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Great Lakes
Article:
Mercury Free Minnesota
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 11, 2003
CONTACT:
Wendy Balazik, 202-675-2383
BUSH ADMINISTRATION CONTRADICTS ITSELF
While Dismantling Mercury Protections, Administration
Cautions Women and Children to Reduce Fish Consumption
Washington, DC- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today expanded health
warnings about the toxic effects of eating mercury-tainted
fish in a draft advisory set to be finalized early next
year. This comes on the heels of the Bush administration's
recent sweeping changes that would make it easier for
polluters to avoid cleaning up mercury.
Today's action by the FDA and EPA increased the number
of fish species with unsafe levels of mercury and expanded
the list of people who are most hurt by mercury, adding
children, nursing mothers and women who may become pregnant.
"It is astonishing that while the Bush administration
is warning people
about increased health threats from eating mercury-laden
fish, it is
weakening the very clean air protections that would reduce
mercury
pollution," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club's executive
director. "Just last
week, the Bush administration announced a plan to loosen
protections for mercury pollution in our air; and today,
two federal agencies report that more fish than ever have
dangerous levels of mercury. We call on the Bush administration
to enforce clean air laws that are on the books and require
power plants to install new technology to control this
dangerous pollutant."
Mercury is a powerful toxin that causes learning and
developmental
disabilities in children. Women of childbearing age and
people who
regularly and frequently eat highly contaminated fish,
or even large
amounts of moderately contaminated fish, are most likely
to be at risk from mercury exposure. Children exposed
in the womb or after birth, subsistence fisherman and
certain Native American populations are at risk.
Forty-four states have warned the public to limit consumption
of fish from mercury-contaminated lakes and rivers. Mercury
works its way up the aquatic food chain and into the human
body in a toxic form. The threat is especially great to
the offspring of women who have high levels of mercury--
hence the advisories that urge women of child-bearing
age and children reduce the consumption of some species
of fish and avoid others completely. One of every dozen
of U.S. women of childbearing age has mercury in their
bodies at levels that could threaten their unborn children.
Airborne deposits account for the bulk of mercury, which
occurs naturally in coal and rises out of it as it burns.
Regulation has been sought under the 1990 Clean Air Act,
with a December 15 deadline set for rule-making. The EPA
seemed poised to order a 90 percent cutback in mercury
emitted from coal-powered plants by 2008. Instead, the
long-term goal will be a 70 percent reduction by 2018,
the EPA said last week. By one estimate, that means 300
more tons of mercury coming down with the rain over the
next 15 years. The EPA's decision to back off of its more
stringent pollution control standards is an unacceptable
concession to wealthy power companies that puts the public's
health at risk, Pope said.
Wendy Balazik
Media Coordinator
Sierra Club
Phone: 202-675-2383
Fax: 202-547-6009
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