“The proposed rules will have little, if any, impacts on mercury concentrations in the environment at a very high monetary and societal cost.”
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) newly proposed National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) from Coal- and Oil-fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units and Standards of Performance for Fossil-Fuel-Fired Electric Utility, Industrial-Commercial-Institutional, and Small Industrial-Commercial-Institutional Steam Generating Units”1 failed to describe the scientific reality of natural processes and multi-factorial controls that govern the cycling of mercury (Hg) and the ultimate biomethylation and bioaccumulation processes for methylmercury (MeHg). As this report documents, this natural cycle has been taking place for at least the last 650,000 years.
According to a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on mercury,2 U.S. mercury emissions from all sources are indeed far lower than those of China and India.…