Don't Eat That Fish!
More Mercury Will be the Legacy of New Coal-Burning Plants

By Kari Lydersen

Infoshop News (news.infoshop.org)
September 22, 2005

A young Mexican girl stood staring into a plastic white bucket
entranced, watching the plump catfish and trout writhing in a shallow
pool of blood. She repeatedly lifted one of the fish out by the length
of fishing line still stuck in its jaw, giggling as it dropped back in
the pail with a fleshy splash.

Are you going to eat the fish, she was asked. She nodded, with a big smile.

She and her family probably had no idea that the young girl and their
other children risked serious neurological effects and other health
risks from eating the fish, caught in the Fox River near Green Bay,
Wisconsin, literally in the shadow of a coal-burning power plant across
the water. The river is one of the country’s most contaminated waterways
with PCBs, because of paper mills in the area, and like all bodies of
water in this region it is likely to have a high mercury content from
coal-burning power plants and other sources. Children and women of
child-bearing age are only supposed to eat one fish per month in the
Great Lakes region because of the risk of poisoning from mercury, a
powerful neurotoxin known to cause arrested brain development in fetuses
and young children and heart and kidney problems in adults.

“You are not supposed to eat catfish in any way, shape or form from the
Fox River,” said US EPA Region Five senior health and science advisor
Milton Clark after observing the family fishing.

But there is no sign at this popular fishing spot, and signs and
pamphlets in general throughout the region are rare. 45 states have
mercury advisories, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has
reported that 30-50 percent of women of child-bearing age aren’t aware
of mercury exposure risks. And the limits must also be applied to
store-bought fish – a recent study by the group Illinois PIRG showed
dangerous mercury levels in swordfish and tuna purchased in grocery
stores around the country.

Before its risks were known, mercury was commonly used for everything
from killing fungus and filling thermometers to tanning beaver pelts –
that’s how the term Mad Hatter came about. Since its dangers became
known the government has worked to take mercury out of distribution by
conducting buybacks and exchanges of school thermometers, dental
equipment, dairy monometers and other implements.

Mercury is in some ways a mysterious contaminant in that it exists in
different forms that interact with and are disbursed through the
environment in very different ways. Elemental mercury, the kind in
thermometers of old, isn’t water soluble. But another form, oxidized
mercury, converts to methylmercury in water, which becomes more highly
concentrated as it moves up the food chain. Mercury can travel great
distances through the atmosphere, and it has been shown that a
significant amount of mercury contamination in Midwestern waterways
actually originates from industry in Asia.

Doubts about the origin of mercury contamination were central to debate
over the country’s first mercury emission standards released in March.
Dave Michaud, a scientist with the Wisconsin power company We Energies,
pointed this out in response to concerns about mercury contamination
from We Energies’ coal-burning power plants.

“Mercury is everywhere, it’s a natural pollutant,” said Michaud. “You
might think the power plant right here (on the Fox River) is spewing
mercury into Lake Michigan, but it’s not as clear as it seems. Utilities
represent a small percent of what’s falling from the sky, and coal
burned in Wisconsin emits elemental mercury which wouldn’t fall locally
or regionally.”

However a recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration found that coal-burning power plants in the US are in
fact the major source of domestic mercury contamination. The study found
that 16 of the top 25 sources of mercury in the Great Lakes are
coal-burning power plants, some of them from Nevada and Texas but most
in Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.

“I get miffed at graphs showing [US] power plants being a small sector
of the whole world[‘s mercury emissions],” said Clark. “You’ve got to
hit mercury at every level to get rid of these fish advisories and
reduce human exposure.”

Environmentalists and public health advocates say the new federal
mercury emissions standards don’t do near enough to protect Americans
from mercury, since they give polluters over a decade to reduce their
emissions, with a 2018 deadline to reduce emissions by 70 percent. And
the plan includes an emissions credit trading program which allows heavy
emitters to buy “credits” from lighter emitters.

The effects of mercury are especially significant given that even though
they may seem like a relic of the industrial past, coal-burning power
plants are actually the major focus of the country’s energy plan for the
next two decades. Government reports released last summer included
specific plans for 94 new coal-burning power plants in 36 states, and a
goal of 1,300 new coal-burning plants by 2020.

The main way mercury is known to enter the human body is through fish
who absorb it in the water. The body is eventually able to clear mercury
from the system, so it is considered safe to consume one fish per month.
However the one-fish limit has not been effectively publicized or
ingrained in the public, especially across ethnic and language lines, as
the family fishing the Fox River showed. And for many people in the
Midwest and other areas with mercury contamination, fishing is an
affordable source of protein and/or a cultural and family tradition they
are unwilling to sacrifice. While originally mercury was mainly thought
to be a risk to children and fetuses, at least one study has recently
shown a link between mercury and heart disease in adults.

Meanwhile mercury isn’t the only concern raised by coal-burning plants.
Numerous studies have now linked them to respiratory problems including
asthma and emphysema. A 2001 study by the Harvard School of Public
Health blamed two coal-burning plants in Chicago, the Fisk and Crawford
plants run by the company Midwest Generation, for causing an estimated
41 premature deaths, 2,800 asthma attacks and 550 emergency room visits
per year. Nationally, a study by the group National Campaign Against
Dirty Power showed 24,000 lives are cut short by an average of 14 years
because of respiratory and heart problems and cancer exacerbated or
likely caused by coal-burning power plants. Low-income and minority
communities bear the brunt of these health effects, since the plants are
normally located in or near lower-income areas. A 2002 study by the
National Campaign Against Dirty Power found that 71 percent of
African-Americans lived in counties that violated air pollution
standards, compared to 58 percent of white Americans. African-Americans
were also hospitalized for asthma attacks at three times the rate of
white Americans. Reports by that group also found that seven of 10
Latinos in the U.S. are breathing air that violates federal standards,
and 71 percent of Latinos live in counties that violate Clean Air Act
standards.

Proposed coal-burning plants have raised intense community opposition in
some places, like in Manistee, Michigan, where residents organized to
defeat a proposed coal-burning power plant last year by persuading town
officials to decide not to make zoning changes needed for the
construction. But Tondu, the company proposing the plant, has filed a
lawsuit seeking to override the town’s decision. Residents of South
Bend, Indiana are also currently fighting a proposed plant by Tondu,
arguing that it will pollute their air and eat up public funds through
promised tax breaks and subsidies. In southeastern Wisconsin,
environmentalists recently lost a battle to prevent We Energies from
constructing a new coal-burning plant with a controversial “open system”
cooling structure that will suck in a billion gallons of Lake Michigan
water per day, potentially killing massive amounts of plankton and small
fish and warming the surrounding water by about 15 degrees. The cooling
system would be considered illegal for a new structure, but it is being
allowed under what critics call a loophole in federal New Source Review
provisions that allow the new plant’s construction to be considered part
of an existing adjacent facility.

In response to complaints about the new We Energies facility, Michaud
pointed out that something needs to be done to meet the spiraling energy
needs of Wisconsin consumers, mirroring the situation in metropolises
across the country. Chuck Ledin, senior chief of the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources, is among those pointing out that “we’re
not doing enough on the demand side” – meaning both individual lifestyle
choices and large-scale corporate consumption.

“There are a lot of market-based things we need to look at,” Ledin said.
“For example the biggest electric consumers pay the lowest rates – is
that an incentive to conservation?”

Links:
National Campaign Against Dirty Power: www.cleartheair.org/dirtypower
PERRO (anti-pollution/ environmental racism group in Chicago):
www.pilsenperro.org
Illinois PIRG: www.illinoispirg.org
Clean Wisconsin: www.cleanwisconsin.org
American Lung Association: www.lungusa.org