EPA in a hot spot over mercury pollution

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Douglas Rae, a Boston economist and principal author of the internal report, said the EPA commissioned it two years ago.

“I think it’s reasonable, but people can argue about that,” he said in an interview Thursday. Rae called it “the kind of analysis that EPA staff do all the time. They don’t intend them to be used in a rule-making, because there are a lot of uncertainties.”

A “final” version is dated January 2004, 14 months before EPA released its mercury rule for power plants. Agency officials said that report is still being internally peer reviewed, which is why it wasn’t considered for EPA’s rule. The March rule ordered steps it estimated would cut mercury pollution from power plants in half by 2020, from 48 tons a year now to 24.3 tons.

Environmental and health groups said EPA could achieve quicker cleanups and fewer hot spots if it ordered the nation’s 600 coal-burning power plants to install hundreds of millions of dollars in new pollution controls, under a firm deadline.

Last month, the EPA publicly estimated the annual benefits of its nationwide cleanup program at $50 million a year, compared to costs for utilities and electricity users of $750 million a year by 2020. Forty percent of all U.S. mercury pollution comes from coal-fired power plants; those releases have never before been regulated.

Advice for fish eaters
Women who are or may become pregnant, as well as nursing mothers and young children, are most susceptible to mercury pollution from fish. As a result the Food and Drug Administration and the EPA have come up with these guidelines for fish eaters:

• Do not eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.
• Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury, such as canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish. Only 6 ounces of Albacore ("white") tuna is advised since it has more mercury than canned light tuna.
• Check local fish advisories for mercury and other pollution alerts. A national database is online at epa.gov/waterscience/fish/states.htm.

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