EIP Report: Mercury Pollution Rose At Over Half Of The Nation's 50 "Dirtiest" Power PlantsMarch 17, 2010
Austin, TX & Washington, D.C. — More than half (27) of the nation's
50 worst power plants for mercury emissions increased their mercury
emissions from 2007 to 2008 (the latest year for which data is
available), according to a new report from the nonprofit and
nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). The six leading
U.S. power suppliers with three or more plants on the mercury
emission list by total pounds include Luminant (formerly TXU),
American Electric Power (AEP), Southern Company, Entergy, Ameren,
and NRG.
The power plants that provide electricity to run America's homes, businesses, and factories are also the single largest source of mercury air pollution, responsible for more than 40 percent of all mercury emissions nationwide. Mercury is a highly toxic metal, and once released into the atmosphere, it settles in lakes and rivers, where it moves up the food chain to humans. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, roughly half of the nation's lakes and reservoirs have levels of mercury that exceed safe levels. Each year, more than 300,000 newborn babies may have an increased risk of learning disabilities due to in utero exposure to mercury, which is a neurotoxin that causes impaired neurological development in fetuses, infants and children. Other key EIP report findings include the following:
Other key findings in the EIP report include the following:
The EIP report rates the power plants both in terms of sheer mercury pollution and mercury pollution adjusted per gigawatt-hour. For a copy of the full EIP report, go to http://www.environmentalintegrity.org. The Environmental Integrity Project report ranks the top fifty power plant polluters for mercury, according to: "total amount emitted," which measures the total pounds of mercury reported by each power plant; and "emission rate," which measures the amount of pollution per gigawatt-hour of electricity generated. The EIP report contains mercury emissions data obtained from EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), and electric generation data obtained from EPA's Clean Air Markets (also known as the Acid Rain program) databases. In 2008, the U.S. EPA's Toxics TRI tracked mercury emissions from approximately 470 electric generating facilities across the United States and its territories. (There are hundreds of power plants that release less than 10 pounds of mercury per year that are not included in the TRI database.) This report analyzes mercury emissions reported by the electric power sector to TRI. TRI data are publicly available on EPA's website at http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer. All data is self-reported by the utility industry to EPA. About EIP SOURCE: The Environmental Integrity Project
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