EPA seeks limits on mercury releases

Power plants in Kentucky called major source

Louisville Courier-Journal and Wire Dispatches 15dec00

WASHINGTON -- Tons of mercury spewing from electric power plants pose "significant hazards to public health" and the pollution must be reduced, the Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday.

The agency said it planned to draft regulations to limit mercury releases from power plants. New requirements are not expected go into effect until 2004.

Power plants, especially those that burn coal, are the largest source of mercury releases, accounting for an estimated 40 tons getting into the air and water annually, according to a National Academy of Sciences study.

Half of all mercury pollution from power plants comes from just eight states, including Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, according to a national study released by the Clean Air Network last year.

Chip Keeling, a spokesman for LG&E Energy Corp., said, "We have always complied with EPA requirements" and would continue to do so. He said the company voluntarily reports mercury emissions to the EPA.

Keeling said scrubbers, which are installed at most of LG&E's plants, are effective at removing mercury.

Steve Brash, a spokesman for Cinergy, which supplies power to Northern Kentucky and parts of Indiana, said it was difficult to comment on the EPA's announcement since it didn't include details about the limits. He said there is no commercially available equipment specifically for removing mercury, but that an industry organization, the Electric Power Research Institute, was working on one.

In a statement, the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, said they are ready to work with the EPA on mercury reductions, but any future regulation should "have a sound scientific foundation."

The institute said "key scientific and technological issues" remain to be resolved. It also took issue with EPA Administrator Carol Browner's assessment of the health risks from mercury.

While the EPA has issued emission standards for mercury releases from other sources, such as medical and hazardous-waste incinerators, utilities have never even been required to formally report the amount of mercury coming from their smokestacks.

"The greatest source of mercury emissions is power plants and they have never been required to control these emissions before now," Browner said in announcing the new policy.

Exposure to mercury has been linked to neurological and developmental damage in humans. Fetuses and young children are particularly vulnerable.

Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences urged the regulation of power plant releases of mercury.

The report concluded that while the health risk to a large majority of the population is low, as many as 60,000 babies may be exposed to unhealthful mercury levels annually because either they or their mothers ate fish contaminated by mercury. Most exposure to humans comes from fish caught in mercury-contaminated waters, the panel of scientists said.

For more than six years, the EPA has been debating whether to limit mercury coming from power plants.

Its decision yesterday sets no requirements on how much utilities will have to reduce mercury emissions, nor what technology they will have to install.

That will be determined in regulations that are not expected to be formally proposed until late 2003 and issued a year later. Full compliance with the new standard likely will not be expected until about 2007, government and industry officials said.

Nevertheless, the EPA's action yesterday was applauded by environmentalists and members of Congress.

"This is a major turning point," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a sponsor of legislation to require a 95 percent reduction of mercury releases from coal-burning power plants.

It's not clear how the incoming Bush administration will handle the mercury rule-making, although it is not likely to be significantly changed.

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