State proposal doesn't solve Charlotte's mercury problem

Charlotte - Despite recent EPA findings that Charlotte has unexpectedly high concentrations of mercury in the air, the state's proposal to control mercury will allow the Charlotte area's largest emitters of mercury to continue to emit hundreds of pounds of the toxic pollutant, endangering the development of the region's infants, children, and fetuses.

"Over thirteen thousand North Carolina children are born each year with high mercury blood levels, contributing to decreased motor skills, learning disabilities, and other cognitive delays. Each year that we delay strong controls on our old, coal-fired power plants puts more children at risk," said John Suttles, Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. "Our children deserve the best mercury reductions we can give them and they deserve them as quickly as possible."

In April 2005, EPA found that Charlotte was one of four cities nationwide to have very high concentrations of mercury in the air. EPA studies also prove that local coal-fired power plants, such as Duke's Allen and Marshall facilities, are the largest contributors of mercury deposits in local waters.

Even with projected controls installed as a result of the state's Clean Smokestacks Act, Duke Energy's Marshall plant in Catawba county is the state's largest emitter of mercury, emitting 218 pounds of mercury per year. However, under the state's proposal, neither Marshall nor Duke's Allen plant in Gaston county, which emits an additional 83 pounds per year, will need to install any mercury-specific controls at all. Instead, the state proposal requires only the smallest emitters of mercury - some of which emit as little as 3 pounds per year - to control for mercury. Furthermore, the proposal gives utilities until as late as 2023 to do it. In the meantime affordable controls are available that would eliminate 90 percent or more of the state's mercury problem and would cost residential consumers as little as $10 a year.

Public hearings on the state's proposal will be held in Charlotte tonight at 7:00pm at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center. Similar hearings will be held in Raleigh and Winterville in early June.

While the technology installed in order to comply with the Clean Smokestacks Act in some cases also provides a "co-benefit" of controlling some mercury, 13 units at three plants in the Charlotte region will achieve no mercury reductions at all under the CSA. Even those that do get a "co-benefit" - such as the Marshall and Allen facilities - will not get the biggest possible reductions and may still emit significant amounts of mercury.

"Clean Smokestacks was not designed to control mercury and it is foolish to rely on it solely to solve our state's mercury problem," said Suttles. "Installing the best available mercury controls on the state's largest emitters of mercury is the only common-sense way to protect North Carolina's children from the serious and permanent affects of this highly toxic substance."

The public hearings come on the heels of the state's issuance of the largest ever fish consumption advisory, warning women of childbearing age, pregnant women and young children to not eat 23 varieties of North Carolina fish, including for the first time, largemouth bass caught in waters statewide and catfish caught east and south of I-85.