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| 4/16/2005 | Email this article • Print this article | Wisconsin Leads Nation In Mercury Emission Reduction
From The Editor:
HMONG TIMES believes that pollution, particularly from mercury, is one of the most serious problems of our time. We applaud the gover-nor of Wisconsin in his fight against this killer of our children and destroyer of our natural resources. We wish to make our readers aware of his efforts.
MILWAUKEE - Governor Jim Doyle announced today that Wisconsin will join with nine other states in a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit against the Bush Administration for lax federal mercury standards.
“Wisconsin is a leader in controlling mercury emis-sions,” Governor Doyle said. “But unfortunately, we can’t stop mercury from other states from polluting our waters. It’s time for the Bush Administration to follow the Clean Air Act and ensure that Wisconsin’s citizens are protected from the devastating economic and health risks of mercury pollution.”
Wisconsin joins New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont in the lawsuit.
“If we are going to succeed in protecting the health and welfare of Wisconsin’s citizens we must have a strong, effective federal policy to decrease emis-sions of our neighbors,” Governor Doyle said. “Unfortunately, the Bush Administration does not see this as a priority and has proposed regulations that fail to protect our most vulnerable citizens from the devastating impacts of mercury pollution. I wish we had a federal government that held our same priorities and recognized the devas-tating effect of mercury emissions. But it’s clear that we don’t.”
The EPA claims their rule will reduce mercury emissions but yet they’re allowing 19 states to actually increase emissions between now and 2010. And the EPA has proposed rules that will require only a 21 percent reduction in mercury emis-sions by 2010 because they claim that is the best that current technology can do.
The Governor said that the EPA is wrong. In fact, the Depart-ment of Natural Resources recently approved permits for two different coal-fired power plants - WPS at Weston and WE at Oak Creek - that will exceed an 80 percent reduction in mercury emissions. Wiscon-sin is showing that it can have high environmental standards while using proven economic-ally viable technologies.
“Mercury has a devastating cumulative effect on our environment and represents a clear threat to public health,” Governor Doyle said. “Every year thousands of pounds of mercury are released into the air and are then deposited into our soil and bodies of water. Most frightening is that our children are among the most vulnerable to its damage.”
Currently, all of Wisconsin’s fresh water bodies are under a mercury advisory to limit the consumption of fish. Many of the 49 million fish that will be harvested from Wisconsin waters this year are not safe for people to eat.
Women of child-bearing age and children under the age of 15 are advised not to eat large sport fish - walleye, northern pike, and bass - more than once a month and panfish - bluegill and crappie - more than once a week. Men are warned not to eat walleye and northern pike more than once a week.
In addition to the health risks that mercury pollution poses, it also has an economic impact because of reduced recreation and tourism. The sport fishing industry accounts for more than 30,000 jobs statewide. Wisconsin ranks 6th in the nation in overall economic output from fishing with a yearly econ-omic impact of more than $2 billion statewide.
The Governor said that the state has enacted pro-tections that will result in significant reductions in mercury emissions by Wisconsin utilities. Control-ling mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants - the single largest unregulated source of mercury to our lakes and rivers - is neces-sary to protect public health.
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St. Paul, MN
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