AIR QUALITY: First Step Toward Cleaner Skies State Pollution Board Weighs Rules Cutting Mercury Emissions
By Rex Springston, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Jan. 14–Contaminated fish have been showing up increasingly in streams such as Dragon Run (above), in part because scientists are looking harder for mercury.
Virginia’s effort to crack down on airborne mercury hasn’t been a breeze.
But on Tuesday, the state Air Pollution Control Board will consider regulations that, for the first time, would require coal-burning power plants to cut emissions of the highly toxic metal.
“This is a significant time in Virginia, where we are finally able to address one of the most problematic pollution issues we have,” said Bill Hayden, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Quality, which provides staff for the air board.
High mercury levels can damage the brain, kidneys and developing fetuses. People are exposed to mercury largely by eating fish from rivers tainted by air emissions.
Contaminated fish have been showing up increasingly in streams such as Dragon Run and the Mattaponi River northeast of Richmond, in part because scientists are looking harder for mercury.
In 2005, the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced a national plan to cut power plants’ mercury emissions. In Virginia, the EPA plan would require a 64 percent cut in mercury emissions by 2018, from current releases of about 1,300 pounds a year.
States can develop their own mercury-cutting programs — that’s what Virginia is doing — but those programs must get EPA approval.
The rules going before the air board Tuesday were required a year ago by the General Assembly, which at the request of industry overrode the board’s plans to adopt tougher regulations.
Still, the assembly-required rules are tougher than the federal plan and call for a 64 percent cut by 2015, among other features.
“It will clean Virginia’s air,” said Del. Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton, a primary sponsor of the mercury-cutting bill.
Some environmentalists wanted mercury reduced by up to 90 percent.
“It’s certainly not the legislation I would have drafted,” said Cale Jaffe, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, a Charlottesville-based conservation group.
Virginia’s mercury-cutting program could cost utilities close to $1 billion over the next 30 years to install and operate pollution controls, the state says.
The effect on electricity bills is unclear. Dominion Virginia Power, which serves two-thirds of the state, does not plan to pass costs on to consumers, company spokesman Dan Genest said.
“But that could change,” Genest said Friday, depending on lawmakers’ efforts this session to steer the power industry away from deregulation.
The 2006 legislature required two sets of mercury-cutting rules. The air board is expected to adopt one set, which resemble EPA regulations.
Also, the board will consider soliciting the public’s comments on the second set of rules — the ones requiring cuts by 2015, three years sooner than the EPA’s plan.
Those rules create a potential problem, however, over an issue called trading.
The EPA wants to set up a national program in which power plants that cut pollution more than required can sell credits to plants that are having trouble cleaning up. That provides companies a financial incentive to get cleaner.
Environmentalists oppose trading, saying some plants could buy credits instead of cleaning up, creating mercury “hot spots.”
Virginia’s rules would limit trading. It’s possible that would cause the EPA to reject Virginia’s mercury-cutting program and require the state to follow the less-stringent EPA plan.
“EPA must consider [whether Virginia's program] imposes any restrictions that are contrary to or are in conflict with the federal . . . trading program,” wrote Judith M. Katz, the EPA’s mid-Atlantic air-protection director, in an Oct. 4 letter to the state environmental department.
David J. Campbell, the EPA’s mid-Atlantic chief of permits and technical assessments, said last week the federal agency could give Virginia some leeway if the state sufficiently cuts mercury.
But Campbell said he could not comment more specifically until he sees Virginia’s final rules. The rules that restrict trading could be finished by fall, after the public has its chance to comment.
Contact staff writer Rex Springston at rspringston@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6453.
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Copyright (c) 2007, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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