Environmental regulations carry a stiff price tag. On June 29, a 5-to-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency highlights the costly challenge of regulating harmful emissions by coal-fired power plants.
The Clean Air Act empowers EPA to monitor and regulate these emissions if they are deemed a threat to public health, but law says the regulations should meet a standard of “appropriate and necessary.” In 2000 and again in 2012, EPA determined that current levels of mercury in emissions from power plants endangered health and should be reduced. Many power plants complied with the regulations, but subsequent lawsuits contended that the EPA did not factor in the cost to power producers of reducing these emissions.
Clif CleavelandWriting for the majority in Michigan v. EPA, Justice Antonin Scalia stated, “One would not say that it is even rational, never mind ‘appropriate,’ to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.”
But Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent argued: “EPA, in regulating power plants’ emissions of hazardous air pollutants, accounted for costs in a reasonable way The majority arrives at a different conclusion only by disregarding most of EPA’s regulatory process.” She argued that the regulations would save “many, many lives.”
As a consequence of the verdict, EPA now must factor cost into each set of regulations that apply to reducing air pollution.
Mercury poses a complex problem to the environment and to human health. The element and its compounds are released naturally into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions and the very slow erosion of rocks that contain mercury.
These days, however, mankind is the chief driver of mercury’s release into the air. Industrialization has led to a doubling of mercury levels in ocean water over the past century. Mercury also exists in minute concentrations in coal and is released when the fuel is burned; this accounts for up to half of mercury pollution worldwide.
Mercury also is employed in extracting gold from ore. Wild-cat gold mining in South America has become an increasingly important source of mercury pollution. Until recent years, mercury release from plants manufacturing chlorine was a significant problem in the U.S., until alternative methods of production were developed that did not depend upon the use of mercury. Tighter regulations on mercury’s use also helped.
Once mercury vapor enters the atmosphere, it may travel long distances before settling on soil, fresh water and oceans. Deposits in soil make their way into ground water and eventually into rivers and streams. In water, mercury may remain suspended or sink to the bottom. Micro-organisms in fresh and salt water convert insoluble mercury to soluble methyl-mercury (MM) which is highly toxic and is rapidly absorbed by animals. MM can cause severe, permanent injury to brains of fetuses and young children.
Through a process of biological magnification, minute organisms ingest MM. These organisms are eaten by small fish or other aquatic life which, in turn, are eaten by progressively larger fish and sharks. Large predatory fish may have MM concentrations millions of times higher than found in surrounding waters.
MM is unstable in seawater. Sunlight may convert it to elemental mercury, some of which may re-enter the atmospherem making this mercury cycle self-perpetuating.
Once mercury is deposited in a river bed or ocean floor, it may slowly be converted to MM. This timed release of MM may take place over decades. Dredging of contaminated sediment may release dangerous amounts of elemental mercury into streams and rivers.
Think of mercury as a “legacy pollutant” which will contaminant soil and water worldwide for decades. It is impossible to determine the cost in lives and health if mercury pollution is not checked. Our best hope of dealing with this toxin is through limiting its release in the most cost-effective manner possible.
Next week: Mercury in the food chain.
Contact Clif Cleaveland at cleaveland1000@comcast.net.