Thank you to the Environmental Quality Board for the opportunity to
testify on the important issue of reducing mercury emissions from
coal-fired power plants and Pennsylvania’s state-specific mercury
reduction rule. As you may know, PennEnvironment is a statewide
non-profit, non-partisan environmental advocacy organization with more
than 18,000 citizen members across the state. PennEnvironment has been
active on mercury pollution issues at the state and national level, and
has worked to educate the public and decision makers on this issue. We
were involved in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection’s (DEP) Mercury Rule Workgroup, and PennEnvironment was one
of the original petitioners signed onto the petition submitted by
Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future on August 9, 2004, urging the state
to take state-level action to cut mercury pollution from Pennsylvania’s
coal-fired power plants.
Summary:
Given the public health and environmental threats posed by mercury
pollution from Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants, the Bush
administration’s weakening of the Clean Air Act’s federal mercury
pollution reduction requirements, and the availability of mercury
pollution control technologies, PennEnvironment supports DEP’s
state-level proposal to cut mercury pollution from Pennsylvania’s
coal-fired power plants by 90 percent by 2015. We urge the state to
move forward in implementing this much-needed proposal, and reject
attempts to incorporate mercury pollution “credit” trading into the
proposal.
My testimony will focus on the following aspects of the mercury
pollution issue: the public health impacts of mercury, environmental
impacts of mercury pollution, the Bush administration’s so-called
“Clean Air Mercury Rule”, and the issue of mercury “hot spots”, and
mercury control technologies.
The Public Health Impacts of Mercury Pollution:
Mercury is a bioaccumulative toxin that builds up in body tissue. Rain,
snow, and dust particles “wash” mercury out of the air onto land and
into waterways, where some of it is converted to methylmercury, a form
that is especially toxic to humans and wildlife. The primary way that
people in the U.S. are exposed to methylmercury is by eating
contaminated fish, which absorb mercury from water through their gills
and from eating plants, organisms and other fish. As of 2003,
Pennsylvania was one of 19 states with statewide freshwater fish
consumption advisories due to methylmercury. These advisories warn
people—especially children and women of child-bearing age—to limit
their consumption of certain types of fish or fish from specific water
bodies. Mercury can also pass through the human placenta to developing
fetuses and through breast milk to nursing infants.
A potent neurotoxin, mercury poses significant human health hazards.
Mercury can affect multiple organ systems, including the nervous,
cardiovascular, and immune systems, throughout an individual’s
lifetime. In 2000, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the
Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury found the evidence of
neurodevelopmental effects of mercury “extensive.” The panel stated,
“Chronic, low-dose prenatal [methylmercury] exposure from maternal
consumption of fish has been associated with more subtle end points of
neurotoxicity in children. Those end points include poor performance on
neurobehavioral tests, particularly on tests of attention, fine-motor
function, language, visual-spatial abilities (e.g., drawing), and
verbal memory.” The panel concluded, “The population at highest risk is
the children of women who consumed large amounts of fish and seafood
during pregnancy. The committee concludes that the risk to that
population is likely to be sufficient to result in an increase in the
number of children who have to struggle to keep up in school and who
might require remedial classes or special education.” Infants and
children are at higher risk of problems associated with mercury
exposure because their nervous systems continue to develop until about
age 14. EPA scientists estimate that one in six women of childbearing
age has enough mercury in her body to put her child at risk, should she
become pregnant. This figure is a doubling of previous estimates based
on increasing evidence that methylmercury concentrates in the umbilical
cord, exposing the developing fetus to higher levels of mercury than
previously understood. Adults exposed to mercury may experience
neurocognitive defects similar to those seen in children exposed
prenatally as well as adverse effects on fertility and blood pressure
regulation. Mercury exposure also is associated with an increased risk
of heart attacks.
These public health problems also carry with them economic costs. For
instance, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis has estimated that a
national cap on mercury emissions from power plants of 15 tons annually
could save upwards of $5.2 billion each year due to reduced
cardiovascular and neurological problems.
The Environmental Impacts of Mercury Pollution:
Beyond the public health threats posed by mercury pollution to humans
through the consumption of mercury-contaminated fish, mercury pollution
also poses a significant threat to our natural environment.
Looking first at mercury levels in fish, data from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ongoing National Study of
Chemical Residues in Lake Fish Tissue revealed that in Pennsylvania,
all 52 fish tested were contaminated with mercury, and 83 percent of
predator fish composite samples were contaminated with mercury levels
that exceed EPA’s “safe” consumption limit for women (0.13 parts per
million). Fish species tested in Pennsylvania included largemouth bass,
yellow perch, carp, brown bullhead and bluegill. Additional studies
have found that mercury exposure in fish can result in embryo mortality
in lake trout eggs; adverse effects on growth and development in early
life stages; decreased spawning success; altered schooling movements;
and acute toxicity (leading to death).
But mercury’s threat to our environment extends beyond fish
populations—and beyond the aquatic environment. The best example of
this was illustrated in a study released in 2005 by the BioDiversity
Research Institute. The four-year study analyzed mercury levels in
Northeastern waterways, vegetation and a variety of animal species
beyond fish. Among the study’s most alarming findings was mercury
contamination in songbirds that do not eat fish—the animal
traditionally sited as being the key point in nature’s food chain with
regard to mercury pollution. Also, concentration levels were highest in
song birds older than two years, suggesting that concentration levels
in the birds are increasing over time. Mercury contamination in birds
has been linked to a variety of negative reproductive (fewer eggs
produced and reduced chick survival), behavioral (decreased likelihood
of hunting and exaggerated response to fright stimulus), and
neurological (brain lesions, spinal cord degeneration, weight loss, and
difficulty flying, walking and standing) effects in the birds.
The BioDiversity Research Institute’s study also examined mercury
levels in other species, including crayfish, salamanders, mink and
otters. Of the mink and otters sampled, 36 percent exceeded the mercury
level threshold for adverse effects and 1 percent exceeded the mercury
level threshold for acute toxicity (leading to death). Adverse health
impacts in mink and otters due to mercury contamination include
impairment of sensory and motor skills, and anorexia and weight loss.
Beyond the negative impacts of mercury pollution on individuals within
a variety of species, the other key aspect of mercury contamination in
our environment is that it bio-accumulates as it moves up the food
chain. Bioaccumulation is the process by which species at the bottom of
the food chain, such as smaller fish and insects, usually have lower
levels of mercury. But as these species are eaten by predator species,
who are then eaten by larger predator species, the mercury
concentration levels—and the chance of negative health impacts—increase
with each level of the food chain. For example, the amount of
methylmercury in predator fish at the top of the aquatic food chain can
be 1 million to 10 million times greater than the concentration of
methylmercury in the surrounding water.
The Bush Administration’s So-Called “Clean Air Mercury Rule”:
Reducing mercury from power plants is critical to reducing toxic
mercury in the environment and in fish, and thus protecting public
health. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has promulgated
regulations—the so-called “Clean Air Mercury Rule”—that give power
plants until at least 2018 before having to make even modest mercury
reductions and—even then—allow these plants to buy mercury credits
rather than install controls to reduce their mercury emissions. Under
the Clean Air Act, sources of hazardous air pollutants, including
mercury, are required to reduce these toxic emissions by the maximum
achievable amount within a three-year time frame. Working closely with
the utility industry, the Bush administration has sought to avoid this
requirement by removing power plants from the list of sources subject
to this technology-based standard and promulgating a cap-and-trade
system for mercury emissions instead.
Specifically, in March 2005, the EPA finalized a “delisting rule” that
rescinds the agency’s prior determination, in 2000, that it was
appropriate and necessary to regulate power plant mercury emissions
under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act. Under Section 112, hazardous
air pollutants, including mercury, are regulated using a “maximum
achievable control technology” (MACT) standard, and controls are
required within three years after the EPA finalizes an applicable MACT
standard by regulation. Section 112 also requires that certain
determinations be made before an industry may be removed from the list
of sources subject to MACT standards, including that no industry
source—e.g., a single power plant—emits hazardous air pollutants in
amounts that adversely affect public health or the environment. EPA,
however, did not even attempt to make these determinations before
removing power plants from the source list. Rather, the agency simply
asserted that “EPA, in its expert judgment, concludes that utility
[mercury] emissions do not pose hazards to public health.”
Delisting power plants as a source of hazardous air pollutants subject
to MACT standards cleared the way for the EPA to adopt the so-called
“Clean Air Mercury Rule”, also announced in March and finalized in May
2005. This rule allows power plants to delay even modest mercury
emissions reductions until at least 2018. EPA promulgated the rule
pursuant to Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which has never been
used to regulate a hazardous air pollutant. Indeed, this is the first
time that trading of a toxic air pollutant has ever been permitted in
the U.S.
The so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule sets national caps on mercury
emissions from power plants of 38 tons per year in 2010—a 21%
reduction—and 15 tons—touted as a 70% reduction—in 2018. The EPA’s own
analysis, however, projects actual emissions of 24.3 tons as late as
2020—less than a 50% reduction. Moreover, the Congressional Research
Service has concluded that “full compliance with the 70% reduction
might be delayed until 2030”—or beyond—due to the rule’s banking
provisions. By comparison, compliance with the maximum controls
standard for toxic air pollution under the Clean Air Act would have
resulted in mercury reductions on the order of 90% nationally by
2008—from about 48 tons in 1999 to five tons per year in 2008.
In addition to its weak and delayed national caps, the rule permits
power plants to buy and trade mercury pollution credits rather than
requiring every plant to make emissions reductions. Trading mercury
credits is “very risky,” according to prominent scientists, and would
likely contribute to mercury “hot spots,” areas with high levels of
mercury deposition that I will discuss later on in my testimony.
Both the delisting rule and the so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule are
the subject of numerous legal challenges. To date, 16 states—including
Pennsylvania—have challenged one or both of the administration’s
mercury rules in court or petitioned the EPA for reconsideration of the
delisting rule. Numerous environmental advocates also have challenged
the rules, as have four national public health groups.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, there have been many claims made
by representatives from the utility industry and others that
Pennsylvania power plants will be required under the so-called Clean
Air Mercury Rule to achieve an 86 percent reduction in mercury
emissions. This is simply not true. Because Pennsylvania power plants
will have the ability to avoid reducing their mercury emissions by
purchasing mercury credits from power plants in other states, it is
impossible to guarantee how much—or how quickly—Pennsylvania’s plants
will or will not reduce their mercury emissions under the so-called
Clean Air Mercury Rule.
And if Pennsylvania’s utilities’ actions in similar trading programs
for other pollutants is any indication, Pennsylvania’s power plants
will be the plants buying credits from other states—not the plants
reducing their emissions. Specifically, DEP’s finding that Pennsylvania
facilities are using the credit trading program for sulfur dioxide to
emit roughly 460,000 tons of sulfur dioxide above what the state is
allotted offers little hope that Pennsylvania’s power plants will be
the plants exceeding the minimum requirements for mercury reductions
under the so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule.
Mercury Hot Spots:
Data released this spring in the Environmental Protection Agency’s
Toxics Release Inventory revealed that Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power
plants emitted roughly 6,700 pounds of mercury in 2004, the last year
for which we have complete data from EPA. This ranked Pennsylvania
second among states nationally for the highest power plant mercury
emissions. In 2003, Armstrong and Indiana County ranked first and
fourth, respectively, out of all counties nationwide for the highest
power plant mercury emissions. Four other Pennsylvania counties made
the top 100 list nationally.
These statistics provide the appropriate backdrop for the discussion of
mercury “hot spots,” and emphasize why it is imperative that we
consider hot spots in our discussion of the need to cut mercury
pollution in Pennsylvania. Mercury hot spots are those areas with
mercury deposition higher than in surrounding areas, and there is both
significant evidence that hot spots exist and that coal-fired power
plants create hot spots in nearby communities. It follows that the
communities near or in a mercury hot spot will face an increased public
health threat due to increased mercury levels.
Countering the claim by some that global deposition (mercury pollution
originating from outside of the United States) accounts for most of our
mercury pollution problem, many studies suggest that in places where
there are large local sources of mercury pollution, such sources
account for 50 to 80 percent of mercury deposition. A 2003 study by
Environmental Defense that examined EPA modeling data found that over
50 percent of the mercury deposition in Pennsylvania hot spots was due
to local sources. Regarding Pennsylvania specifically, even the
Electric Power Research Institute, in its presentation before DEP’s
Mercury Rule Workgroup, said that less than 20 percent of mercury
deposition within Pennsylvania originates from outside of the United
States.
Other studies reinforce that the deposition of mercury in the areas
surrounding coal-fired power plants and other large sources can be very
localized. Dr. Mark Cohen of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, in a presentation before DEP’s Mercury Rule Workgroup,
presented findings that upwards of 50 percent of the ionic mercury
emitted from a stationary source can be deposited within 500 km (310
miles) of the source.
Perhaps most significantly, initial results from an ongoing EPA study
show that 67 percent of the mercury in rain collected at a monitoring
site in Steubenville, Ohio originated from coal-burning power plants
within 400 miles of the site.
Studies have also shown that when mercury emissions are reduced from a
source, the surrounding environment shows lowered mercury levels.
Specifically, a 2003 study by the state of Florida, the EPA and the
U.S. Geological Survey found that the levels of mercury found in
largemouth bass and other wildlife in the Everglades have declined
about 80 percent since state and federal agencies required municipal
and medical waste incinerators to cut their mercury emissions. More
recently, mercury levels in Massachusetts fish from lakes near a
cluster of incinerators were found to have dropped by over 30 percent
since Massachusetts enacted strict mercury pollution standards seven
years ago for the nearby incinerators.
The threat of hot spots means that the communities surrounding
Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants—and even those up to 400 miles
away from a power plant—are at an increased risk of high mercury levels
in their environment. For this reason, the environmental and public
health communities have strongly opposed the mercury trading program
put forth by the Bush administration in their so-called Clean Air
Mercury Rule. In this trading program, power plants can avoid reducing
their mercury emissions by buying credits from other plants in
different locations.
It is largely because of the Bush administration’s mercury policy
allowing for mercury trading—and thus endangering Pennsylvania’s
environment and public health through the threat of hot spots—that
PennEnvironment supports DEP’s proposed mercury reduction rule, as it
is a state-level mercury rule for Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power
plants that does not allow for mercury trading.
Mercury Control Technologies for Coal-Fired Power Plants:
Thankfully, the technology exists to drastically reduce mercury
pollution from Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants, and mercury
control technology companies are promising that technologies capable of
even greater mercury reductions are on the way. But as far back as
2000, EPA stated 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 one percent of utility
industry revenues.” Then, in 2001, EPA staff stated in a presentation
before the Edison Electric Institute that current technologies could
achieve 90 percent mercury reductions from coal-fired power plants by
2007, reducing power plants’ annual mercury pollution from
approximately 48 tons in 2000 to approximately 5 tons per year. This
testimony will walk through the mercury reduction capabilities
achievable through both the use of pollution controls for other
pollutants (often referred to as “co-benefits”), as well as
technologies that are designed specifically for reducing mercury
pollution.
With regard to co-benefits—the method of mercury reduction favored by
DEP’s proposed state-level mercury reduction rule—a 2004 report by the
National Wildlife Federation examined the pollution control
technologies being used by coal-fired power plants to meet federal
pollution reduction requirements for pollutants such as particulates,
sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and then examined the mercury
reductions that could be met using these same technologies. By
examining EPA data, the report found that several technologies designed
for controlling pollutants other than mercury, were capable of
achieving a co-benefit of 90 percent mercury reductions at plants
burning bituminous coal—the type of coal burned at the vast majority of
Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants. Specifically, the report found
that fabric filters, and fabric filters with wet scrubbers were capable
of achieving 90 percent and greater mercury reductions from plants
burning bituminous coals.
In a presentation before DEP’s Mercury Rule Workgroup, David Foerter
with the Institute of Clean Air Companies examined co-benefits
achievable without using fabric filters. His research found that 80
percent mercury reductions were possible using wet scrubbers with an
additive to help with mercury removal, and 90 percent and greater
mercury reductions were possible using wet scrubbers with selective
catalytic reduction technology. Mr. Foerter’s presentation also
included presentations on a number of other emerging multi-pollutant
control technologies, capable of 80 to 90 percent mercury reductions as
well as significant reductions in other pollutants.
Regarding mercury-specific controls, DEP’s Mercury Rule Workgroup heard
several compelling presentations as to the availability of technologies
that can achieve significant mercury pollution reductions at
Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants. The most promising of the
mercury-specific technologies is known as activated carbon injection,
or “ACI.” This technology injects an absorbent carbon into the flue
gas, absorbing and trapping the mercury before it escapes out of the
smokestack. ACI technologies have achieved 90 percent reductions in
full-scale tests at several power plants nationwide that burn
bituminous coal. A Workgroup presentation by Mike Durham with the
Institute of Clean Air Companies also referenced a year-long test at a
power plant burning bituminous coal that achieved 90 percent mercury
removal. Mr. Durham also pointed out that an advantage of ACI is that
it is a flexible control technology—the amount of activated carbon and
the type of activated carbon used can be easily adjusted at each plant
using the same hardware, depending on the desired pollution reduction
levels.
The Workgroup also heard a presentation from Sid Nelson of Sorbent
Technologies Corporation, which manufactures and installs mercury
pollution control technologies. Specifically, Sorbent Technologies
specializes in adding substances such as bromine to the injected carbon
to optimize the mercury removal of ACI systems. Mr. Nelson’s
presentation said that 80 percent mercury reductions would be
achievable at Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants by 2008, and 90
percent reductions would be achievable and inexpensive by 2012. This is
consistent with a Workgroup presentation by Thomas Feeley with the
National Energy Technology Laboratory, who cited field tests at plants
using bituminous coal showing 80 percent reductions using ACI
technologies.
Conclusion:
Given the serious environmental and public health threat posed by
mercury pollution in Pennsylvania, the availability of pollution
control technologies to significantly reduce this mercury pollution,
and the Bush administration’s weakening of mercury protections at the
federal level, PennEnvironment is supportive of DEP’s state-specific
mercury reduction rule to require 90 percent mercury reductions from
Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants by 2015, without mercury
trading. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify on this issue.
