Mercury heats up

State to rule as debate swirls over power plant emissions

Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 16, 2006 at midnight

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A debate over how to set limits on toxic mercury pollution spewed by coal-fired power plants comes to a head in Colorado today, with green groups and several local governments at odds with industry and state proposals.

Environmentalists say regulators need to begin requiring control devices on plants to strip out mercury released from burning coal. But industry officials and Colorado public health officials favor a Bush administration-backed approach that would allow power plants to buy and sell pollution allowances for mercury.

The debate, to be settled today or Friday by Colorado's Air Quality Control Commission, a nine-member board appointed by Gov. Bill Owens, has been years in the making and is national in scope. Whatever Colorado approves, it will mark the state's first effort to regulate such emissions from power plants.

The volumes involved are relatively small, in the hundreds of pounds. But mercury is a potent element, with the amount in a household thermometer alone enough to contaminate a small lake.

Nine lakes and reservoirs in Colorado are posted with consumption advisories that warn people to limit their fish intake because of mercury buildup. Pregnant and nursing women, along with small children, are most at risk of neurological impairment from too much of the metal.

Under the mercury-control proposal from air- pollution regulators at the state's Department of Public Health and Environment, Colorado power plants would be allotted 984 pounds of mercury emissions yearly from 2010 through 2017.

At that level, regulators say, nine of Colorado's dozen facilities would find themselves emitting more mercury than allotted, and would have to purchase more allowances from other facilities that had emitted less than their limit, probably out of state, or add emission controls.

A variety of other details and competing proposals are at play, but the fundamental debate comes down to whether facilities should be able to shop around for the right to emit mercury or whether - as greens contend - they should be required to install mercury-control devices across the board.

"We really oppose the whole concept of trading (emission rights) for a powerful neurotoxin," said Pam Milmoe, an air and waste coordinator for Boulder County's public health division.

Who pollutes how much "is not a decision that should be made by individual businesses based on financial interests," she said. "It's a public health decision."

But attorney Jim Sanderson, representing a coalition of utilities in the state, contends that the type of mercury produced by burning Colorado- and Wyoming-produced coal tends to linger in the atmosphere for months and has more of a global impact than a local one, therefore contributing little to the state's mercury-tainted lakes with fish advisories.

"What can we accomplish with this rule that would affect those fish advisories? The answer is, nothing really," he said.

Environmentalists challenge that assertion. Milmoe noted a study that took core samples from Narraguinnep Reservoir in southwestern Colorado and found mercury tied to emissions from coal-fired plants in the Four Corners area.

Quicksilver cautions

• Nine Colorado lakes and reservoirs are posted with fish-consumption advisories related to elevated mercury levels. Children and pregnant or nursing women, in particular, are encouraged to limit the consumption of fish from these lakes:

Body of water County

Berkeley Lake Denver

Brush Hollow Reservoir Fremont

McPhee Reservoir Montezuma

Narraguinnep Reservoir Montezuma

Navajo Reservoir Archuleta

Rocky Mountain Lake Denver

Sanchez Reservoir Costilla

Teller Reservoir El Paso

Vallecito Reservoir La Plata

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