Federal court to decide on weak federal mercury controls

Washington, D.C. – A federal court today will hear arguments in a lawsuit that could require South Carolina’s utilities to install mercury-specific controls on each power plant in the state and eliminate their ability to make millions of dollars in windfall profits from the sale of pollution credits. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) weak plan to control mercury from power plants came under fire today when the nation’s leading public health organizations joined 14 states, dozens of Native American tribes and national and regional environmental groups challenged the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“South Carolina, like the rest of the Southeast, has suffered for years from too many power plants emitting too much mercury pollution,” said John Suttles, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center which is representing The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility in their legal challenge to the EPA mercury rule. “Unfortunately, EPA has ignored its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act. As a result, every year hundreds of thousands of U.S. children are exposed to dangerous levels of this harmful neurotoxin.”

Released in May 2005, the EPA’s Clean Air Mercury Rule attempts to control mercury using a flawed “cap and trade” scheme, which allows facilities to trade mercury pollution credits with other less-polluting power plants. Because EPA and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control set South Carolina’s initial pollution cap higher than current emission levels, the state’s utilities stand to make millions in the sale of those additional credits without installing mercury-specific controls.

While coal fired power plants are responsible for 40 percent of mercury pollution nationwide, in South Carolina, power plants contribute nearly 60 percent of in-state mercury emissions.

South Carolina has 12 coal fired power plants that emit 1,469 pounds of mercury each year, resulting in fish consumption advisories for excessive mercury levels covering 1,749 miles of South Carolina’s rivers, 45,804 acres of its lakes, and its entire coastline (see map). EPA’s cap and trade approach violates Clean Air Act protections and won’t clean up such toxic mercury “hot spots” – local areas of higher mercury concentrations that could result in dangerous levels of human exposure. South Carolina already has a serious mercury hotspot problem, including one of the top ten most severe mercury “hot spots” in the nation.

Recently, a proposal for a new Santee Cooper power plant has come under fire for its planned mercury emissions of 138 pounds per year. The utility plans no mercury specific controls at the plant, which is to be located in South Carolina’s “mercury triangle” - the three most mercury contaminated rivers in the state. A group of South Carolina physicians is today calling on state health officials to conduct tests of residents of this region to determine if their health is at risk from mercury pollution.

“South Carolina is in an unusual situation. If the CAMR rule is allowed to stand, the state plans to hand utilities free of charge extra mercury “credits” worth tens of millions of dollars. The utilities would then be free to turn around and sell these extra pollution credits while failing to install a single mercury-specific control at any power plant in the state, including the planned Pee Dee plant. If the Court strikes down EPA’s unlawful plan, South Carolina utilities won’t receive this windfall and instead will be required to put children’s health ahead of higher profits by installing effective mercury controls.” said Suttles.

CAMR exempts power plants, the largest source of U.S. mercury pollution, from the most stringent Clean Air Act requirements to control hazardous air pollutants. While Clean Air Act hazardous air pollution standards would require maximum achievable reductions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants at each power plant, eliminating 90 percent of mercury emissions by the end of next year, CAMR would allow power plants to continue to spew far more mercury pollution into the air for much longer than the law allows. In fact, under its plan, EPA projects that U.S. power plants will only cut about 59 percent of mercury emissions by 2025 and will continue to emit nearly 20 tons of mercury into the air every year.