Three recent developments in the saga of efforts to regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired utilities are significant. Early last week, Michigan became the twenty-third state to require coal-fired utilities within its jurisdiction to reduce their mercury emissions. Michigan’s regulation requires these sources to cut mercury emissions by 90% by 2015. Then, on Thursday, the EPA reached a settlement with environmental groups who had sued the agency for failing to act to regulate mercury emissions. In the agreement (see NYTimes also), the EPA pledged to set standards for mercury and a number of other toxics by late 2011.
The EPA and Michigan announcements come on the heels of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released early this month indicating that coal-fired power plants across the nation have achieved substantial reductions in emissions of this toxic air pollutant. The GAO report, Clean Air Act: Mercury Control Technologies at Coal-Fired Power Plants Have Achieved Substantial Emissions Reductions, found that these sources were able to reduce mercury emissions by as much as 99% using currently available technologies. It found, moreover, that these reductions “have been achieved at a relatively low cost.”
But wait – didn’t we hear from the Bush Administration and the utilities that control technologies capable of reducing mercury emissions on this order were still years away from commercial viability? And that this reality warranted a federal regulation that sought only modest emissions reductions (70%) and delayed for years the date by which these reductions would be achieved? (The Bush Administration's regulation, never implemented, would have set the deadline for 2018 – although structural features of the program meant that actual reductions wouldn’t approach 70% until some time in the 2020s or even the 2030s).
Full textWith some fanfare, the EPA announced last week that it has selected a cleanup strategy for the Palos Verdes Shelf (PVS) Superfund Site off the coast of southern California – an area that has been termed “ the world’s largest DDT dump.” The EPA touts its plan as “a major milestone” that puts the site “on the road to remediation.” Nowhere, however, does EPA mention that this road is longer and more tortuous than it could or should have been. As I elaborated in an earlier entry, EPA’s selected remedy (its “preferred alternative”) provides for capping a much smaller area of contaminated sediment than another alternative EPA considered but rejected. Its selected remedy also delays the dates by which cleanup levels for DDTs and PCBs will be attained relative to the alternative – putting off until further in the future the time by which fish from the waters off the Palos Verdes peninsula will be safe to eat.
EPA’s press release continues in this self-congratulatory vein: “The EPA will spend more than $50 million to cap the most contaminated sediment on the shelf, as well as continue the highly effective public outreach program to protect at-risk populations from consuming contaminated fish.” The public outreach program to which EPA refers relies on fish consumption advisories that warn people to avoid or reduce their consumption of certain fish caught in the waters off the Palos Verdes peninsula. That is, it enlists a strategy, which I have termed “risk avoidance,” that asks people to alter their practices in order to protect themselves from contamination that persists in the environment. In this case, EPA and its partners have delivered this message by means of signs, brochures, and other forms of community outreach. The latest advisory recommends that everyone avoid eating white croaker, topsmelt, or barred sand bass caught in an area extending more than 30 miles from the Santa Monica pier south to the Seal Beach pier, and that, additionally, women and children should avoid barracuda or black croaker from this area. The advisory also includes less strict recommendations for a broader area of coastline, stretching more than 100 miles in total, including the entire coastlines of Los Angeles and Orange counties, and part of Ventura County.
It is unclear how the EPA can fairly describe its public outreach program as “highly effective.” Study after study has shown that fish consumption advisories frequently fail to reach or to be understood by their intended audiences. Even when these hurdles are overcome, people may decline to follow advisories’ recommendations: whether for economic, cultural, or other reasons, people may not be able to alter the way they prepare their fish or may not have the option to travel “elsewhere” to fish in less contaminated waters. The EPA is surely aware of the relevant figures. Among other things, the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), a multi-stakeholder federal advisory body formed to advise EPA, made precisely these observations in its 2002 report Fish Consumption and Environmental Justice.
Full textThe United States Geological Survey (USGS) issued a report today finding widespread mercury contamination in U.S. streams. The USGS found methylmercury in every fish that it sampled – an extraordinary indictment of the health of our nation’s waters. The USGS reported that the fish at 27% of the sites contain mercury at levels exceeding the criterion for the protection of humans who consume an average amount of fish, as established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But EPA’s criterion grossly understates the risk to those people whose fish consumption practices differ from those of the “average American,” particularly members of the various fishing tribes, Asian-Americans, and those hailing from the Pacific or Caribbean Islands. Whereas EPA’s criterion is based on the assumption that people eat 17.5 grams per day of fish – about one fish meal every two weeks, on average – people in these groups consume fish at several times this rate. Many Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest, for example, currently eat hundreds of grams per day. The USGS findings are thus all the more troubling when one considers these higher-consuming populations – the USGS numbers mean that few of the fish sampled are fit for consumption by these people.
The concern raised by widespread mercury contamination in fish is even more pressing in these tough economic times. This summer, more and more people throughout the United States looked to fish for food (Update: for more on this, see Reuters, La Crosse Tribune, Detroit Free Press, and New York Daily News). This makes perfect sense: if they aren’t contaminated, fish are good for you. Nutritionists continue to extol the health benefits of eating fish. Fish are an excellent source of protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and a host of other nutrients essential to human health. And, if one can drop a line or dip a net into nearby waters, fish can be a relatively inexpensive way to put dinner on the table for one’s family.
But those fishing for food are placed in a bind. The USGS findings add weight to other studies that have led federal, state, and tribal governments to issue fish consumption advisories warning people to reduce or eliminate fish entirely from their diet due to mercury contamination. In fact, 48 states have issued advisories placing some or all of their lakes, rivers, or coastal waters under advisory for mercury (see the EPA's site on this).
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California has expanded its fish consumption advisory, warning people to curtail or eliminate entirely their consumption of nineteen species of fish caught off the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County. Among the new advisory’s recommendations is that humans should avoid eating white croaker, topsmelt, or barred sand bass caught in an area extending more than 30 miles from the Santa Monica pier south to the Seal Beach pier, and that, additionally, women and children should avoid barracuda or black croaker from this area. The advisory also includes less strict recommendations for a broader area of coastline, stretching more than 100 miles in total, including the entire coastlines of Los Angeles and Orange counties, and part of Ventura County. The primary contaminants of concern behind these advisories are DDT and PCBs (both human carcinogens) but mercury and a host of other substances also threaten the health of the Santa Monica and San Pedro bays – and the health of the humans that depend on them.
One lesson to be taken from our impact on the environment in the Los Angeles area comes from our response to what has been billed as “the world’s largest DDT dump” – a 17-square-mile-area just off the coast that now comprises the Palos Verdes Superfund Site. From 1947 to 1971, the Montrose Chemical Corp. discharged some 1,800 tons of DDT into the sewer system, which flowed into the ocean. DDT was determined to be so toxic that it was banned in the United States in 1972. Four decades later, we are poised to address this contamination … sort of.
Full textHere's some slippery regulatory logic: West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection says it is justified in setting less stringent levels for mercury in the state's waters than recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Why? Because, according to the WVDEP, a recent study shows that people in West Virginia eat less fish than the "average American" assumed by EPA. And if people consume less fish, they will be exposed to lower quantities of the toxic pollutants in those fish -- including methylmercury. But why might people in West Virginia eat less fish? One reason is likely the statewide fish consumption advisory warning people to limit their consumption of fish caught in all West Virginia waters, due to mercury contamination. But isn't the amount of mercury contamination permitted in the state's waters limited by the WVDEP? Well, yes. But any limitations on sources' releases of mercury are keyed to the WVDEP's water quality standard for mercury -- the one that is relatively lenient -- so sources in this case can release relatively more mercury. Which leads West Virginia to issue more restrictive fish consumption advisories. Which leads people to eat less fish. Which registers as a lower fish consumption rate in studies. Which supports WVDEP in promulgating even more lenient water quality standards for mercury. Which allows sources to release more mercury. Which leads West Virginia to issue more restrictive fish consumption advisories ...
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