EPA refuses to regulate major source of mercury in water bodies and fish

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EPA eyes mercury emissions

Boston Globe Sat Dec 20

By Pianin, Washington Post, 12/20/2003

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules yesterday

to regulate the chemical industry's handling of toxic mercury, but conceded

that the government and industry cannot account for at least 65 tons of

mercury that plants might be releasing into the environment each year.

The fate of the mercury consumed by chlorine manufacturing plants across the

country ''remains somewhat of an enigma,'' the agency said in the final rule

published in the Federal Register.

The rule provides work practice guidelines aimed at preventing spills,

leakage, and emissions of mercury at the plants, but the EPA said it is

''not feasible'' to take more aggressive steps to pinpoint the ''fugitive''

mercury or enforce a tougher emission standard.

Environmentalists say that chemical companies use 100 tons of mercury

annually to replenish the amount lost in the manufacturing process, but

cannot explain what has become of the mercury being replaced.

If that mercury is escaping in the form of vapor, it would dwarf the

estimated 48 tons of currently unregulated airborne mercury from the

nation's coal-fired power plants.

The EPA earlier this week proposed two rules for reducing mercury emissions

from coal-fired power plants.

Mercury that enters the food chain can cause severe neurological and

developmental damage, especially to the fetuses of pregnant women who eat

mercury-tainted fish and shellfish.

Nine chemical plants in Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio,

Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin use a practice that has gradually

been phased out elsewhere to produce chlorine by subjecting large cells

filled with thousands of pounds of mercury to an electrical charge.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice say the regulations

issued yesterday fail to address most mercury emissions. They have called on

the EPA to require chlorine manufacturers to stop using the mercury cell

process. According to the most recent data in the government's 2000 Toxics

Release Inventory, 65 tons of mercury consumed by industry that year

couldn't be accounted for.

''There's nothing in this rule that tells us we won't have hundreds of tons

of mercury a year from these plants for the foreseeable future,'' said Jim

Pew, a lawyer with Earthjustice. ''The EPA says we don't have any data on

these fugitive emissions and therefore they can't set standards.''

Bernard Windham

berniew1@...

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