News for release:  Monday, March 7, 2005 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
 
U.S. Announces Settlement of Illinois Power Case Company will spend $500 million to reduce air pollution by over 54,000 tons per year
 
Contacts:  Cynthia Bergman (EPA), 202-564-9828 / bergman.cynthia@epa.gov Ben Porritt (DOJ), 202-514-2007 / Ben.Porritt@usdoj.gov
 
(Washington, D.C.- March 7, 2005)  The Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the State of Illinois announced the settlement of their major Clean Air Act case alleging that Illinois Power Company and its successor, Dynegy Midwest Generation, violated the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act at the Baldwin Power Station in Baldwin, Ill.  The agreement will reduce emissions of harmful sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) from Illinois coal-fired power plants by 54,000 tons each year through the installation of approximately $500 million worth of new pollution control equipment and other measures.
The five plants involved in the settlement are: Baldwin Generating Station in Baldwin, Ill.; Havana Generating Station in Havana, Ill.; Hennepin Generating Station in Hennepin, Ill.; Vermilion Generating Station in Oakwood, Ill.; and Wood River Generating Station in Alton, Ill.  In addition, Dynegy Midwest Generation will pay a $9 million civil penalty and spend $15 million in projects to mitigate the harm caused by unlawful emissions.
 
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed in 1999 as part of a federal government initiative to bring operators of coal-fired power plants into full compliance with the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act. In 1999, the Baldwin Station was one of the largest sources of air pollution in the nation, emitting approximately 245,000 tons of SO2 and 55,000 tons of NOx each year.  After the suit was filed, the company reduced SO2 emissions at the plant by over 90 percent through conversion to low sulfur coal, and it reduced NOx emissions by 65 percent by installing control equipment.
 
This settlement will achieve significant additional reductions at Baldwin and other Illinois coal-fired plants in the Dynegy Midwest Generation system by requiring installation of four new flue gas desulfurization devices (commonly called "scrubbers") to control SO2; four new baghouses to control particulate matter (soot); and operation of existing control equipment, including three selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems, year-round to control NOx.  The entire five-plant system will be subject to annual emission caps to assure that significant system-wide reductions for both SO2 and NOx are achieved.
 
"The air pollution reductions from this agreement will result in significantly cleaner air for residents of Illinois and downwind states," said Thomas V. Skinner, Acting Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.  "We are  committed to strong regulations and aggressive enforcement to protect public health."  "The citizens of Illinois could not have asked for a better result concerning our consensual agreement with Illinois Power," said Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.  "The Justice Department is confident that this settlement will provide numerous benefits in protecting and improving the quality of air for the people in and around the region."  "Today's settlement is an important step in protecting the rich environmental resources of Southern Illinois for which clean air is an  essential foundation," said U.S. Attorney Ronald J. Tenpas.  "The emission reductions it will produce will improve the life and health of our citizens."
 
The settlement is contained in a consent decree lodged for public comment in the United States District Court for the Southern District  of Illinois in East St. Louis, Illinois.  The $15 million in mitigation projects will finance efforts at enhanced mercury reduction, acquisition and preservation of ecologically valuable lands and habitat in the St. Louis Metro East area and along the Illinois River, municipal building energy conservation, and advanced truck stop electrification to reduce air emissions from diesel exhaust.  The federal and state governmental parties were joined in the case by a coalition of citizen groups - the American Bottom Conservancy; Health and Environmental Justice - St. Louis; Illinois Stewardship Alliance; and the Prairie Rivers Network. Additionally, Dynegy Midwest Generation will transfer ownership of an approximately 1,135 acre parcel of land which it owns along the Middle Fork of the Vermillion River in Vermillion County, Illinois, to the State of Illinois, Department of Natural Resources.  "This important settlement has the potential to improve air quality in Illinois from the Metro East area to the Chicagoland area," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.  "Additionally, the innovative projects included in the agreement will improve our state's environment and enhance its natural heritage."
 
This is the eighth in a series of agreements with power plant operators, all of which are focused on securing major reductions in air pollution from coal-fired power plants, which collectively account for 70 percent of SO2 and 30 percent of NOx emissions from all stationary sources in the nation.
The combined effect of these eight settlements will be to reduce emissions of harmful pollutants by over 714,000 tons each year - 486,000 tons of SO2 and 229,000 tons of NOx through the installation and operation of more than
$4.4 billion worth of pollution  controls. For more information about this settlement, visit:
http://intranet.epa.gov/oecaftp/compliance/resources/cases/civil/caa/illinoispower.html

Air of Injustice:

How Air Pollution Affects the Health of Hispanics and Latinos / Spanish Version

Excerpt regarding Illinois

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ILLINOIS DECISION NOT TO BACK STATE EMISSION
RULES OUTRAGES ACTIVISTS
Date: October 21, 2004

Environmentalists say they are shocked and angered by an Illinois EPA (IEPA) report concluding it would be "irresponsible" to move forward with state-specific requirements for electric utilities to reduce emissions, particularly because top state officials have long criticized EPA's approach to regulating these emissions as far too weak.

The three-year study, released Sept. 30, was widely expected to recommend stricter power plant rules, positioning Illinois to become the first Midwestern, coal-producing state to set utility emission standards that went beyond the Clean Air Act.

But in the weeks leading up to the due date, industry groups mounted a lobbying blitz (Clean Air Report, Sept. 23, p6) that environmentalists now say successfully convinced Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to squelch any state-specific recommendation.

Industry and congressional sources say they are happy with the IEPA report's conclusions but deny that their effort changed any minds. Instead, they credit IEPA for reaching the right conclusion.

"Illinois EPA recommends that the governor continue demanding that the federal government act nationally to reduce power plant emissions," the report concludes. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com.

The governor's office referred calls to IEPA, where a source defends the state's conclusions as consistent with its past positions. "IEPA is on record as wanting a stronger national standard, and we still want to see that. What we were doing was looking at state-specific standards on a multi-pollutant approach and whether that made sense," the source says.

At this point, the state will continue to study the issue and attempt to answer outstanding questions the agency was unable to address about a potential state-specific rule's impact on electricity reliability, electricity prices and jobs, the source notes. The state is also reserving the right to move forward with its own standards after EPA finalizes its clean air interstate rule (CAIR) to address nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from power plants later this year, and its mercury reduction plan in March 2005.

The source declined to respond to questions about industry lobbying efforts, noting that IEPA spoke with environmental groups and industry about the report throughout the project.

But one Illinois environmentalist says IEPA stopped talking to activists in late summer, raising suspicions that it might be backing away from its earlier plans to recommend regulations. "Before that, they gave us a lot of information about what the report would look like. . . . We expected them to recommend at least to match the federal rules and on mercury to make it stronger," the source says. "IEPA stood next to environmentalists and criticized the federal rules, and said we needed a 90 percent [mercury] reduction."

A second environmentalist says the state's decision to do nothing while criticizing EPA's plans defies logic, particularly because the report was sought by the state legislature specifically to provide an opportunity for Illinois to address power plant pollution and to boost use of Illinois coal. "They never said they would do nothing," the source says.

The source adds that Blagojevich included plans to reduce in-state utility pollution as far back as his 2002 campaign and accuses the governor of breaking a campaign promise.

In February of this year, IEPA told U.S. EPA that the agency's plans for SO2 needed to include additional reductions of 10 million tons per year (tpy) in the near term, while NOx emissions needed to be reduced by an extra 9 million tpy from its proposed rule. IEPA says even more reductions are needed for phase II of the federal plan, which would ultimately reduce SO2 and NOx emissions by 70 percent in 2018. On mercury, IEPA Director Renee Cipriano testified, "The U.S. EPA proposal would require an approximate 69 percent reduction of mercury by 2018. However, a 90 percent reduction is both necessary and feasible."

The second environmentalist also points to the fact that IEPA's report relegates a significant health study, specific to Illinois power plants, to the appendix. The study by a noted Harvard University researcher finds nine power plants in Northern Illinois cause about 320 deaths a year.

The report does acknowledge that public health is affected by utility emissions, and that "significant public health and welfare benefits can be derived by reducing power plant emissions."

But the IEPA source says it is unclear what kind of benefits Illinois-only rules would bring.

A source with Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) says IEPA's decision "keeps Illinois competitive. We are pretty happy." The congressman has been at the forefront of industry efforts to convince EPA to back away from a part of its mercury rule he thinks unfairly penalizes Eastern coal.

A source with an Illinois utility company denies that it launched a successful lobbying effort. "The industry was cooperating with IEPA, providing factual information to allow it to complete the study," the source notes.

An Illinois Coal Association source calls the report "balanced" and says it "recommends the right thing to do. . . . The federal EPA is about to promulgate standards for mercury, SO2 and NOx. Why would the state come out with something else? That is a wonderful attitude to take," the source says, admitting that the association was "a little surprised" IEPA recommended no action.

However, the source adds the surprise is outweighed by the fact that Blagojevich is not being totally inconsistent.

"His position that the [federal] mercury plan is too weak is superseded by the point that you don't set standards before the federal government acts," the source explains. "They say they reserve the right to do their own after the final rule is out."

The IEPA source adds, "The decision made as of Sept. 30, 2004, does not mean the door is closed. We will make an attempt to answer [outstanding questions] and revisit the issue after we have certainty on the federal level."

Meanwhile, the second environmentalist says the governor could still redeem himself by reacting to the report and issuing firm direction to IEPA about future action. Blagojevich has yet to issue a statement about the report.

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Greenpeace - Press Release - October 20, 2004
Video and photos available EMBARGOED UNTIL October 20, 2004

TWENTY-ONE PERCENT OF WOMEN TESTED NATIONWIDE HAVE MERCURY LEVELS HIGHER THAN EPA LIMIT

Interim Results of Mercury Hair Sampling Project Highlight Negative Impact of Dirty Power

Washington - Interim results of Greenpeace's Mercury Hair Sampling Project were released today by the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) at the University of North Carolina- Asheville. The survey found mercury levels exceeding the EPA's recommended limit of 1 microgram of mercury per gram of hair in 21 percent (126 out of 597) of women of childbearing age tested.

So far, hair tests have been analyzed for 1,449 people of all ages around the country. Mercury contamination is a particular concern for women of childbearing years (16 to 49 years old) because mercury exposure in the womb can cause neurological damage and other health problems in children. The EPA has not established mercury exposure health standards for older children, men, or women older than 49.

" I have an obligation to protect the health of my children as well as my own health," said Leila Varella, a 29-year-old mother from Philadelphia who got herself and her 6-year-old son tested. "Knowledge is power and getting tested is a first step toward protecting my family and community from mercury pollution. "

Coal burning power plants are the nation's biggest mercury polluter, releasing 41 percent of the country's industrial mercury pollution. Mercury from these dirty power plants and other sources falls into lakes, streams and oceans, concentrating in fish and shellfish, which are then consumed by people.

" In the samples we analyzed, the greatest single factor influencing mercury exposure was the frequency of fish consumption," said Dr. Richard Maas, Co-director of EQI and author of the report. "We saw a direct relationship between people's mercury levels and the amount of store-bought fish, canned tuna fish or locally caught fish people consumed."

" People should not have to stop eating fish because they're afraid they'll get poisoned by mercury," said Greenpeace Energy Campaigner Casey Harrell. "We need a President who will cut mercury pollution and move us away from dirty fossil fuels by investing in clean, renewable energy."

Greenpeace started the Mercury Hair Sampling Project as a response to President Bush's failure to clean up power plant mercury pollution. Switching from coal and oil to wind and solar energy would reduce pollution and its negative health impacts, help solve global warming and create jobs.

Home hair sampling kits are available at cost via Greenpeace's web site www.greenpeaceusa.org/mercury.
The EQI report and supporting documents will be available on the Greenpeace web site on October 20. EQI will continue testing into 2005 and issue the final report in the spring.

Contact: Nancy Hwa, Greenpeace Media Officer, (202) 319-2432
Photos: http://usaphoto.greenpeace.org/mercury

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Air Pollution: Illinois Agency Declines to Recommend Tougher Restrictions for Coal-Fired Plants

CHICAGO--The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency declined to recommend stringent new air quality requirements for coal-fired power plants in a report that environmentalists had hoped would launch the electric power industry on a compliance trajectory more rigorous than current federal standards.

The report, obtained by BNA Sept. 30, acknowledges that Illinois' coal-fired power plants are a major source of air pollution and that emission reductions would provide health benefits. At the same time, the report contends that a regulatory initiative more stringent than current federal standards would affect the economic climate in the state and the reliability of the state's electric power system. In this light, the agency said additional restrictions on such facilities would be imprudent.

"It is clear that power plants are a considerable source of air pollution and that reducing emissions will benefit public health," the IEPA noted. "However, moving forward with a state-specific regulatory or legislation strategy without fully understanding all of the critical impacts on jobs and Illinois' economy overall as well as consumer utility rates and reliability of the power grid would be irresponsible."

The report goes on to recommend that Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) demand federal action aimed at cutting power plant emissions. In this regard, the report notes that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency intends to issue final sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emission rules in December. In addition, final mercury emission reduction rules are scheduled for release in March 2005.

Environmentalists said they were dumbstruck by the agency's action in light of previous comments on the issue by Blagojevich and IEPA Director Renee Cipriano. Blagojevich campaigned on a platform that called for significant new controls on power plants. In addition, Illinois is one of 15 states challenging EPA's rule under the new source review program expanding the exemption for power plants and industrial facilities from pollution control requirements.

Lung Association Director 'Disappointed.'
" We're obviously disappointed with this report," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health at the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago. "It is simply inconsistent with everything the IEPA and the governor have said at this point about emissions from these plants. The governor said during the campaign that he wanted to set new long-term emission standards for power plants. Now it looks like the administration is refusing to follow through."

IEPA was required to complete a report on air quality standards pertaining to coal-powered electric power generation facilities under a law signed by former governor George Ryan (R) in August 2001. The law, Public Act 92-279, required IEPA to evaluate the need for cutting emissions of Sox, NOx and mercury no later than Sept. 30, 2004.

In considering such air quality issues, the law required the agency to consider the public health benefits, costs, and potential impact on Illinois' coal industry. In addition, the law required the IEPA to consider what impact potential regulations would have on the integrity of the state's overall power generation system. The law also created a process by which IEPA could recommend new regulations for these facilities. The Illinois Pollution Control Board, which is responsible for promulgating state environmental rules in Illinois, would have been obligated to act on any proposals forwarded by IEPA within one year.

But Anne Rowan, a spokeswoman for IEPA, said the agency has chosen not to recommend any changes in the state's current regulatory posture. She noted that the report points to a vast number of unanswered questions about the benefits of emission controls in the context of an Illinois-only program.

Unanswered Questions
" There were so many unanswered questions that we didn't feel we could recommend a state-specific program to the governor and the legislature," Rowan told BNA. "But we are not shutting the door on something like that. This just isn't the time."

The report was light on scientific conclusions and recommendations and outlined numerous open questions. Among other things, IEPA noted it had not been able to determine:

Urbaszewski questioned the agency's resolve and integrity during its research on such issues.
" Let's be honest, this agency had three years to work on this report," he said. "This is just garbage."
Rowan rejected criticisms from the environmental community and stressed that the last chapter has not been written in terms of emission controls.

"The director believes these criticisms are unfair," she said. "We weren't asked to look at this issue only from a pollution technology and public health standpoint. We had to look at energy reliability, job losses, impact on consumers and other issues. When we looked at some of the unintended consequences, we had to ask: 'What are we really gaining?' "
By Michael Bologna

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Emissions of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, rose 4 percent in 2003, but probably won't compromise long-term air quality goals, the government reported Wednesday.

Coal-fired power plants were the main source of the 10.6 million tons of sulfur dioxide. That total compared with 10.2 million tons in 2002 and reverted to the level from 2001.

Nonetheless, pollution from sulfur dioxide has dropped significantly over the past two decades, to 11.2 million tons in 2000 from 17.3 million tons in 1980.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

The Growing Asthma Epidemic and Dirty Air

Asthma is the nation's fastest-growing chronic disease and afflicts more than 20 million Americans. Asthma rates among children under age four have skyrocketed over the past two decades (160% between 1980 and 1996). Particularly hard-hit are communities of color - a recent study revealed that a shocking one-quarter of children in a Harlem, New York, neighborhood had asthma. For those with the disease and their loved ones, asthma creates a tremendous physical, emotional and financial burden. To help combat this growing health scourge and protect our nation's children, we must attack one of the prime contributors to asthma: air pollution.

The Impacts of Air Pollution

About 160 million tons of pollution are emitted into the air each year, and more than 150 million people live in areas where monitored air is unhealthy because of pollution. Air pollution causes or aggravates a range of health problems, from cancer to strokes and premature death. But the most visible health impact of air pollution is asthma. Nearly two-thirds of those suffering from the disease live in an area where at least one federal air-quality limit is broken. Certain air pollutants, particularly ozone (a main component of smog), particulate matter (or soot) and sulfur dioxide (a main ingredient of acid rain), are known to worsen the health of asthmatics and trigger asthma attacks.

Asthma attacks sent people to emergency rooms more than 1.8 million times in 2000, including 728,000 visits for children under 17. More than 4,000 people lose their lives each year from this disease (with African American children five times more likely to die than Caucasians). The economic burden of asthma has been estimated at $14 billion in 2002, and an estimated 14 million children miss school each year due to the disease.

Who is Likely to Develop Asthma?

Genetic makeup plays an important role in determining who is prone to developing asthma, but children of asthmatics will not necessarily develop the disease. There are many theories for what causes asthma, but the truth is that medical experts are still not sure. Most peoplewho develop asthma likely have a genetic tendency toward asthma and experience critical environmental exposures during their first years of life. There is some evidence that diesel exhaust particles may account for a fraction of the increase in asthma over the past two decades. Ozone has been implicated in one study as causing asthma in children who exercise heavily outdoors, but this finding remains inconclusive.

What Causes an Asthma Attack?

For asthma, genetics "loads the gun," but environment "pulls the trigger." This is true both for the initial development of asthma and for attacks. Once an individual has developed asthma, environmental factors that can trigger an attack include outdoor air pollutants, like fine particles and ozone, and indoor air pollutants including nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde and environmental tobacco smoke. Biological agents, such as respiratory infections and allergens, play a dominant role. Other toxic air contaminants like pesticides have also been fingered as culprits but have not been conclusively proven to cause asthma attacks. Children (because of their body size and developing lungs) and the elderly are the most vulnerable to the debilitating and life-threatening effects of air pollution. Effective clinical management and treatment of asthma is very important for avoiding asthma attacks.

Atlanta 1996: A "Real World" Testing Ground

A strong case for the importance of ozone in triggering summertime asthma attacks comes from a study of Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics. To reduce traffic congestion downtown during the 17 days the games were on, the city enhanced public transit, closed downtown to private cars and encouraged businesses to promote telecommuting and alternative work hours. The study found that daily peak ozone levels dropped 28% and hospitalizations for asthma fell by almost 20% during that time.

What Environmental Defense is Doing

Although there are many triggers of asthma, one of the few we can do something about is air pollution. Our team of health and air pollution experts is leading the fight to clean up the sources of dirty, unhealthy air from tailpipes and smokestacks. Nationally our team is working to get tight national emission standards for all diesel engines, including nonroad vehicles like tractors and locomotives. We recently helped win new tighter emission standards for diesel-powered backup generators in California and are pushing for nationwide controls. We are ensuring that Clean Air standards are implemented and enforced, from our national parks to congested cities. We are also pushing for cleaner transportation choices and better stewardship of highway projects. We are taking the fight to the local and state level, too. We worked with New York Governor George Pataki to require emission controls on highly polluting machinery used at the World Trade Center reconstruction site, which led to a new citywide law to curb diesel emissions from construction equipment. And we forged a ground-breaking partnership with FedEx Express to develop a super-clean hybrid-electric delivery truck that is already on the road. The new truck achieves a 90% reduction in soot, a 75% cut in smog-causing nitrogen oxides (NOx) and a 50% increase in fuel efficiency.

Coal-fired power plants in Illinois, which provide about half of the state's electricity, are facing tougher pollution controls than the federal government is proposing, igniting a fresh debate over public health, jobs and the Blagojevich administration's impact on the cost of doing business in the state.

A report due Sept. 30 from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, assessing potential cost and reliability issues, is expected to clear the way for stricter caps on mercury and other toxic emissions in Illinois - beyond what the federal government proposed last year.

"We think we can achieve some very beneficial emission reductions and still maintain" reliability and reasonable cost, says David Kolaz, chief of the bureau of air at the Illinois EPA. "The governor can do this if we do it carefully."

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and state regulators have blasted the Bush administration's proposal to restrict mercury and other pollutants, saying it does not go far enough to reduce pollution.

Another complaint: The proposed federal rules give an edge to producers of Western coal, which already has a natural advantage over Illinois coal because its sulfur content is lower. The Blagojevich administration argues that the Bush administration's more lenient mercury standards favor Western coal, which contains a form of mercury that is difficult to remove.

"The result will be to push more power plants to burn Western coal or other fossil fuels" and "cannot be supported," Illinois EPA Director Renee Cipriano said at a hearing last February on the proposed federal mercury rule.

The report due Sept. 30 covers mercury, which hasn't been regulated before, as well as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, the main culprits in creating smog, ozone and acid rain. But the biggest concern is the prospect of tighter mercury control than in the proposed federal rules, because the mercury-removal technology is new and its costs are largely unknown.

"Pending federal rules recognize that the technology is still evolving," says a spokesman for Midwest Generation EME LLC, a unit of California-based Edison Mission Energy with five coal-burning plants in the Chicago area.

What's unknown is how the state report will deal with the most difficult issue: marginally higher costs for Illinois electricity producers, which could make them less competitive in an era when electricity is traded across state boundaries.

"We'll still buy our power," says Mark Zimmerman, manager of energy affairs for New Jersey-based BOC Gases Inc., which has two large gas production plants Downstate. "It won't be from people generating in Illinois."

Costs of pollution control equipment can vary widely, ranging from a few million dollars to $50 million or more for a 500-megawatt power plant, plus operating costs that start at about $1 million a year.

Power producers argue it will be uneconomical to retrofit smaller, older plants with coal scrubbers or other pollution-control equipment if they can't recoup those costs, forcing some to shut down. "You run the risk of fairly serious reliability implications for Chicago," says James Monk, president of the Illinois Energy Assn., a power producer trade group.

Environmentalists have been pressuring the governor for tougher rules. "I can't think of a higher priority," says Rebecca Stanfield, environmental attorney for the Illinois Public Interest Research Group. "Few states rival Illinois for how much pollution is being put out by these power plants."

©2004 by Crain Communications Inc.

City children suffer serious lung damage
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=563413
Independent UK - September 19, 2004 - By Severin Carrell

Children in polluted inner cities are five times more likely than those outside to develop weak and damaged lungs - greatly increasing their risk of premature death, researchers have found.

Air pollution experts said that the study had unearthed powerful new evidence that existing controls on air pollution from traffic and factories will need to be greatly strengthened.

The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, follow a nine-year study of the link between child health and air pollution, involving more than 1,700 children and teenagers living around Los Angeles.

Scientists at the University of Southern California discovered that regular exposure to heavy levels of air pollution - chiefly from traffic - meant it was extremely likely that city children would grow up with permanent lung damage.

Scientists now believe that "critically low lung function" is second only to smoking as a cause of death.

Weak lungs are now believed to increase the risk of lung cancers or breathing disorders, because particles from air pollution, particularly from diesel exhausts, pass into the blood stream through the lungs. They also put the heart under much greater stress in later life, increasing the risks of coronaries.

Experts say that air pollutants produce chronic inflammation of lung tissues, or stop the lungs' smallest air sacs from growing properly.

Tim Brown, deputy director of the National Society for Clean Air, said these findings suggested there might be no safe level of air pollution: "Any reduction in pollution will be beneficial. We need to do a lot more to clean up city air."

Complaint Filed Under NAFTA Provisions Over Mercury From U.S. Coal-Fired Plants
By Peter Menyasz

OTTAWA--A coalition of U.S. and Canadian environmental groups Sept. 16 filed notice with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of their intent to lodge a complaint alleging that the Bush administration is failing to enforce the U.S. Clean Water Act against mercury emissions from coal-fired electricity generating plants.

The complaint to the CEC, which administers the environmental side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, will allege that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is failing to effectively enforce the statute against coal-fired plants, whose emissions are polluting water bodies in both the United States and Canada, Albert Koehl, a staff lawyer with the Sierra Legal Defense Fund's Toronto office, told BNA Sept. 16.

"In general, our long-term objective is to make sure that coal-fired plants get closed," Koehl said. "Eventually, with enough attacks against coal-fired plants, there will be action to shut them down."

Koehl conceded that the NAFTA environmental agency has limited powers and can only investigate complaints and bring its findings to the attention of the environment ministers of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But the complaint is intended to do more than raise awareness of Americans and Canadians about the environmental impacts of coal-fired generation, he said.

"They can't force anyone to do anything, but if the CEC agrees with us that the EPA is failing to enforce the Clean Water Act, it's going to be big news for a lot of Americans," he said. "This is an opportunity for us to bring this issue to the public attention and to government attention."

Request for Record of U.S. Enforcement

A draft copy of the coalition's complaint asks the CEC's secretariat to prepare a factual record on the alleged U.S. failure to effectively enforce the Clean Water Act against mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants that are degrading thousands of rivers, lakes, and other waters. The draft complaint, which is to be filed under Article 14 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, was provided Sept. 16 to BNA.

"Water bodies in the United States and Canada are being used as toxic waste dumps for mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants, precisely the impact the Clean Water Act is designed to prevent. Coincidental to this failure of effective enforcement is the EPA refusal to impose mercury reduction requirements under the Clean Air Act on power plants, despite affordable and available technologies that can dramatically reduce such emissions," the draft said.

The draft complaint further alleges that the U.S. government's failure to effectively enforce the Clean Water Act is thwarting the main intent of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, which is to prevent the NAFTA parties from gaining trade advantages at the expense of the environment. "The obvious result of this failure to enforce environmental laws against coal-fired power plants is the very trade advantage, namely cheap power produced at the expense of the environment, which the NAAEC seeks to prevent," it said.


'Only' Major Unregulated Source

The draft complaint stresses that U.S. coal-fired electricity generating plants account for about a third of total human-generated mercury in the United States, and are the largest source of mercury air emissions in North America, yet remain the only major source of mercury emissions that are unregulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act. It cites the Toxic Release Inventory as indicating that the 1,100 coal-fired units at about 480 U.S. power plants emitted 45.2 tons of mercury to the air in 2002, and notes that the EPA puts the current figure at somewhat higher than 48 tons annually.

It cites as evidence of the environmental and human health dangers of mercury pollution the fact that methyl mercury warnings currently account for more than 75 percent of all fish consumption advisories in the United States and fully 98 percent of fish consumption advisories in the Canadian province of Ontario. In addition, the EPA has indicated that 35 percent of total lake acres and 24 percent of all river miles in the United States are now the subject of mercury advisories, it said.

The draft complaint notes that there are no realistic private remedies available to deal with the issue of mercury pollution from coal-fired generating plants. Private tort actions or other common law property rights lawsuits against the polluters face obstacles in proving causation and standing, while public nuisance suits would also be problematic since under U.S. law only government officials are well placed to prosecute such suits, it said.

Private Remedies 'Impractical.'

"It is impractical and unrealistic for individuals and nongovernmental entities with limited resources to seek redress through private remedies for a trans-national problem of such scope and complexity," it said. "The EPA administrator, as a representative of the U.S. government, is vested with the authority and responsibility to deal with the cumulative impact of American pollution from coal-fired power plants upon Americans and Canadians. The EPA's failure to do so makes this the very type of problem that the Commission for Environmental Cooperation was created to address."

The Sierra Legal Defense Fund is spearheading the coalition, which also includes the Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Waterkeeper Alliance, Ottawa-based Friends of the Earth Canada, Washington-based Friends of the Earth-U.S., Toronto-based Earthroots, the Ottawa-based Centre for Environmentally Sustainable Development, the Buffalo, N.Y.-based Great Lakes United, and the U.S. and Canadian branches of the Sierra Club.

Under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, the CEC's secretariat is tasked with determining whether complaints filed with it are valid under Article 14 of the agreement and to recommend to the three national environment ministers whether further investigation, through the development of a factual record, is warranted.

If the environment ministers approve development of a factual record, the secretariat conducts a more detailed investigation, in which accused parties are required to answer the charges made against them, and presents its findings to the ministers. The ministers are not legally obligated under the trinational agreement to accept the findings or to act on them.

The text of the coalition's complaint will be available at http://www.cec.org on the World Wide Web once it has been formally filed with the NAFTA agency.

Power plant's haze has neighbors fuming
Efforts to reduce pollution from a coal-fired generating station in Indiana are sending acid clouds across the Wabash River to Downstate Mt. Carmel

By Michael Hawthorne - Tribune staff reporter -August 29, 2004

MT. CARMEL, Il. -- On the worst day last month, the bluish haze hit Bill Maples as he rounded a corner on his way to City Hall.

"All of a sudden I started to gag and it felt like my eyes were bugging out," said Maples, this town's economic development director. Pointing toward the source of the haze, a coal-fired power plant across the Wabash River in Indiana, he added: "You don't want to be outside when it comes our way."

What started as an attempt to curb one form of air pollution at the Gibson Generating Station ended up creating another: clouds of concentrated sulfuric acid that have plagued this town of 8,000 over the summer.

The problem first drew national attention in 2002, when an Ohio utility silenced complaints about caustic mist from one of its power plants by spending $20 million to buy out the town next door. Despite industry assurances that early engineering glitches had been worked out, it is still occurring two years later at coal-burning plants from Pennsylvania to Alabama. "We've heard this too many times before," said William Auberle, acting dean of engineering at Northern Arizona University and a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's advisory committee on the Clean Air Act. "People in these towns are tired of being treated like guinea pigs as the utility industry tries to solve this problem."

Faced with a May 31 deadline from federal regulators, Cinergy Corp., the plant's owner, spent $600 million on new equipment at Gibson to help make the air cleaner in faraway places like Chicago and New York by reducing nitrogen oxide emissions.

But some of those pollution controls created the sulfurous clouds that descended on neighboring Mt. Carmel in June and July, prompting complaints from angry residents and a lawsuit from the Illinois attorney general's office. At one point, the eerie blue mist blowing into town became so intense that Illinois officials pressured the plant to shut down the system. Cinergy engineers still are trying to figure out what went wrong. "Nobody wants this problem taken care of more than us," said Bob Batdorf, the Gibson plant manager. "We're part of the community. I go to church over there. I told my folks, `If you goof, I'm dead.'"

Their attempts are being watched closely by other utilities that are relying on the same technology to reduce nitrogen oxides, chemical byproducts of coal combustion that cook with other pollutants in the atmosphere to create ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog.

Sulfuric acid, an oily, corrosive liquid that can burn skin and trigger asthma attacks, is another ingredient in the mix of chemicals spewed by coal-fired power plants. Gibson releases about 1.5 million pounds of the acid every year, but it typically dissipates in the air and isn't considered a problem.

Although the new pollution controls are reducing nitrogen oxide emissions, Batdorf said, they apparently combined with other equipment to boost the amount of sulfuric acid coming out of one of Gibson's smokestacks.

Industry analysts and federal regulators say most coal plants appear to have avoided the problem. But at least five others have installed more equipment to control the type of mist that hit Mt Carmel, a picturesque county seat 290 miles south of Chicago on the Illinois-Indiana border.

Locating culprits

The blue clouds of concentrated sulfuric acid are coming mostly from power plants in the Ohio River Valley that burn high-sulfur coal, said Chad Whiteman, deputy director of the Institute of Clean Air Companies, a trade group of firms that install pollution controls.

One of the companies Cinergy has hired to fix Gibson has installed equipment to control the mist at two other coal plants in Indiana, two in Pennsylvania and one in Alabama. In Illinois, blue clouds have sputtered out of power plants near Springfield and Marion but did not hit the ground, according to regulators.

"These blue plumes have turned into a public relations disaster for the industry," said Rob Moser, a partner at Codan Development, a Santa Cruz, Calif.-based company that specializes in removing sulfurous mist from smokestacks. "They can deal with it, but these companies aren't going to deal with it unless somebody makes them."

Rising high above trees lining the Wabash River, Gibson is one of the nation's largest power plants; only two others generated more electricity last year. Fed each day with 25,000 tons of high-sulfur coal dug from deep under Indiana and Illinois and brought to the plant by train and truck, Gibson also is one of the nation's top sources of pollution.

The first of Gibson's five 668-megawatt generators started providing electricity in 1975, five years after Congress passed the Clean Air Act. Like many of the other massive coal plants built during the period, Gibson ended up belching more pollution than the energy dinosaurs it was designed to replace.

It took more than two decades of court battles and congressional hearings for the Clean Air Act to reach Gibson and the other coal giants. The plant is cleaner today, but it still ranks among the top contributors to acid rain that kills lakes and forests, smog that makes breathing difficult and greenhouse gases linked to global climate change.

During the last four years, Cinergy, like many other utilities, installed equipment at Gibson that breaks down smog-producing nitrogen oxides into less-harmful nitrogen and water.

All five units at Gibson are equipped with the technology, known as selective catalytic reduction. Two also send the coal exhaust through scrubbers that strip out sulfur dioxide, another pollutant that causes acid rain.

In early June, soon after the controls for one of the units were turned on for the first time, the amount of sulfuric acid coming out of the smokestack became more concentrated.

Prevailing winds normally carry the plumes away from town. But during the next two months, the winds shifted and blew the mist toward Mt. Carmel. Humid weather just made the problem worse.

State EPA intervenes

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency got involved after city officials and the local health department were flooded with complaints.

"I thought I had my asthma under control, but I had trouble on the days when those clouds hit us," said Bob Bethards, 74, a retired department-store manager. "I'm usually not one to complain, but if I'm having trouble, I'm sure others are, too."

After weeks of negotiations with city officials and state environmental regulators, plant officials promised to make sure the acid doesn't sock Mt. Carmel again. Illinois officials helped draft the agreement, and the state filed suit to ensure company officials follow through with their promises, said Ann Alexander, environmental counsel for Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan.

Last week, a Wabash County judge issued an order requiring the company to comply with the agreement. To fix the problem, Cinergy is burning low-sulfur coal and tinkering with various chemical injections to prevent the formation of sulfuric acid. Testing likely will continue past the end of the summer smog season, Batdorf said. Only one of the units with both sets of pollution controls is causing trouble, he said. But nobody is sure why.

Gibson employees now are posted continually on the roof of the hulking electricity generator, their only guide a pair of makeshift sights aligned with two landmarks near the town, a cell-phone antenna and electric tower. If the smokestack plumes creep close to these imaginary lines, the pollution controls are to be immediately turned off. Cinergy also has installed a sulfuric acid monitor next to City Hall.

Norm Brunson, a city commissioner who owns a barbershop in downtown Mt. Carmel, said that no matter what happens, people will be talking for years about the blue clouds that rolled into town.

"Most of us got C's or D's in chemistry, but even I know there's a problem when they spend megabucks out there and we don't see any of the benefits," said Brunson, provoking laughter from a group of men waiting for a haircut recently.

"I'm sure they are trying to be a good neighbor," Brunson said. "But it gets to a point where you can poison people too much."

By Robert Manor - Tribune staff reporter - August 24, 2004

Everyone speaks well of a technology that could turn Illinois coal into energy, but hardly anyone wants to spend money to use it.

A once-vibrant industry, coal mining in Illinois has lost thousands of jobs in recent years, brought down by clean-air legislation of the early 1990s. The state's coal is loaded with sulfur, forcing the coal-fired generating plants that supply nearly half the state's electricity to buy cleaner fuel from western states.

But a technology known as coal gasification radically reduces the pollutants expelled from the exhaust stacks of power plants. It is those substances--mercury and compounds of sulfur and nitrogen--that are among the nation's principal sources of air pollution and acid rain.

Environmentalists and lobbyists for the Illinois coal industry, at odds on many issues, both say coal gasification could sharply improve air quality and make Illinois coal usable again.

But there is no reason to expect it to be used in the state anytime soon. Several power plant developers are toying with the idea, which is being used at plants in Indiana and Florida.

But the two big electric-generating plants expected to open in Illinois in coming years--one Downstate and one on the former Joliet Arsenal site in Will County--have rejected it, saying conventional technology is cheaper.

"We believe that long term it represents excellent potential," said Vic Svec, a spokesman for Peabody Energy, which is building the plant near East St. Louis. "It's just not quite ready for prime time yet."

The technology of coal gasification is simple: heat coal to about 2,500 degrees under pressure. The coal's molecular bonds loosen, creating a flammable gas, known as synthesis gas, or syngas, that contains a great deal of energy and burns much cleaner. Coal gasification plants don't need the expensive scrubbers used to partly clean the emissions of traditional power plants.

"It has about 20 percent of the emissions of a regular coal-fired plant," said John Thompson, an activist with the Clean Air Task Force. "That is a huge difference."

"Those are the plants that will be able to meet existing and proposed air regulations," said Phillip Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association. "This is the thing I am excited about."

Converting coal into a gas is not a new idea.

In the 1800s, an industry sprang up to supply homes and businesses with gas from coal. The technology was basic: Heat coal in a closed vessel in the presence of steam and a small amount of air and draw off the gas that results. During World War I, German scientists further refined the process.

The chemistry needed to neutralize or draw off sulfur, nitrogen and mercury from syngas is uncomplicated. After the contaminants are removed, the syngas is sent to fuel combustion in a turbine that drives a generator. Waste heat from the process boils water to power a second, steam-powered generator.

Gasification yields more energy from a ton of coal than traditional burning and produces less greenhouse gases.

"You can get dramatically lower levels of emissions from it," said David Denton, business development director for Eastman Gasification Services Co. of Kingsport, Tenn.

For two decades, Eastman has built coal gasifiers for the chemical industry, which uses syngas as a component of many products. Eastman repeatedly has offered to help a utility build a coal-gasifier electrical plant but has found no takers.

"There are some perceived risks, which we believe are not real," Denton said. "Utilities are not rewarded for taking risks."

Companies that generate or deliver electricity are understandably not interested in an unproven way to produce power.

But coal gasification is not totally unproven.

A utility in Florida uses Illinois coal to feed a gasifier there. And in Indiana, a company operates a gasifier built to use coal, though it is now fed with petroleum waste. Both are small facilities, barely large enough to be considered commercial generators of electricity.

Steven Vick is general manager of Wabash Energy Ltd., which operates the gasifier in Terre Haute, Ind. It sells power to Cinergy Corp. and other utilities. "We look at it as environmental technology," Vick said. "It's 50 times cleaner." Coal gasification allows for the separation and disposal, or sequestration, as it is called, of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, both greenhouse gases. Although that process is not required, some in the utility industry think regulators will require it in the future.

The chairman of Cinergy, an electric utility serving Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, said he expects his company to seek state permission this year to build a coal-gasification plant in Indiana, in part because he expects the federal government to crack down on the emission of greenhouse gases. "If you live in a carbon-constrained world, this is your only alternative that offers the potential of carbon capture and sequestration," said Jim Rogers, who also serves as chief executive of Cinergy. But clean and efficient as it is, coal gasification has one big drawback: It costs more to build and run a coal-gasification plant than it does a traditional coal-fired plant.

Illinois has as many as 10 coal-fueled power plants in the proposal stage, though it is certain that many never will be built. But two that are likely to come on line eventually won't use coal gasification. Peabody Energy Corp. wants to build a 1,500-megawatt electric-generating plant in Washington County, about 30 miles southeast of East St. Louis. Indeck Energy Services Inc. wants to build a 660-megawatt plant on the Joliet Arsenal property in Will County. The plants will feature state-of-the-art pollution controls that will make them far cleaner than the state's existing coal-fired plants. But each could emit fewer pollutants if powered by coal gasification.

"We asked both of those companies to consider coal gasification," said Don Sutton, manager of the permit section at the state's Bureau of Air. "They said it financially could not be done."

Indeck says it found lenders would not finance its $1 billion project. "Gasification will be commercial some day," said Jim Thompson, senior vice president of Indeck. "We are not there today." Estimates vary, but industry observers say a coal-gasification plant would cost 15 percent to 50 percent more than a conventional, coal-fired generating plant. That translates to hundreds of millions of dollars in extra cost. "We have worked extremely hard to bring in [coal gasification] projects," said Bill Hoback, bureau chief of the state's Office of Coal Development. He said nearly everyone concludes it is not financially possible.

Still, some in the electric industry see Illinois, with its cheap coal and growing demand for power, as a logical site for the first large coal-gasification plant in the country. "We are currently taking a very hard look to see whether we can make it work," said David Schwartz, a partner with Erora Group, a Kentucky company that develops electricity-generating plants.

Erora would like to build a 644-megawatt power plant near the mouth of a coal mine in Christian County, just southeast of Springfield. "We think [coal gasification] has a lot of promise," Schwartz said. "But there has never been a plant this big in the U.S."

Record 600,000 Protest Bush Plan to Weaken Mercury Emission Controls
June 28, 2004

Tomorrow marks the last day for the public to comment on the highest-profile battle in years between the Bush administration
and advocates of public health. The administration is under court order to finalize the first-ever federal regulations to reduce poisonous emissions of mercury from power plants--the largest uncontrolled source of mercury pollution in the U.S.

The battle is marked by an unprecedented public protest against a Bush administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that would allow power plants to emit six to seven times more mercury into America's air--and for at least a decade longer--than would be the case if the current Clean Air Act were simply implemented in good faith.

An EPA analysis earlier this year stated that 630,000 American newborns are at risk each year of having unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. Mercury can cause serious developmental and neurological problems in children. It is a highly toxic chemical whose effects on the central nervous system are comparable to those of lead. Many people are exposed to mercury by eating tainted fish. Currently, more than 40 states have issued advisories against eating mercury-contaminated fish from their rivers, lakes and streams.

Properly implemented, the Clean Air Act would bring about a 90 percent reduction of mercury emissions over three years. But the Bush administration has stubbornly defended its plan to reduce mercury emissions by only 70 percent--and over a period of 13 years. As a result, over 600,000 citizens have submitted comments opposing the Bush plan. This is more than twice the highest number of comments EPA has ever received on a rulemaking--greater even than the outcry when the administration tried (unsuccessfully) to fend off stronger controls over arsenic in drinking water.

Two months ago 45 Senators and 10 attorneys general called on EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt to abandon the EPA proposal and instead finalize a rule that complies with the Clean Air Act. And this week 184 members of the House did the same.

"It seems the only people applauding the administration's mercury rule are the people who wrote it: power companies and the Bush administration," Angela Ledford, director of Clear the Air, an environmental health advocacy group, told BushGreenwatch. "Today's Washington Post reports that mercury releases are up 10 percent. This underlines the need to require power plants to reduce emissions as much and as fast as technology allows."

Critics of the Bush plan note that a combination of 25 mercury-emitting utilities have donated nearly $6 million to President Bush's campaign, and that they would share a savings of $2.7 billion under the administration proposal.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Last summer's great Northeast blackout had a silver lining - cleaner skies downwind from the Midwestern power plants that were idled, researchers say.

Aircraft sampling in the 24 hours following the blackout found a 90 per cent drop in sulfur dioxide and a 50 per cent cut in ozone levels, while visibility increased by more than 40 kilometres, University of Maryland researchers report.

Maryland's top environmental official said the results prove what state officials have long argued - the region suffers from air pollution created elsewhere.

"It's not a model, not a meteorologist's dream. The pollution cuts actually happened," said Kendl P. Philbrick, Maryland's secretary of the environment.

While the administration of Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich generally supports President Bush's efforts to allow utilities to increase capacity without costly emissions improvements, Philbrick said Maryland is a special case.

"We're saying, 'Hey look, we need help here. You've got to do more ... because we are in a special area,'" Philbrick said.

The measurements were taken as part of a 13-year effort to track air pollution in the Baltimore-Washington area.

From May to September, University of Maryland researchers take measurements twice a day aboard a specially equipped airplane.

On Aug. 15, the researchers realized the blackout the night before provided a rare opportunity - to compare pollution in an area downwind of idled power plants with pollution downwind of unaffected plants.

They took air samples over central Pennsylvania - in the path of air blowing in from the blacked-out region - and compared them with air samples they had taken that day over Virginia and western Maryland.

They found sulfur dioxide levels measured over Pennsylvania were 90 per cent lower and ozone levels were 50 per cent lower.

"We had ideas of what the power plants were contributing to regional air quality," said Brett F. Taubman, a graduate student in chemistry who was aboard the plane that day. "This was the first opportunity to directly measure a large scale-back like this. And the results were far greater than we ever imagined."

While pollutants most closely linked to power plants were lower, soot and carbon monoxide - which are more closely associated with automobile pollution - remained steady.

A power industry spokesperson said tougher emissions rules could decrease reliability and increase costs. Scott H. Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said that stiffening those rules "has a direct implication for the ability to maintain power plants."

The University of Maryland study is to be published in the next issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Electric power plants #1 source of toxic air pollution in North America

2 June 2004 (Montreal)-Electric power plants are the number one toxic air polluter in North America, accounting for almost half of all industrial air emissions in 2001, says a new report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).

The findings are part of Taking Stock 2001, the trinational organization's annual report on chemical pollution from industrial facilities. The report compares data submitted to the Canadian and United States federal governments by 21,254 facilities, which monitor their releases of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens and neurotoxicants to the air, land and water.

According to the data, 46 of the top 50 air polluters in North America were power plants. The sector generated 45 percent of the 755,502 tonnes of toxic air releases in 2001, with hydrochloric and sulfuric acids being the chemicals most commonly released from the burning of coal and oil. Power plants also accounted for 64 percent (43,384 kg) of all mercury air emissions, mainly from coal combustion.

Overall in North America, air releases decreased by 18 percent from 1998 to 2001. However, air releases, including smokestack emissions, continued to account for almost two-thirds of the chemicals released by companies on-site. For electric power plants, the decrease in toxic air releases was half the rate of other sectors over the same time period.

"We're still pumping more chemicals into the air than all other methods of release combined. We've shown that it's possible to reduce pollution, but cleaner air requires industry, government and the public to work together for cleaner fuels, conservation and more renewable energy," says William Kennedy, executive director of the CEC.

Taking Stock's analysis of the 204 chemicals common to both the Canadian and US reporting systems revealed that 1.4 million tonnes of chemicals were released into the environment in North America in 2001. Another 1.5 million tonnes were transferred to recycling, energy recovery and treatment facilities.

In the United States, three coal-fired power plants reported the largest toxic air releases in 2001: CP&L Roxboro Steam Electric Plant in Semora, North Carolina, Reliant Energy's Keystone Power Plant in Shelocta, Pennsylvania, and Georgia Power Bowen Steam Electric Generating Plant in Cartersville, Georgia. These three plants each reported more than 7,400 tonnes of toxic air releases and were responsible for over seven percent of the total toxic air releases in the US. Reliant also recorded the largest on-site air emissions of mercury (819 kg) of any power plant in Taking Stock.

In Canada, a single facility is responsible for eight percent of all toxic air emissions: Ontario Power Generation's Nanticoke Generation Station. The coal power plant was also responsible for the second largest on-site air releases of mercury (226 kg) by a Canadian electrical facility, following Alberta's TransAlta Corporation's Sundance Thermal Generating Plant at 270 kg.

Taking Stock 2001 is the eighth report of the series to compare industrial pollution sources in North America. The report is intended to help identify opportunities for pollution reduction, and is based upon the pollution inventories of the United States and Canada. Mexico does not yet require reporting, but is expected to announce a mandatory and publicly accessible pollutant release and transfer registry (PRTR) in the near future.

Do you have a question about a particular facility, industrial sector, province or state? The Taking Stock Online web site <www.cec.org/takingstock> allows users to customize reports by chemical, facility, sector or geographic region.

It's odorless, tasteless and colorless. Before we knew better, we used to put it in our gasoline (to boost engine performance) and paint (as a pigment). But now elevated levels of lead in water are prompting plenty of Washington-area households to regard the stuff pouring out of their taps with suspicion, anger and fear. What is it about this molecule of metal that makes it so dangerous? The problem is that while lead is toxic to humans, the body doesn't recognize it as a poison. " The body does not distinguish well between lead and calcium," said Mary Jean Brown, head of the lead prevention program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Because the chemical structures are similar, the body treats lead as it does the essential nutrient. And everywhere that calcium goes, lead follows. " Every enzyme system that has lead thrown at it is poisoned, and essentially doesn't work as well as it would have without the lead there," Brown said. After lead enters the digestive tract, it moves into the bloodstream; some of it ends up in the bones, where it can remain for decades. Lead disrupts production of hemoglobin -- a component of red blood cells that carries oxygen to body tissues -- which leads to anemia; interferes with neuron development and neural function, which can cause cognitive problems; affects kidneys, which can lead to hypertension and even renal failure. Lead is especially harmful to children 6 and under. At high levels -- well above those found in even the District's worst water and 10 to 20 times higher than the blood lead levels D.C. officials have found in children recently -- lead can cause coma, convulsions and even death in children.
During times of bone density loss, such as pregnancy and menopause, lead already stored in the bones leaks back into the bloodstream. In pregnant women, lead crosses into the placenta and is absorbed by the fetus. Lead in the womb can increase the risk of miscarriage, stunt the fetus's growth and cause hearing problems and learning disabilities. Lead absorption may also increase during pregnancy -- possibly because pregnant women are absorbing higher levels of calcium and other minerals.
Over the past three decades, the removal of lead from gasoline, paint, solders and food cans has dramatically reduced children's lead exposure. In a national sampling taken in 1976, nearly 88 percent of children age 6 and under tested at or above the CDC's current safety threshold of 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood for youngsters of that age. In 2000, the figure was about 2 percent. (In the District, about 8 percent of young children have elevated lead levels.)
Despite the progress in recent years, lead is still considered by public health officials to be one of the top environmental health dangers for children. "Lead is one of the most important environmental exposures in childhood, and it's certainly the best documented, and perhaps the most pervasive," Brown said.

In Old Paint
While public anger has centered on the high levels of lead in the District's tap water -- along with the failure of officials to warn residents promptly -- some experts regard water as ordinarily a minor player when it comes to environmental lead risk.
Drinking water, estimates the Environmental Protection Agency, is the source of up to 20 percent of Americans' lead exposure. (Officials note one important exception here: Formula-fed infants may get as much as 40 to 60 percent of their lead exposure from water.) On the whole, though, many health experts argue that other environmental sources of lead are more dangerous in size and effect. One such source is paint in older housing, the main source of human exposure to lead. Other sources are certain contaminated soils, imported pottery with lead glaze, some old mini-blinds, folk remedies (such as greta, a Mexican folk remedy taken commonly for stomachache or intestinal illness) and imported candies.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 40 percent of U.S. homes have lead-based paint, and about 25 percent of American children age 6 and under live in lead-hazard housing. Because more than half the District's housing stock was built before 1950, it contains much more lead-based paint than most communities' housing, according to the Alliance for Healthy Homes, a nonprofit group that works to protect children from lead hazards. According to national statistics, adjusted to reflect the age of D.C.'s housing stock, 118,000 homes in the District are estimated to pose lead-based paint and dust hazards. Muriel Wolf, a pediatrician at Children's National Medical Center, says that of the 30 to 50 children who are typically being treated by the hospital for elevated lead levels at a given time, 95 percent have been exposed to lead through paint.
" I suspect that this business in the water may not turn out to be a major thing in terms of the kids. However, I think what's it's doing is alerting us to the fact that lead is not a benign thing," Wolf said. "It's important to make sure what the story is with the water, but the real issue is the lead in the paint and the dust."
Some recent developments offer support for that view. Last week, D.C. officials found that 12 of the 14 children younger than 6 who had elevated blood lead levels live in homes with unacceptable levels of lead in soil or dust, most likely from lead-based paint.
Disadvantage, All Health experts worry especially about lead exposure involving children 6 and under not only because their brains and organs are still developing, but also because they absorb a much higher percentage of the lead that they swallow or inhale. That's because the element masquerades as good minerals like calcium and iron, which their growing bodies are taking in at prodigious rates. While a child 7 or older may absorb only 10 percent of the lead he inhales, eats or drinks, the CDC's Brown estimates, a child 6 and under may absorb 50 percent.
Children who don't have enough calcium or iron in their diet will absorb lead at a still greater rate, as their bodies try to make up for the nutrients they lack. Low-income children are at highest risk for lead poisoning. Not only are they the most likely to have poor nutrition, but they also tend to live in housing with old, chipping lead paint and paint dust. Because African American and Hispanic children have been proven more likely than other children to have elevated lead levels, some researchers speculate that genetic differences may be accountable. Brown suspects the discrepancy is attributable instead to the high percentage of minorities living in older, deteriorating housing in large cities. Most experts agree with her.
" People who are in high-poverty families are at greater risk of exposure, and the main reason is that their housing is often substandard," said Pierre Erville, senior program manager at the National Safety Council.
" D.C. has more than twice the national average of pre-1950 housing," Erville said. "And when you combine that with the high poverty rate and other demographic factors, it points to a potentially serious lead poisoning." When lead paint cracks or flakes, chips and dust can cover furniture, children's toys and other household items. The smallest children, the ones at highest risk, are also the ones who spend the most time on the floor and tend to put everything in their mouths. But Barbara Sattler, director of the environmental health education center at the University of Maryland, warns against assuming only poor children have elevated lead levels. " The issue around lead poisoning is not whether you are rich or poor. The issue around lead poisoning is whether or not you are exposed to lead," Sattler said. Not just substandard housing but home renovations or even sanding and repainting can expose children to high levels of lead, she said. Because a child's body doesn't excrete lead easily, Sattler and other health experts worry about a cumulative effect with the lead in the District's water.
Tee L. Guidotti, acting director for the Center for Risk Science and Public Health at George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services, said because lead safety thresholds are lower for children than adults, children get to levels that cause toxic effects much more quickly. " It's not the average child that we're worrying about with the lead levels in D.C. tap water," Guidotti said. "The child that we're really concerned about is the one who already has elevated lead levels." The fear, he said, is that "the lead in D.C. tap water might push them over that line."

Is Any Level Kid-Safe?
When lead passes the brain barrier in a child, it can cause problems with learning and language skill development and possibly contribute to behavioral problems. " I've seen children who have had significant intellectual impairment as a result of lead," said Wolf. "It can cause learning disabilities with kids, so it can have long-term effects." Research has suggested a connection between lead and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and several studies have found a correlation between high levels of lead and juvenile delinquency. The effects of lead on intelligence and cognition are well documented, but the relationship between lead and behavior has proven more difficult to measure. Doctors aren't exactly sure why elevated levels of lead in children cause lower IQ, but they speculate that when lead replaces calcium in the brain, it somehow interferes with brain development.
Once the cognitive damage has been done, it appears to be irreversible. Children with high levels of lead in their blood are treated with drugs that bind with the lead (in a process called chelation) and help the body excrete it. But although medication can lower blood lead levels, a study by Walter Rogan, an epidemiologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, found that children who had received such treatment did not improve on psychological, behavioral or IQ tests. " You can't reverse the effects by treating them, at least not when their blood levels are 20 to 45 [micrograms]," Rogan said -- two to five times the current CDC safety threshold for young children.
The search is on for medications that may help. Researchers who published an article in last week's Annals of Neurology may have found the genetic pathway that high lead levels trigger to cause brain edema, a potentially fatal swelling of the brain. The researchers also found that drugs that interfere with the pathway could prevent edema. Lead author John Laterra of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said he's hopeful that further research will lead to the development of medications that could reverse cognitive deficits caused by smaller amounts of lead in children. " There is a reasonable expectation that we could develop the means to minimize the disease in lead-exposed children," Laterra said. However, any such solution is years away.
In the past year, the CDC's lead safety thresholds have been called into question. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that children with blood-lead concentrations of 10 micrograms -- at the top of the officially presumed safe level -- had IQ scores 7.4 points lower than children with levels of one microgram or less. Ironically, children in the study had the steepest loss in IQ at lead levels below 10 micrograms. At levels above 10, IQ continued to drop, but not as sharply.
Lead author Richard Canfield and his fellow researchers called their findings consistent with previous research showing "that the effects of lead on IQ are proportionally greater at lower lead concentrations," and cited three other studies that they said support their findings. Nearly one in 10 children 6 and under have a lead level above five micrograms, according to CDC figures. But Wolf warned that more studies are needed before it could be confirmed that even low lead levels can affect children's IQ.
One problem in doing such research: Until recently, it's been hard to find children with levels lower than 10 micrograms to study. Because lead contamination has been so pervasive, in the 1970s and well into the '80s, the average blood lead level in children was 17 micrograms. " Reducing blood lead levels in the United States in the last 40 years is a true public success story, but our success is tempered by the fact that as average blood lead levels come down, we begin to find adverse effects at even lower levels," Brown said.

Lead and the Rest of Us
Because adults absorb less lead than children and what is absorbed has less toxic effect, adults can tolerate higher levels of lead than kids. Guidotti said that the lead in the paint in older homes or even the elevated levels of lead in D.C. water shouldn't pose a danger to adults. But at high levels, lead will harm adults as well. Guidotti said the metal can affect fertility and sexual function, interfere with kidney function, cause muscle aches and possibly act as a carcinogen. At extreme levels, lead can cause paralysis and even death. Recent research has found that even mildly elevated lead levels may increase blood pressure. Brown said because fetuses are "exquisitely sensitive to lead," pregnant women should have lead levels as low as possible and certainly below 10 micrograms. Lead will also pass into breast milk, so nursing mothers need to be conscious of lead exposure as well. For the rest of us, he said: " Officially, the line has been drawn at 25 micrograms per deciliter, but there are those that argue that adults should not have blood levels higher than what we see in children." Most adults with elevated lead levels have been exposed in the workplace. Painters, structural iron workers and workers in battery plants are at risk. Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations say a worker cannot have blood-lead levels of more than 50 micrograms, but some lead experts say OSHA needs to lower the standard. " Lead is a much less common health hazard at a critical level in adults, but we still see it often enough that it's one of the more common chemical hazards in the workplace," Guidotti said. "We like to think of it as an old hazard, but the truth is that we see it all the time."* Elizabeth Agnvall last wrote for the Health section about sickle cell disease

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