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Despite opposition, weaker rules on mercury likely to be a reality
By David Steinkraus
The announcement won't happen until 1 p.m. today, but by Monday afternoon many people were confident what the Environmental Protection Agency will say about mercury pollution from power plants.
Starting with a report in the New York Times, which cited a draft leaked from the EPA, and continuing through the day, the assumption was that the agency will propose a cap-and-trade system to
control mercury.
That's not something which has been done before with a toxic chemical, said Eric Uram, regional representative with the Sierra Club office in Madison, on Monday during a meeting with The Journal Times Editorial Board.
The EPA had been considering two options. One would require all utilities to install equipment and reduce mercury to the maximum extent possible with current technology. The other, the cap-and-trade, would set a national ceiling for mercury emissions and then allow companies latitude in how they met that goal, which would include a market where companies with low-emission plants to sell credits to companies whose plants exceed the limit.
Utilities like the cap-and-trade idea, saying it will lead to quicker reductions just as the government's acid rain program did.
A Sierra Club statement sent out on Monday said the rule will allow three times more mercury emissions than necessary given current technology and is mistaken because it will not require emissions controls on every power plant.
In February, the EPA's internal watchdog, the inspector general, faulted the agency's mercury analysis for not fully assessing the effect on children's health and faulted the rule-making process for not determining which option produced the best ratio of benefit to cost. The mercury emission goal for the cap-and-trade rule - 34 tons nationwide annually - was based on reductions from the installation of other pollution-control equipment and underestimates what is possible, the inspector's report said.
At its Pleasant Prairie power plant, We Energies is in the process of installing sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide scrubbers that will collaterally remove some mercury, said Kris McKinney, manager of environmental policy for the utility.
The plant emits about 600 pounds of mercury a year, more than any other power plant in the state, according to state records.
There will be an expected mercury emission reduction of between 10 and 20 percent, McKinney said, the precise amount unknown until the scrubbers start operating.
We Energies is also involved in two other mercury reduction experiments, he said. One is an industry wide effort to find some additive which will convert the elemental mercury released by burning coal into a water-soluble form that could be easily removed by scrubbers. "We're hopeful that that would work. That would the be a low-cost, integrated solution."
The other is Toxecon, a technology being installed at the utility's Presque Isle power plant in Marquette, Mich., on the shore of Lake Superior. Testing of that technology is scheduled to start next year and run for a couple of years.
What will happen to We Energies under the supposed mercury rule, he said, is that the utility is first most likely to focus on research projects; and if it were to buy mercury pollution credits would trade them among its various power plants, he said. The new coal-fired plants proposed for the Oak Creek power plant would burn a different type of coal, he said, one which emits more mercury in the water-soluble form.
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