Editorial: Enact controls — now

Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004 | 8:58 a.m.

A lot has been written about acid rain and how it has contaminated buildings, lakes, streams and forests. Emissions from fossil-fueled power plants contain pollutants that are carried hundreds of miles by the wind. Although they can be widely distributed in dry form as well, the pollutants are most commonly known for combining with moisture and being distributed randomly by fog, snow and rain. Over time, if not controlled, this increased acidity causes fish to die, soils and trees to become damaged and human health to be harmed. Pollution controls were the only answer to acid rain. What has not been so widely reported is that mercury -- especially harmful to children and fetuses -- is also dispersed into the atmosphere from power plants and travels throughout the country in the same way.

Mercury poisoning can result in memory and vision loss, poor attention spans, learning problems and physical impairment. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one of every six American women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. The EPA also says as many as 630,000 children may be born each year with too much mercury in their blood. The Bush administration has strongly cautioned women and children against eating mercury-contaminated fish.

Yet this same administration is proposing that mercury be regulated as a "nontoxic pollutant," meaning that far less stringent standards for control would be imposed on power plants. The EPA had been on a course that would have required power plants to cut mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2008. The Bush administration, however, wants to give power plants until at least 2018 to install state-of-the-art control technology. Mercury contamination, like acid rain, can be lessened only through pollution controls. The Bush administration should allow the EPA to stay on its original course.