Editorial: Poison in our midst

Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007 | 6:59 a.m.

Mercury is a poisonous metal that causes permanent brain damage in infants and, new research is beginning to suggest, can sicken adults in a similar but temporary manner.

When mercury is airborne, as it is when emitted by waste incinerators or coal-fired power plants, it ends up in local rivers and lakes, where it contaminates fish. People are exposed by eating such fish. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that up to 600,000 babies born each year in the United States may be exposed to potentially dangerous levels of mercury because their mothers eat contaminated fish during pregnancy.

Installing improved pollution control devices on waste incinerators has cut U.S. mercury emissions by half since 1990. But mercury emissions from the nation's 500 coal-fired power plants have been largely unregulated and have risen, making the power industry the nation's single largest source of mercury air emissions, USA Today reported last week.

EPA figures for 2005, the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available, show that mercury emissions from coal plants increased since 2000, while mercury emissions from all other industrial sources declined.

One reason for the increase is that the EPA didn't issue regulations targeting mercury emissions from coal plants until two years ago. The Clean Air Mercury Rule goes into effect in 2010 and gives coal plants until 2018 to cut mercury emissions.

The rule also allows power plants to buy mercury pollution credits from coal plants that have cleaner operations - an option that critics say allows the worst polluters to slide without having to make any changes.

Twenty-two states are so disgusted with the EPA's lack of regulation that they have rightly enacted their own, tougher mercury standards for coal plants. Nevada is not among those states, even though it is the proposed site for three of the more than 150 coal plants the energy industry wants to open in the next 23 years.

This is just another reason why we should not allow more of these coal operations to be built in our state and why we support Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's efforts to block the plants proposed for Nevada. It is irresponsible to continue to look to air-polluting coal plants to fulfill our energy needs when there are cleaner, renewable options available.