Public health groups challenge lax mercury pollution rule

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility are going to court today to present their legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Mercury Rule -- which despite its name actually exempts power plants from tough Clean Air Act requirements to control the harmful neurotoxin.

The groups -- which together represent more than 300,000 health professionals -- are being represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center. They are joining attorneys general from 14 states (though none in the South), a dozen national environmental groups and several Indian tribes that are also challenging the rule, which was released in May 2005.

"This challenge represents unprecedented legal action by these public health groups, an indication of how severe doctors, nurses and pediatricians and other health workers know the threat of mercury emissions to be," says SELC attorney John Suttles. "With this rule, the EPA not only ignored the requirements of the Clean Air Act, it also ignored the advice of thousands of health experts, choosing a clean up plan that does too little, too late to be protective of public health."

While Clean Air Act requirements would rid the nation of 90 percent of mercury emissions by the end of next year, CAMR would allow power plants to continue to emit much more mercury for much longer -- nearly 20 tons every year until 2025. At the same time, EPA would allow plants to use a cap-and-trade scheme where they could trade mercury pollution credits with other, less-polluting plants. That would create mercury "hot spots" that could lead to dangerous levels of human exposure.

Mercury contamination is an especially serious problem for the Southeast, whose power plants are responsible for one-fifth of the nation's mercury pollution and 60 to 70 percent of in-state mercury emissions. The region's blackwater rivers and streams with their high levels of dissolved organic material act as "superconverters," turning elemental mercury deposits from power plants into especially toxic methylmercury, which builds up in fishes and the people who eat them.

EPA estimates that as many as 600,000 children are born each year with dangerous levels of methylmercury in their bodies, putting them at risk for lowered intelligence and learning disabilities. Adults exposed to even low levels of methylmercury are also at higher risk for impaired hearing and vision as well as motor disturbances.

For more on mercury pollution and SELC's case, including court filings, click here.