News from New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

For more information contact: Maureen Wren, 518-402-8000

Plan to Reduce Mercury Impacts in Fish Approved by EPA

New York Calls on EPA to Implement New Pollution Controls, Continues In-State Efforts

ALBANY, NY (01/17/2008; 1452)(readMedia)-- A multi-state plan to reduce mercury in the waters of New York and New England has been approved by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced today. The approval was a necessary step to implement a collaboration between New York, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont to reduce mercury and make freshwater fish safer to eat.

DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis said: “New York is pleased that EPA has agreed with the scientific evidence showing mercury’s negative effects on the environment and public health, but EPA needs to follow up with a national program to more effectively control harmful air emissions. New York State will remain diligent in monitoring the impacts of mercury and pursue ongoing initiatives that will make a positive difference for our residents and natural communities.”

Mercury is a toxic pollutant that accumulates in the environment. It pollutes the air through processes that use coal to generate electric power. Mercury also can combine with other elements to form both inorganic and organic compounds, and exposure to these or high levels of metallic mercury can damage the nervous system and kidneys. Women of child-bearing age, pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable. Exposure to unsafe levels of the pollutant could cause children to suffer brain damage or behavioral and developmental problems.

The vast majority of mercury pollution affecting New York comes from air emissions – much of it from out-of-state sources. Mercury impairs at least 80 waters in New York to an extent that violates state and federal law.

Eating fish caught in New York can yield health benefits, and fishing in New York State offers numerous recreational and economic opportunities. But in order to reduce the potential exposure to unwanted contaminants like mercury, the New York State Department of Health has developed fish consumption advisories that inform people about which fish and game to avoid and how to reduce their exposures to contaminants in the fish and game that they do eat. The advisories can be found at www.nyhealth.gov/environmental/outdoors/fish/fish.htm . Fish advisories exist for waters throughout the state including Onondaga Lake, several New York City water supply reservoirs, Lake Champlain, Rushford Lake in Allegany County, and Great Sacandaga Lake in Fulton and Saratoga counties.

The multi-state plan’s goal is to reduce atmospheric deposition of mercury to the region by between 86 percent and 98 percent, allowing fish-tissue mercury levels to decline and enabling the states to discontinue fish consumption advisories. The multi-state plan, called the Northeast Regional Mercury Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), recommends actions to be taken by EPA, including the implementation of a stringent national mercury control program, and also for the Northeastern states to continue building upon existing state initiatives that will control mercury contamination.

While EPA approved the TMDL, the agency did not address many of the recommendations called for by New York and the other states to address the lack of federal action to effectively control the extensive out-of-state mercury emissions impacting the Northeastern resources. Specifically, the TMDL seeks a national program to address sources such as coal-fired power plants in the Midwest that have ongoing harmful effects on other states’ environment and public health.

“Now that EPA has acknowledged the need for substantial mercury reductions, it needs to step up and impose the emission limits needed to protect and restore our waterways,” Grannis added.

Major contributing sources of mercury emissions include coal-fired power plants, cement plants, sewage sludge incinerators, among others, and these sources are being targeted by the states to achieve reductions. The TMDL acknowledges the success of the Northeast states in eliminating many in-state sources of mercury contamination. Nearly a decade of work has resulted in regional reductions of greater than 70 percent in mercury emissions and discharges, including a 90 percent reduction in emissions from municipal waste incinerators.

While advocating for federal action on out-of-state sources, New York will continue to focus on ways to implement mercury reductions from sources within the state. The five largest mercury emitters in New York are the LaFarge cement plant and four coal-fired power plants in Albany County, NRG’s Huntley and Dunkirk plants in Western New York, AES’s Somerset plant in Niagara County, and Dynegy’s Danskammer plant on the Hudson River.

New York recently adopted new air regulations, significantly more stringent than the federal government’s requirements, which will cut mercury emissions from coal-fired utilities by 90 percent by 2015. As Attorney General, Governor Eliot Spitzer led New York in a lawsuit against EPA’s a cap-and-trade system for regulating mercury emissions from power plants. The states argue that the EPA’s program will delay emissions reduction for many years, perpetuate hot spots of local mercury deposition and pose a serious threat to the health of children.

In the absence of federal leadership on the regulation of other large in-state mercury contributors, DEC is currently examining technologies for cement plants that would substantially reduce mercury emissions. New York has also joined with other states in a legal challenge to the federal government for adopting a rule that does not adequately regulate mercury and other pollutants from existing cement plants.

Among other solid waste reduction initiatives, DEC has enacted prohibitions on the possession and use of non-encapsulated elemental mercury in dental offices, while also requiring dentists to recycle any elemental mercury or dental amalgam (used in tooth fillings) waste to help prevent this material from entering landfills, incinerators, or sewer systems. In addition, the state is continuing efforts to require wastewater treatment plants to prepare mercury minimization plans and to conduct mercury monitoring using the most effective analytical methods.

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