The Healthy Frog is devoted to environmental issues in Chester County PA

Mercury, an Enchanting but Toxic Element

Do you remember playing with Mercury as a child? It was magical. You could drop it on the floor where it would form many beads of mercury. Then you could gather it up into a single ball by bringing the individual ones together.

Is mercury a solid, a liquid or a gas? Indeed, it has the properties of all three. This it what makes it so much fun to play with but so hard to keep out of the air and streams where it is ingested by fish and bugs that eaten are by fish and breathed into plants which are ingested by humans and animals. It is especially harmful to the unborn children of pregnant woman who have ingested fish contaminated with mercury.

In an effort to support coal power, the Federal Government has made the regulations monitoring safe mercury levels less stringent. Pennsylvania has the second highest number of coal fired power plants in the nation. As a result, Kathleen McGinty, Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), agreed to set a more stringent standard for mercury levels in Pennsylvania.

PADEP’s proposed rule would cut mercury in two phases.

• Phase I: 80% reduction by 2010
• Phase II: 90% clean-up by 2015.

There are two bills in the PA State congress that would prevent PADEP from implementing the safer standards. WE encourage you to contact your state representative and state senator to vote no to Pennsylvania House of Representative bill (HB 2610) and Pennsylvania Senate bill (SB 1201) that oppose PADEP’s rule.

For more information go to http://www.pennfuture.org/protectbabies/

Update July 5, 2006:

From PennFuture, “pennfuture@pennfuture.org, Friday June 30, 2006

“It looks like the mercury fight may be over, for now. And it is thanks to those of you who responded and contacted your PA State congressmen not to pass senate and house bills SB 1201 and HB 2610.

There is more to do: please thank your Senator if s/he is one of the 10 who voted no: Andrew Dinniman (D-Chester), Jay Costa (D-Allegheny), Jim Ferlo (D-Allegheny), Vincent Fumo (D-Philadelphia), Stewart Greenleaf (R-Bucks, Montgomery), John Rafferty, Jr., (R-Berks, Chester, Montgomery), Robert Tomlinson (R-Bucks), Patricia Vance (R-Cumberland, York), LeAnna Washington (D-Philadelphia) and Constance Williams (D-Delaware, Montgomery).

If your Senator voted the wrong way, s/he needs to know your disappointment s well. Putting the interest of polluters over the public health is unacceptable. You can find all senator’s contact information and sample letters at PennFuture’s Legislative Action Center:

A 60-day public comment period will begin June 24 upon publication of the draft rule in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. The public comment period runs until Aug. 26.

Update: August 4, 2006

On July 27, 2006, the third of a series of three hearings took place at Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Southeastern Regional Office in Norristown. The purpose of the hearings was to hear testimony (pro or con) for Pennsylvania’s
Mercury Rule would aims to significantly reduce the release of mercury from Pennsylvania’s coal fired power stations in the immediate future.

Thirty people testified. Twenty-nine of the testimonies were in support of the States Mercury Rule which is much more stringent than the Federal EPA proposal which does not call for the same percent reduction in the same time frame. The Federal Regulation would not be effective until 2050.

The testimonies given, for the most part, were brief, but salient. Why wait for 2050. Mercury is contaminating our air, streams and soils now. And it has been for a long time. The area that we live in shows higher concentrations of mercury than other parts of Pennsylvania. And, wherever our contaminated streams flow, there goes the mercury contamination to contaminate other bodies of water.

Support the State’s Department of Environmental Protection, and the people of the State.

 

©2006 League of Women Voters in Chester County - Natural Resource Project
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