The last Friday in February was hardly fishing weather, and Jim Perry, owner of The Tackle Shop in West Columbia, opened his store late. By lunchtime, as no customers had braved a chilly rain, Perry was more than happy to sit in the back of his small shop and discuss South Carolina's mercury advisories on eating fish.
Like most of his customers, Perry says, he knows there's some mercury in the water but discounts the danger. Perry fishes regularly in the Congaree, Wateree and Santee rivers, all of which are under advisories from the state Department of Health and Environmental Control because of high levels of mercury found in some types of fish. Later this month, DHEC will re-release its advisories, as the agency does every year.
Nevertheless, "We don't pay much attention to DHEC around here," Perry says.
Mercury from contaminated fish is absorbed by the body and can damage the kidneys, liver and central nervous system. Because it affects development, the substance is a particular danger to children, pregnant women and women of childbearing age. Scientists say mercury exposure in fetuses and infants can result in birth defects, developmental delays and learning disabilities.
Numbers help convey the health risks. A report by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, released in 2003, found that 8 percent of women of childbearing age (16 to 49) have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. Just last month the EPA nearly doubled that figure, based on research showing that mercury levels in the umbilical cord are much higher than those in a mother's blood. The research means that even a woman with what is considered a "safe" level of mercury in her blood can pass on enough of the substance to endanger a fetus. In 1999, the EPA estimates, some 630,000 newborns had unsafe amounts of mercury in their blood.
Back in 1998, Free Times ran a story called "Mercury Rising," reporting that DHEC had issued mercury advisories for 18 rivers and nine lakes in the state, but that few residents seemed to be aware of the threat. Today, those advisories extend to 53 state water bodies, as well as to swordfish and king mackerel caught off South Carolina's coast.
For its part, the Food and Drug Administration has warned pregnant women, children and women of childbearing age not to eat any swordfish, tile fish, king mackerel or shark, regardless of whether they caught it in the ocean, bought it in a store or ordered it at a restaurant. Eleven states also have warned those same demographic groups to limit their intake of canned tuna, particularly white albacore, because studies have indicated that it contains unsafe levels of mercury.
But while the dangers of mercury contamination are becoming increasingly apparent, public awareness has remained low.
A study conducted several years ago by the Medical University of South Carolina found that most state residents and particularly those in rural areas are either unaware of DHEC's fish consumption advisories or do not take them seriously. Without a solid public education effort, much of the very real dangers of mercury remain unknown to the public, or are disregarded.
Charles Moore, a Charleston-based marine biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources, says there's "an incredible need to educate the public about what is known about the dangers of mercury," which he describes as "one of the biggest environmental problems in South Carolina and in the world today." Informing people about which types of fish to avoid is especially critical, he says. "For instance, the great majority of largemouth bass have far above the FDA limit for mercury and shouldn't be eaten," Moore says. "And I don't think the great majority of fishermen know that."
Compounding the problem, the information that is distributed about mercury is convoluted. "There's a lot of conflicting information out there, and it's not something that's real clear cut," Moore says. DHEC publishes warnings about specific fish in each water body, making its advisories complicated and lengthy, comprising an entire booklet of tables. Meanwhile the FDA and the EPA also publish their own warnings and guidelines. As a result, Moore says, "It's very difficult to get the average person on the street to understand."
At the same time, attempts to stop the problem at its source by cutting mercury pollution have been caught up in a debate about coal-fired power plants, now the largest man-made source of mercury emissions. Unlike some states with high levels of mercury in their water, South Carolina has done virtually nothing to curb mercury pollution from any of the 13 coal-fired power plants in the state.The EPA is evaluating proposals to regulate mercury emissions from power plants for the first time ever, but critics say the measures are inadequate.
What is It, and Where?--
Most mercury pollution comes from air emissions. Once mercury settles in water it turns into the neurotoxin methylmercury. Scientists say fetuses and infants exposed to methylmercury, which works its way up the food chain from fish to humans, can suffer birth defects, developmental delays and learning disabilities.
A heavy metal that is liquid at room temperature, mercury's chemical properties have long made it a source of fascination, and it has been used in everything from thermometers to street lights to detergents. Sylvia Plath, in her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, recalls scooping up a ball of mercury from a broken thermometer: "I opened my fingers a crack, like a child with a secret, and smiled at the silver globe cupped in my palm," Plath writes. "If I dropped it, it would break into a million little replicas of itself, and if I pushed them near each other, they would fuse, without a crack, into one whole again."
But scientists have long been aware that there is a darker side to the silvery-white substance.
Inorganic mercury, the kind found in thermometers, passes quickly through the body, almost completely without being absorbed. The real trouble begins when mercury falls to the ground as rain, or leaks from products disposed of in landfills, and ends up in water bodies.
Most waterborne mercury comes from the air. Once the substance settles in rivers, lakes and streams, bacteria transform it into methylmercury, a powerful toxin that is easily absorbed into the body. Plants also absorb methylmercury, which works its way up the food chain as fish eat contaminated plants and, in turn, humans eat tainted fish.
Larger fish at the top of the food chain such as largemouth bass, pike, walleye, king mackerel, sharks and swordfish tend to have the highest concentrations of methylmercury according to the EPA.
Butch Younginer, a manager in DHEC's Bureau of Water, says his agency has been collecting fish tissue samples since 1975, and that the agency started seeing mercury levels rise in fish in the early 1990s. DHEC began issuing fish consumption advisories in 1993. In 1998, Younginer told Free Times that those advisories were issued every year, and that information about them was distributed to public health clinics. Younginer also said DHEC had asked the Department of Natural Resources, which issues fishing licenses, to "put something in their manual."
More than five years later, fish consumption advisories are not being given out with fish licenses. And a recent interview with Younginer reveals that DHEC's methods for alerting the public to which fish are under advisory are basically unchanged. Younginer says the agency is planning a statewide program "to develop other materials and other ways to get the word out more effectively."
While some mercury pollution comes from natural sources, such as volcanoes, much of it comes from manmade sources. Scientists estimate that since the Industrial Revolution, mercury emissions have increased by 200 to 500 percent. In 1990, the three major sources were medical waste incinerators, municipal waste combustors and coal-fired power plants.
Since then, mercury emissions from medical waste incinerators and municipal waste combustors have dropped by 90 percent, thanks to federal regulation. But no such regulations were imposed on power plants. In 1999, the EPA reported to Congress that coal-burning power plants were the largest remaining man-made source of mercury emissions, releasing about 48 tons of mercury into the air each year. In 2000, another report by the EPA identified mercury as the "hazardous air pollutant of greatest concern to public health from the [electric utility] industry." That reported established that the EPA should regulate mercury emissions from power plants. But it was not until December 2003 that the feds released proposals to do so.
The EPA is taking public comment on the proposals and will weigh them internally before making a decision later this year.
The State We're in--
Meanwhile, mercury pollution has emerged as a huge problem in South Carolina. A recent study by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit environmental research group based in Washington, D.C., identified South Carolina as the sixth worst state in the severity of "mercury hot spots," which are areas where mercury deposits are highest.
A study by the U.S. Geological Survey, completed several years ago, found that South Carolina's Santee River Basin was among the top five (of 22 river basins tested) in methylmercury levels. In 2003, the National Wildlife Federation found that 97 percent of South Carolina rain samples it tested exceeded EPA mercury standards. In addition, the EPA itself says South Carolina is one of 11 states responsible for issuing more than 90 percent of all mercury advisories nationwide.
Some states have taken it upon themselves to regulate the problem. Connecticut and New Jersey have passed laws to cut mercury emissions 90 percent by 2008; Massachusetts requires 90 percent reductions by 2012. Neil Brown, a spokesman for PSE&G Power, the major utility in New Jersey and Connecticut, told Stateline.org: "It will be a challenge, but reducing emissions by 90 percent will be feasible and ultimately affordable." Seven other states, including North Carolina, have passed or are considering laws that would cut mercury emissions along with other air toxins from coal-fired power plants.
Yet despite its alarmingly high levels of mercury pollution, South Carolina has not taken the lead from these other states. A big part of the reason, at least according to the official line, is uncertainty about where mercury actually comes from.
DHEC's Younginer says that while the majority of mercury emissions come from power plants, there are sources outside the United States as well. "The impression that the public gets ‹ and I'll blame this on the media ‹ they tend to point to the coal-fired power plants and say you're the source of the mercury in the fish, and that's false," he says. If power plants are emitting mercury they are contributing to the problem, but air currents also carry mercury to and from other countries, Younginer says. "To say that the mercury problem in South Carolina is a South Carolina problem is wrong ‹ it's really a global problem."
Brian Duncan, a spokesman for SCANA Corp., whose subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. owns 10 of the state's 13 coal-fired power plants, including one at Lake Murray, agrees. "My understanding is that very little of mercury deposits are from local power plants," Duncan says. "It's really a global problem ‹ most of it's coming from Asia."
That explanation doesn't sit well with Chester Sansbury, former assistant chief of DHEC's Bureau of Water. Sansbury calls the "it's a global issue" response a cop-out.
"They'll sit there and say that it's a global issue, but they won't do any sampling to find out whether or not they are contributing to the problem locally," he says of power companies. "The industries ought to do more, and DHEC can require them to do more." For instance, he says, there should be more mercury testing upstream and downstream of coal-fired power plants.
Sansbury, dressed in a jacket and jaunty bow tie, spoke about mercury at a recent public policy luncheon held by the Columbia Area League of Women Voters at the Capital Senior Center in Maxcy Gregg Park. Twenty or so league members, mostly older women, turned out to learn about mercury contamination and what they could do about it. Sansbury, standing up from his seat in the audience to speak, talked about a lack of solid information on mercury pollution and its effects. Evidence suggests that there are high mercury concentrations in white albacore tuna, he said, adding that he's advised a pregnant daughter-in-law to avoid eating that type of fish even though the FDA hasn't issued a warning about it. As for DHEC, Sansbury said of his former employer, "They are slow to do anything about the mercury emissions of coal-fired power plants." He urged people to get involved. "You need to write letters."
Michael Shore, a policy analyst at Environmental Defense, is the author of a recently released report showing that mercury pollution can indeed be generated close to home. Using the EPA's own data, Shore's report shows that in many areas where mercury levels are high, much of the contamination is coming from local sources. He cites south Florida as an example, where tighter regulations on medical and municipal waste incinerators led to an estimated 93 percent reduction in mercury emissions in Broward, Dade and Palm Beach counties from 1991 to 2000. In that same period, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection found, mercury deposits from rain declined by about 25 percent, and mercury in largemouth bass decreased 60 to 75 percent.
Jackie Preston, a chemical engineer at SCANA, is wary of the Florida results. The mercury there was coming from a different source and the everglades are a different ecosystem, Preston says. "Comparing that to power plants is like comparing apples to oranges," he says. Preston cites statistics of his own, from the Electric Power Research Institute, which does research for the utility industry. The institute found that, on average, 60 to 70 percent of mercury deposited in the United States comes from outside the nation's borders.
Shore counters that an "average" figure can be misleading, obscuring spots with high levels of mercury deposits. He says his group's study shows that local sources are the biggest contributors in precisely those "hot spots" where mercury contamination is worst.
Preston concedes that levels vary from place to place, but he says conflicting studies aren't the only obstacle to combating mercury contamination. "Contrary to what people think, there's no pot of money in the sky for this," Preston says.
While that might be true, Sansbury says DHEC has the authority to act independently but is waiting for the EPA to do something. If that's the case, critics say places with the worst problems, like South Carolina, could be the last to be addressed.
The National Debate
Although the EPA began regulating mercury emissions from medical and municipal waste incinerators in the early 1990s, resulting in 90 percent reductions, the agency has been slow to establish similar controls on power plants. Only in December did the EPA release two proposed regulatory programs, and both have been met with widespread criticism from scientists, environmental groups and health professionals, who say the proposals fall far short of what is possible and necessary.
Originally, the EPA considered regulations to cut mercury emissions by 90 percent. But under the Bush administration, EPA leadership now favors a "cap-and-trade" policy. John Millet, a spokesman for the agency, says the policy is predicted to reduce mercury emissions 70 percent by 2018. But if the EPA goes with cap and trade, the agency would have to reverse its own decision, made in 2000, that mercury should be regulated under a Clean Air Act provision requiring facilities to meet the best established emissions standards.
"We think we have the legal authority to do so," Millet says of such a reversal. Analyst Shore calls that assessment "a questionable interpretation" of the law. "A cap and trade is often an excellent tool for reducing pollution cost effectively," Shore says. "But it's not appropriate for mercury. It's not legal to trade this pollutant."
In addition, Shore and other critics worry that cap and trade, in which high-polluting facilities can buy "credits" from low-polluting ones rather than investing in mercury reduction technology, will do little to cut mercury emissions in areas where contamination is already high. Says DNR's Moore, "It's hardly fair to expose a segment of the population to high mercury emissions in one area."
The EPA's other proposal, required under the Clean Air Act, calls for across-the-board, 29 percent mercury reductions by the end of 2007 ‹ a far cry from the original 90 percent, and a benchmark that critics say makes cap and trade's 70 percent look falsely appealing.
At public hearings on the proposals, opponents have pointed to PSE&G's pledge of 90 percent reductions in New Jersey and Connecticut as proof that the EPA can do better. Millet says the agency has asked those states for further information and "will definitely look into it and respond to it."
Shore says a 90 percent reduction is clearly possible. "There are cost-effective technologies at hand that utilities could use," he says. In 2000, the EPA itself found that "technologies available today and technologies expected to be available in the near future can eliminate most of the mercury from utilities at a cost far lower than 1 percent of utility industry revenues." Says Shore, "This is our opportunity to get standards that protect public health. But the [cap-and-trade] plan needlessly leaves a new generation of children at risk."
The public comment period on both proposals ends on March 31. After considering comments received, the EPA will issue a formal decision, which must be implemented by Dec. 15.
Making Changes--
In the end, protecting the public, particularly infants, pregnant women and women of childbearing age, will depend on a two-step process, Moore says. "One ‹ to avoid eating those [contaminated] fish; and two ‹ to stop the amount that we are polluting." He compares the slow progress in the campaign against mercury to the campaign against smoking. It took a good 20 or 30 years, he says, from the time the medical industry was aware of the health effects of smoking to the time the public became concerned about those effects. "People wanted to smoke," he says. "It took an incredible amount of absolute, in-your-face data to change that."
Moore, who has been working on the mercury issue for about five years, says there has not been a concerted effort against mercury contamination. "As long as there's not an overwhelming response from the people, it will go on happening," he says. "I don't think that they [power plants] will police themselves."
One thing that a federal regulation could bring, regardless of which proposal is adopted, is more knowledge. With utilities required to reduce their emission levels or track them in order to engage in cap and trade, strict monitoring of mercury emissions from power plants will finally take place on a national scale. And as information increases, excuses for inaction should become harder to make.
"The hope is through education," Moore says. "When people become aware enough that mercury is a real problem, that it's affecting their lives, then I think they will demand, at a grassroots level, that changes be made."
|
