> Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Gautam: this administration's proposed alterations > > to the Clean Air Act allow increased mercury > >emissions, yet guidelines for consumption of > mercury-containing > > fish (such as tuna) by pregnant women and young > > children have already been recently revised > downward > > (I can provide any number of links if you wish). > Do please. Because, quite frankly, I don't believe > you. I mean, I'm sure you think you're correct, but > the level of dishonesty on issues like this is so > total that I don't believe _anything_ put out by any > environmental group. Gregg Easterbrook - who's > wrong on many things, but does pretty well on > environmental issues - pointed this out as well. > > http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml?pid=1500 Oh, ouch, I _was_ thinking purely of the medical guidelines, but I actually just _said_ I'd link about the EPA rules, didn't I? :P Navigating the EPA site is _not_ for the faint-hearted, or time-constrained. For those who want to skip straight to the spin - because spin there is - scroll down to ***. Easiest first - The new guidelines, issued this spring (the review date is a typo): http://my.webmd.com/content/article/84/98055.htm?z=1671_00000_0017_f1_01 "March 19, 2004 -- To protect developing babies from high levels of potentially brain-damaging mercury, the government issued guidelines today to warn women who are pregnant, nursing, or even considering having children to eat no more than two servings of fish each week. "The FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency jointly issued the new guidelines, but they are still emphasizing the benefits of eating fish...Mercury occurs naturally in the environment and can also be released into the air through industrial pollution. Mercury falls from the air and can accumulate in streams and oceans, where it is turned into methylmercury. It is this type of mercury that can be harmful, especially to the developing brain of an unborn baby or young child... "...Another commonly eaten fish, albacore ("white") tuna, has more mercury than canned light tuna. So when choosing your two meals of fish and shellfish, you may eat up to six ounces (one average meal) of albacore tuna per week, they say..." That last is controversial, and one panel member actually resigned over its inclusion: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8179-2004Mar19¬Found=true "The controversial recommendation regarding tuna was immediately attacked as inadequate by a member of the FDA advisory panel that addressed it. University of Arizona toxicologist Vas Aposhian today resigned from the panel, saying that the advisory did not reflect the experts' view that child-bearing women and children should not eat albacore tuna at all and should eat less light tuna than the advisory states. "We wanted albacore on the list of fish not to eat," Aposhian said. "We knew that wouldn't happen because of the pressure from the industry, but we certainly didn't think there should be a recommendation to eat six ounces of albacore." The above WP article also states: "Mercury, which gets into water and then the food supply through industrial pollution, builds up to potentially hazardous levels of methyl mercury in larger fish." On rising levels of mercury in the air: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-12/acs-io120303.php "Mercury levels in yellowfin tuna caught off the coast of Hawaii have not changed in 27 years, despite a considerable increase in atmospheric mercury during this time, according to a new study...Mercury enters the environment naturally and through industrial pollution, mostly from coal-fired power plants. Scientists have estimated that the amount of mercury in the atmosphere today is about two to three times what it was 150 years ago." [The above article proposes that oceanfish methylmercury levels is 'due to natural causes' rather than increased air or water pollution, since tuna caught off Hawaii have ~ the same levels as they did 27 years ago. This finding does not apply to other fish -- "Morel is more cautious, however, about extending the findings to coastal fish. Bluefish, for example, run up and down along the eastern coast of the United States feeding on the continental shelf, and they may be taking up human pollution there. Lake fish are also a different situation, Morel says, since scientists have established a strong link between pollution and mercury levels in lakes."] Other sources of mercury contamination come from mining (this is about San Fran Bay, and attributes overall improvement in water quality there to the Clean Water Act and improved sewage treatment: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/05/13/BA59867.DTL "-- Mercury, leaking from closed mercury and gold mines, is one of the bay's more serious contaminants. The water-quality objective was exceeded in 38 percent of water samples collected from 1997 to 2001. Concentrations measured 30 years ago are not appreciably different from those today, suggesting the degree of pollution is declining very slowly." ...And from municipal incinerators: http://www.lakemichigan.org/field_guide/toxic_air.asp This site states: "Though the Clean Water Act has made progress toward addressing these sources since its passage by Congress in 1972, scientific research is showing that the primary pathway for some of Lake Michigan’s most toxic substances is the atmosphere...The 1997 U.S. EPA Mercury Study Report to Congress estimates that roughly 80 percent of the human-generated mercury comes from air sources (mercury also occurs naturally at low levels). The U.S. EPA recently published mercury emission limits that, according to the agency, will reduce mercury emissions from municipal waste incinerators by 90 percent from 1995 levels when implemented." For more on toxic releases, have fun wading through this EPA site: http://www.epa.gov/tri/ :P OK, on the actual EPA rules, I'm cheating by using news sites, but do have a pdf file from the EPA: http://www.epa.gov/air/mercuryrule/factsheetsup.pdf *** The environmentalist spin: the 'increase' is compared to Clinton-era proposals, and in that 'swapping' of below-level emissions from one facility would allow other facilities to over-emit (a "cap-and-trade" program). Also that final proposed regs won't take effect until 2018. Assuming that regulations do get passed. Yep, I have to agree that that's _quite_ misleading -- indeed, as bad a spin as any official one I've complained on-list about. Hacks me off, in fact, because no spin is necessary on issues like arsenic toxicity, logging in old-growth forest, or loss of wetlands. >:( http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/7499268.htm "EPA's first-ever proposed controls on mercury pollution from power plants would ease limits envisioned by the Clinton administration, letting owners in some cases delay meeting requirements until 2018. They would let industry meet the first six years' goals by using pollution controls already installed to stem smog and acid rain. "The controls were issued to meet a deadline under a settlement with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The group sued during the Clinton administration to force mercury limits on power plants. The rule must be made final within a year. "These actions represent the largest air reductions of any kind not specifically mandated by Congress," Mike Leavitt, the new EPA administrator, said Monday. "We are calling for the largest single industry investment in any clean air program in U.S. history..." "...The Bush administration mercury plan is a departure from the Clinton administration approach. In 2001, EPA estimated that mercury could be cut by as much as 90 percent, to 5.5 tons, by 2008 if the best available technology were used as the Clinton EPA had hoped, according to EPA documents obtained by advocacy group National Environmental Trust. But the White House and Leavitt want to let utilities meet mercury pollution limits the first six years using the benefits of controls installed for other pollutants that cause smog and acid rain. "That approach, EPA says, would eliminate about 14 tons a year of mercury emissions from the currently unregulated 48 tons a year generated by coal-fired power plants. Such plants account for about 40 percent of the nation's mercury pollution... "...The Clinton administration listed mercury as a "hazardous air pollutant." The Bush administration would undo that by placing mercury into a less strict category of the Clean Air Act, which will allow companies to buy and sell pollution rights with other plants. "What we're trying to do is to maximize the total reduction of pollution from power plants," said Jeffrey Holmstead, head of EPA's air office. He said an interim cap on tons of mercury pollution would be set between "the high 20s to low 30s" by 2010. "Proponents frequently point to the acid rain trading program begun in 1990 as the model for using market forces to reward companies that surpass their pollution reduction targets. But it would mean the toughest mercury requirements would not take force until 2018." OTOH, by allowing a 'cap-and-trade,' there _will_ be areas of locally increased levels, and this is likely to hit the poor or socially disadvantaged harder. http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/120703G.shtml "In news stories on the draft proposal, EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt defended it as an emissions trading program similar to the one that has reduced acid rain. A close examination of the draft proposal, however, reveals that by emphasizing a cap-and-trade program, Leavitt was trying to deflect attention from the heart of the proposal: It would downgrade mercury from being regulated as a "hazardous" pollutant to one that requires less stringent pollution controls. By doing so, EPA's "cap" would allow nearly seven times more annual mercury emissions for five times longer than current law. Moreover, an emissions trading program would allow "hot spots" of mercury contamination in the lakes and rivers neighboring the plants that buy pollution credits instead of reducing their mercury emissions... "...EPA's draft proposal does just that. It would rescind the December 2000 EPA finding that mercury emissions from power plants constitute hazardous air pollution requiring the maximum amount of technologically achievable reduction. Instead, EPA has proposed to downgrade mercury emissions -- only from the utility industry -- from a hazardous pollutant to a run-of-the-mill pollutant. EPA has proposed a 30 percent reduction goal under weaker, ineffective provisions of the Clean Air Act, which would be accompanied by a mercury-emissions trading program stretched out over 15 years, rather than the three years required by law." My take: any reduction is good, but downgrading the category of mercury from hazardous to merely regulated has potential for future misuse. > > Kindly do not mistake me for some blindly-obedient > > Democrat-myrmidon. > No, I just notice that you tend to believe things > that > the environmental radicals do, and I don't believe > them. I don't think you're dishonest, I think you > trust people who are completely dishonest. Witness > your discussion with Dan on nuclear power... Ooh! Touche`! <grin> Truth is, I have a heck of a time wading through the radiation/nuclear power sites; I'm not a physicist, so I'm trying to educate myself, and unlike medical material which is nearly intuitive for me to grasp, I have to re-read even definitions constantly -- that is, when I'm not doing my 'real' jobs. But I _do_ intend to get proper replies out...at some point. <serious> The issue of missing fuel rods posted earlier today is relevent in a discussion of nuclear power. > Since the environmental movement has done more harm > to > the poor of the world than any other such supposedly > well-intentioned group, their dogma gets a very > visceral reaction from me. When you get down to it, > you've got a bunch of people who would rather > millions > of poor brown people die from malaria than even > consider the possibility of using DDT. So I don't > trust them, and when they claim - against all > evidence > - that mercury pollution is going to go up, when > every pollutant in the US is decreasing in release > quantity > - I don't believe them. Their credibility is less > than zero. <grimace> You still lump moderates with fringe radicals in that paragraph, and under these proposed EPA Hg regulations, there *will be* localities with excessive levels. Which *will be* toxic to toddlers and fetuses in those localities. And those decreasing pollutant levels are because of legislature implemented long _before_ the current admin (indeed, back to the 60s for many toxins). Debbi who had better get on the road before she's iced off it __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash
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