Protect Lake Michigan News

CHICAGO, Illinois—Having received more than 7000 letters, postcards and e-mails in support of the Illinois Mercury Rule, the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB) today will close public comment on this pending proposal to reduce coal-fired power plants' toxic mercury pollution.

"People are concerned about mercury toxicity and want to see this pollution cleaned up." said Max Muller, Environmental Advocate at Environment Illinois. "And it's not surprising. We know that mercury pollution is a threat to the healthy development of our children, that power plants emit the lion's of this pollution, and that affordable technology to solve the problem is at hand."

The volume of comment—the largest in recent memory and possibly the largest ever—required the IPCB to change its normal procedures for handling submissions on rulemakings. In June, the Board created a second docket just for public comment in order to keep the unprecedented flood of letters and postcards from drowning out other official filings.

Illinois's fleet of twenty-one coal-fired power plants emits more than 71 percent of in-state mercury pollution. Therefore, children's health and environmental advocates have made adoption of the Illinois Mercury Rule a top priority. Over fifty such organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, and the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition, have called for Illinois to adopt the rule.

Eating tainted fish is the dominant route of human exposure to mercury. When power plant mercury lands in waterways, bacteria convert it to methylmercury, a potent neurotoxin which accumulates in fish. In April, Environment Illinois issued a report finding that the average Illinois sport fish tested in 36 Illinois counties, 66 individual lakes and streams, and 16 fish species exceeds the U.S. EPA safe limit for a woman of average weight who eats fish twice per week. The Illinois Department of Health warns women and children to limit their consumption of fish from all Illinois waters.

In humans, methylmercury is a potent toxin that can permanently damage the human heart, brain, and immune system. When a pregnant mother eats contaminated fish, methylmercury crosses the placenta and can cause irreparable damage to the developing fetus's central nervous system, resulting in developmental delays, motor, memory, and attention problems, and decreased IQ. Nationally, U.S. EPA researchers estimate that up to one in six potential mothers—including over 100,000 women in Illinois—has high enough blood-mercury levels to put a fetus at risk.

“Mercury contamination is a serious social issue, even for women who are only considering getting pregnant," said Dr. Peter Orris, Professor and Chief of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois Medical Center. "Exposure of the fetus is dangerous, but all too frequent, and its impacts in all likelihood burden both our education and health care systems. If we fail to reduce the sources of this pollution, personal tragedies and yearly billions in costs to society will continue to mount.”

Available technologies can capture 90 percent of power plant mercury pollution before it leaves the smokestack. Illinois EPA estimates the cost of installing this technology to be less than one percent of utility industry revenues. The Illinois Mercury Rule would require coal-fired power plants to begin operating these technologies by 2009.

“With mercury already contaminating fish in every body of water in the state, it’s high time we addressed this problem at the source,” said Muller. “We can clean up mercury pollution for less than the price of a cup of coffee per household per month. Illinois EPA is on the right track with this rule.”

In August, Ameren and Dynegy power companies agreed to support the mercury rule with the addition of a new, multi-pollutant provision. Under that provision, the two power companies agreed to install mercury controls by 2009 and also to dramatically cut lung-harming soot and smog pollution.

"One by one the power plant owners are admitting that it's not that difficult to install this technology," said Rebecca Stanfield, director of Environment Illinois. "They're finding it's affordable to protect public health and stay in business."

The only major coal-power generator left opposing the mercury rule is Midwest Generation, which owns seven plants in Illinois, including five in the Chicago metro area, and which is Illinois's single worst mercury polluter.

Rulemaking on the Illinois Mercury Rule, proposed by Governor Blagojevich in January, began in March when Illinois EPA's submitted a draft rule to IPCB for consideration. Public comment on the rule is added to the official record on which the IPCB will base its vote on whether to adopt the rule. That vote is expected in October. Shortly thereafter, the Legislature's Joint Committee on Administrative Rules will also review the rule, and unless two-thirds of its twelve members vote against it, it will become law soon after.