Feds consider taking lead on mercury emissions

By Lisa Mascaro (contact)

Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Steve Marcus

A worker pours molten gold into molds in June at a refinery at Barrick’s Goldstrike mine near Elko. Mercury emissions by the industry — which in Nevada produced gold valued at a record $4.2 billion in 2007 — have alarmed environmentalists and officials.

Washington — As the Environmental Protection Agency moves forward with the nation’s first-ever regulation of mercury emissions from gold mines, the agency’s top administrator vows stricter monitoring of the toxin — which continues to accumulate in streams, air and fish.

Within six weeks the EPA is expected to release its proposed method for controlling the amount of mercury that gold mines in Nevada — the nation’s biggest gold producer — and elsewhere can release into the air.

The pending regulations have thrown Nevada’s own program for controlling mercury emissions into question, as federal authorities determine whether the state’s new methods for limiting gold mining pollution are adequate. Mercury is a potentially brain-damaging neurotoxin that when consumed or breathed can be especially harmful to pregnant women and children.

President Barack Obama has signaled that he intends to reduce mercury emissions, and the administration announced this year its plan to regulate airborne mercury from coal plants and other sites.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said this week that mercury “remains a concern for us, whether we’re talking about utility emissions or other sources. So I expect we will continue to be active under that regulatory area.”

In an interview with reporters in Washington, Jackson pointed to a recently released U.S. Geological Survey report that showed mercury contamination was found in every fish sampled from streams nationwide. Some were from areas, including Nevada, affected by gold mining pollution.

Jackson said the report “indicated how ubiquitous and how much of a concern mercury can be. It’s persistent, it’s bioaccumulative and it’s toxic — sort of the big three.”

The federal government’s decision last year to begin regulating gold mines was part of a long-running Clean Air Act lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club and comes as Nevada is trying to assert its own mercury controls.

Nevada’s mines have been among the nation’s worst mercury emitters. One, Jerritt Canyon mine, was shut down by state regulators last year and again this spring when it failed to comply with orders to reduce mercury emissions.

Yet the Nevada Environmental Protection Division and the Nevada Mining Association have opposed the federal regulatory effort, saying Nevada’s program should be given a chance to work. The state sought to intervene in the federal lawsuit, but a judge denied the motion.

The Nevada Mining Association this year suggested that the state should halt its program until the federal regulations are unveiled. The mining companies are concerned they could be forced to make costly improvements to comply with the state program only to be hit with new requirements from the feds.

“It has always been a concern of ours that we’d have conflicting regulations,” said Tim Crowley, president of the Nevada Mining Association. “There’s some guesswork going on.”

That worry has been compounded by a delay in the federal regulation, which was supposed to be put forward in mid-August, but is now scheduled for release on Oct. 15. A public review period will follow.

Jill Lufrano, a spokeswoman for Nevada Environmental Protection Division, said “the failure of EPA to publish the decision in a timely matter does mean that the uncertainty does continue for our program.”

The state’s voluntary emission controls were expanded and made mandatory for all mines in 2005. The Nevada Environmental Protection Division expects, by 2011, to require each mine to install the best available technology to prevent mercury emissions. Some companies have done so.

This summer the state began signing off on the mining operators’ plans of action, issuing permits the mines need to refit their equipment with the latest emission-control technology. “If asked to meet other standards, this would make it very difficult,” Lufrano said.

But those pushing for stricter controls on air emissions say the mining companies in Nevada can do both. Nevada companies produced gold valued at a record $4.2 billion in 2007.

“These guys are dreadful mercury polluters,” said James Pew, the attorney for Earthjustice, which is handling the case for the Sierra Club and others.

“It’s not as though they need a federal regulation to tell them that poisoning the area with vast amounts of mercury is a bad thing,” he said. “If they take strong measures now, that’s just less they’ll have to do when the federal regulation comes out.”

Nevada’s neighbors in Idaho and Utah have long suspected the mercury contamination in their streams and fish is coming from Nevada’s gold mines.

The USGS report released in mid-August showed that one-fourth of the fish surveyed in nearly 300 streams nationwide had mercury levels that exceed the EPA’s protective criteria for those who eat average amounts of fish.

The highest level of mercury in small-mouth bass was found in the Carson River in Dayton, an area with historical gold mining pollution, the report said.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar released a statement with the report, saying “This science sends a clear message that our country must continue to confront pollution, restore our nation’s waterways, and protect the public from potential health dangers.”