Don’t let Texas become a national toxic sacrifice
by Jane Dale Owen, November 2004
Texas power plants have the highest mercury emissions in the country. And if an EPA proposal gets through, more mercury emissions will fill the air, pollute the water, contaminate the fish and endanger our children.
A report released in October by Clear the Air, a joint project of the Clean Air Task Force, National Environmental Trust and U.S. PIRG Education Fund, shows that Texas has five of the ten worst coal-burning power plants in the country for mercury emissions. Texas mercury emissions are 33 percent higher than Ohio, second-worst state on the list. The Limestone power plant, near Waco, had the worst mercury emissions in the nation, with 1,800 pounds in 2002.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reported that mercury is the most hazardous pollutant emitted from coal-fired plants and that 600,000 newborns are at risk of high blood mercury levels each year. EPA’s own scientists have said that the technology is available to reduce emissions 90 percent nationwide by 2008. But the EPA and the Bush administration are blatantly protecting utilities’ profits at the risk of public health. Rather than enforcing the Clean Air Act to reduce power plant mercury emissions from 48 tons annually to about five tons per year by 2008, the EPA is proposing significantly lower standards. Especially dangerous to the health of Texans is the EPA’s proposal to remove mercury from the toxic category so that utilities can “trade” emission credits. This means that Texas power plants could buy their way out of controlling mercury emissions. Brain damage to children is the greatest risk of allowing these plants to continue to spew mercury into the air. Even low levels of mercury exposure can cause severe neurological and developmental problems that include poor attention span and delayed language development, impaired memory and vision, problems processing information, and impaired fine motor coordination. Developing fetuses and infants are most vulnerable. Through the umbilical cord, the fetus is exposed to anything the mother eats, drinks or breathes. Women are warned to avoid eating fish that may be contaminated with mercury during pregnancy.
Nineteen coal-burning power plants in Texas emit more than 9,000 pounds of mercury each year, according to the 2002 Toxic Release Inventory Report. Two new coal-fired plants are proposed for San Antonio and the Waco area. That is more mercury than Texas ecosystems can tolerate, since it takes only 1/70th teaspoon of mercury to poison a 20-acre lake. Mercury becomes even more toxic as it contaminates a lake or other bodies of water and is converted to methylmercury by marine organisms. The methylmercury accumulates in fish, making them many times more toxic than the polluted water.
Mercury contamination is threatening recreational fishing along the coast and in Texas lakes. The entire coastal area is under consumption advisory for king mackerel. Texas also has 12 freshwater mercury fish consumption advisories affecting almost 330,000 acres of lakes.
Power plants’ cost to reduce mercury emissions is a fraction of their benefits. Less mercury in the air will mean cleaner lakes and coastal waters, better health for our children, lower health care cost and higher productivity. State leaders cannot allow Texas to become a national toxic sacrifice zone. They must demand that the President and the EPA clean up this mercury mess. They must abandon the weak rules and mercury trading proposals, and enforce the Clean Air Act. Any plans for building new coal-fired plants should be stopped and replaced with plans for increasing energy efficiency, and using clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar.
Owen, a Houstonian, is president of Citizens League for Environmental Action Now (CLEAN). She is granddaughter of Robert Lee Blaffer, co-founder of Humble Oil, and the only nonscientist member of the Federation of American Scientists.
