EPA says it can't account for tons of mercury in air

By Eric Pianin
The Washington Post

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"The fate of the mercury consumed" by chlorine manufacturing plants "remains somewhat of an enigma," the agency said in the final rule published in the Federal Register. The rule provides work-practice guidelines aimed at preventing spills, leakage and emissions of mercury at the plants. The EPA said it is "not feasible" to take more aggressive steps to pinpoint the "fugitive" mercury or enforce a tougher emission standard.

Environmentalists say that chemical companies including Occidental and Olin use 100 tons of mercury annually to replenish the amount lost in the manufacturing process, but cannot explain what has become of the mercury being replaced. If that mercury is escaping in the form of vapor, it would dwarf the estimated 48 tons of currently unregulated airborne mercury from the nation's coal-fired power plants.

The EPA this week proposed two rules for reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Mercury that enters the food chain can cause severe neurological and developmental damage, especially to the fetuses of pregnant women who eat mercury-tainted fish and shellfish.

Nine chemical plants in Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin still use a practice that has been phased out gradually in other places to produce chlorine by subjecting large cells filled with thousands of pounds of mercury to an electrical charge.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice say the regulations issued yesterday fail to address most mercury emissions. They have called on the EPA to require chlorine manufacturers to stop using the mercury cell process.

According to the most recent data in the government's 2000 Toxics Release Inventory, 65 tons of mercury consumed by industry that year couldn't be accounted for.

"There's nothing in this rule that tells us we won't have hundreds of tons of mercury a year from these plants for the foreseeable future," said Jim Pew, a lawyer with Earthjustice. "The EPA says we don't have any data on these fugitive emissions and therefore they can't set standards."

Industry officials say mercury that condenses and accumulates in pipes, tanks and other plant equipment accounts for much of the missing mercury, but environmentalists are skeptical.

The Chlorine Institute pledged in 1996 to reduce mercury use by 50 percent by 2005 and to provide EPA an annual summary of its efforts to reduce emissions and mercury use.

"The reduction in mercury use by the chlor-alkali industry from the base period is 74 percent," said Art Dungan, vice president for safety at the Chlorine Institute. "While the goal has been obtained, the Chlorine Institute and its member ... producers continue to work to achieve further reductions."

EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the new rule will result in a 94 percent reduction of known mercury air emissions from chlor-alkali facilities. The rule also bans the practice of using mercury cells for new chlor-alkali facilities.

"Although the fugitive emissions are hard to quantify, we know that the totals are nowhere near the emissions of the power-plant industry," she said.

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