrutiny is likely to reduce the scope of the bill.

The country, however, already has made dramatic reductions in the amount of mercury pollution, without putting people out of business. Though some straightforward requirements in the legislation before Congress, it can go further to everyone’s benefit.