What's at Stake
Methylmercury is highly toxic, adversely affecting reproduction, the cardiovascular system and, especially, the brain and central nervous system. Methylmercury travels through the placenta and breast milk to disrupt and permanently alter the developing brain and central nervous system of the young. Children exposed to low or moderate levels of methylmercury risk delayed walking, delayed speech, and decreased fine motor function, language, visual-spatial abilities and memory. Higher doses of methylmercury during fetal development can cause small head circumference, severe mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness and seizures.
All of our state's major rivers and our largest lakes have fish advisories due to high levels of mercury. We have large sources of mercury (coal power plants are the largest) and our blackwater rivers are especially efficient at converting elemental mercury into methylmercury, a form easily absorbed by fish and the humans who eat them. Last year, the Charleston Post & Courier conducted testing that showed citizens in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina having mercury levels at eight times the recommended health levels.
Challenges
Studies show that controlling local emissions reduces mercury pollution. In Massachusetts, state mercury pollution reductions correlated with declining mercury levels in fish, while in Florida local controls led to substantial declines in fish tissue mercury levels, "delivering dramatic results in our lifetime."
South Carolina industries must take the initiative to reduce mercury emissions. An EPA sponsored study of mercury deposition in Steubenville, Ohio demonstrated that approximately "70 percent of Hg [mercury] wet deposition" at the testing site was attributable to local and regional coal and oil combustion. Those results corroborate federal studies showing that U.S. coal-fired power plants are the primary source of mercury in the Great Lakes, and that local coal-fired power plants contribute the most mercury in the Chesapeake Bay.
Next Steps
Direct DHEC to test citizens for mercury exposure. DHEC has expensive testing equipment but is not using it.
Direct DHEC to require that all mercury sources in the state use the maximum available control technology. Currently DHEC is giving out "credits" that let utilities avoid installing maximum controls.
Direct DHEC to post mercury warning signs at all boat ramps and fishing spots where mercury levels in fish are too high for safe human consumption.
Support legislation to require older power plants that have been exempt from the Clean Air Act to install controls to clean up to modern power plant standards, similar to North Carolina's Clean Smokestacks Act of 2002.
For more information:
Ben Gregg, SC Wildlife Federation, 803-256-0670
Blan Holman, Southern Environmental Law Center, 919-967-1450
Fast Facts
Santee Cooper accounts for 46 percent of all the current mercury coal plant emissions in SC.
The US EPA estimated in 2002 that it would cost power plants less than one percent of their annual revenue to reduce mercury emissions by 80-90 percent.
10 percent of women of childbearing age in SC have enough mercury in their bloodstream to put their children at risk for adverse health effects.
Freshwater fish that DHEC warns about most are catfish, largemouth bass, mudfish, chain pickerel and warmouth.