To join the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI), please complete the form at http://www.iceh.org/LDDImembers.html.
The Institute for Children's Environmental Health has unveiled a preliminary database of legislation related to neurotoxicants at http://www.iceh.org/LDDIlegislation.html. So far, this database includes legislation on the national level and in three states as well as some organizations that are working on policy issues related to the legislation listed. Users can search by location and/or by neurotoxicant. We invite LDDI members to provide feedback to guide our continued research in other states. Please send comments to Elise Miller, emiller@iceh.org.
by Stephanie Zimmermann, Chicago Sun-Times
April 24, 2006
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-lead24.html
The dangers of lead poisoning go beyond traditional worries about lead-based paint, as evidenced by the recent death of a 4-year-old Minnesota boy who swallowed a lead-filled trinket that has since been recalled. Now, Illinois is poised to become one of the first states to ban the sale of many consumer products that contain lead. Legislation introduced by Rep. Harry Osterman (D-Chicago) would strengthen existing law by banning the sale of clothing, accessories, jewelry, decorative objects, candy, food and dietary supplements used by or intended to be used by children if the lead content is more than .06 percent of the total weight. Previously, state law focused on paint, toys and furniture.
Osterman's bill passed through the General Assembly earlier this month. Gov. Blagojevich intends to sign it into law soon, said spokesman Gerardo Cardenas. "This goes hand in hand with other initiatives that the governor has taken to fight lead poisoning, protect the environment, protect children's health," Cardenas said. "It's something that we support." The ban would put Illinois in the forefront of protecting children from the harmful effects of lead, said Amy Zimmerman, children's policy adviser for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Larger national effort urged
Even though most lead exposure comes from old paint or contaminated soil, it's important to get rid of other sources of lead, which can accumulate in the body and cause behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, lowered IQ, stunted growth, hearing impairment and problems with organs. Convulsions, coma and death can occur at higher levels.
The lead danger issue has grabbed headlines in recent years, first with the July 2004 recall of 150 million pieces of kiddie vending machine jewelry found to be contaminated with lead, and more recently with questions about lead content in children's vinyl lunchboxes. Last month, lead again became an issue in a national recall of heart-shaped charm bracelets that had been given away with Reebok shoes over the last two years, following the death of a 4-year-old Minnesota boy who suffered lead-induced brain swelling after swallowing a piece of the bracelet. The federal government estimates 310,000 children ages 1 to 5 have elevated lead levels in their blood.
Nancy Cowles, executive director of the nonprofit group Kids in Danger, applauded the recent legislation but said a larger effort must be made at the national level to stop imports of products containing lead. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has introduced the Lead Free Toys Act of 2005, which seeks to ban any children's toys containing more than a trace amount of lead. Obama also co-introduced a bill last fall that would provide tax credits for lead abatement and control in homes and rental units.
by Anton Caputo, San Antonio Express-News
April 23, 2006
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA042306.01A.mercury.34d28f8.html
As any visitor to eBay knows, the beauty of the free market is its ability to put a price on just about anything. Starting in 2010, that will include the right of power companies to spew toxic mercury into the air. The going price: $23,200 a pound.
And Texas is home to some likely buyers: coal plants that can't meet the federal government's new mercury control standards, say state regulators. With the credits bought from plants in other states, they could emit more mercury than the new limits allow.
Not every state is in Texas' predicament. In contrast, several states, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, have criticized the federal standards as too lax and are mandating more stringent controls. In some cases, states are forbidding power companies within their borders from buying pollution credits. But in Texas, where 17 new coal plants have been proposed and Gov. Rick Perry has ordered the fast tracking of new plants, regulators say they've been instructed to do exactly what the federal government requires and no more. "It's a salute-and-march type of deal," said Cory Chism with the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality's Emissions Banking and Trading Team.
Coal-fired plants across Texas will have to reduce mercury pollution or spend tens of millions of dollars each year buying pollution credits. This includes CPS Energy's coal plants, which will have to cut mercury emissions by 132 pounds, or 25 percent, from what they produced in 2004, or go shopping on the emerging mercury market for about $3 million a year in credits. Given the utility's massive environmental cleanup program, it expects to make the deadline with relative ease, said Joe Fulton, the utility's director of research and environmental management.
Others may have a harder time. Texas has five of the top 10 mercury-emitting power plants in the nation, with 17 proposed plants on the horizon. Given the situation, regulators and environmentalists believe some Texas plants will pay to pollute. "There's a big collision coming," said Neil Carman, clean air program director with the Alamo Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Among the companies with the most at stake is Dallas-based TXU Energy, which runs some of the nation's biggest mercury polluters. Based on newly released 2004 statistics, the company will have to reduce mercury emissions from its plants by a whopping 842 pounds in 2010 or buy $20 million worth of pollution credits. And the company will have to accomplish this while doubling capacity -- which it believes it can do. In a surprising announcement Thursday, TXU unveiled a $10 billion plan to build another 11 power plants by 2010.
Skyrocketing energy costs have both utilities and regulators looking at coal as a big part of the solution, a company spokeswoman said. "We all know that Texas is growing at a phenomenal rate," Kimberly Morgan said. "We need to make sure we can meet the state's growing needs with a stable low-price power supply."
A powerful neurotoxin
Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that, even in minute amounts, is dangerous to young children and developing fetuses, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. It has been linked to autism and decreased brain function. The metal is sent into the air by coal-fired power plants, incinerators and natural phenomena, including volcanic eruption. Once airborne, rain deposits mercury into water where fish absorb it. People eat the fish and ingest the toxin. At least 44 states have issued mercury advisories warning people about eating certain fish from various bodies of water, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. In Texas, such advisories cover the entire coastline and several lakes, although none is in the San Antonio area.
Everyone agrees coal-fired power plants are the major man-made source of mercury. But because U.S. coal plants account for about 1 percent of worldwide emissions, many in the industry have downplayed their potential health impact. In the United States, domestic coal plants account for about 8 percent of mercury pollution, according to EPA estimates. That number drops to about 5 percent in Texas. But regulators admit such statistics are uncertain at best.
A new, yet unpublished EPA study shows how uncertain. The study, conducted in the coal plant-laden Ohio River Valley, is the first to sample rainfall instead of just depending on computer modeling. It found that perhaps 70 percent of the mercury in the Ohio Valley comes from local or regional coal-fired power plants. Federal officials point out that the analysis was conducted in an area where they already suspected regional plants contributed to the local problem. They caution against generalizing those findings in other parts of the country. "I think there is a lot of uncertainty," said Matt Landis, lead EPA scientist on the project.
Critics, who point out that the new mercury program targets only a 20 percent reduction in mercury in 2010, contend the study is just more proof that government regulators are conforming with the power industry's efforts to underplay the impact of its pollution. "It's no mistake that many of the lakes polluted with mercury are near power plants," said Tom Smith of the advocacy group Public Citizen. "These rules are just designed to excuse the dirtiest plants."
Buying by the ounce
When the federal government finalized the mercury rules last year, it was after several years of contentious debate over whether regulators should require all of the nation's 1,100 coal plants to install potentially costly mercury-control equipment. Ultimately, the agency decided on a cap-and-trade system where each state, and each plant within that state, is allocated a mercury allowance. Any that cannot meet that pollution cap, or judge that the pollution control is too expensive, can go to the new mercury credit trading market and try to buy their way out. When the new program begins in 2010, regulators will mandate that the nation's power plants cut their mercury emissions from 48 tons to 38 tons. The cap becomes much more stringent in 2018, when the nation's power plants are limited to 15 tons of mercury. Plants that can't meet the standard will be able to purchase credits from plants that can.
Because mercury is highly toxic, the credits are being sold in ounces. A credit for an ounce of mercury is expected to sell for $1,450 in 2010, according to EPA documents. That price could jump to more than $2,400 an ounce in 2020.
The cap-and-trade system, in effect, produces a national mercury limit, but doesn't guarantee a reduction in specific regions. This has many worried about mercury "hot spots" in areas where power companies decide to buy their way out of compliance instead of reducing their mercury output. EPA officials say they know of no evidence that this will happen. The agency defines hot spots as areas where the mercury pollution from coal plants will cause an accumulation in fish above safe levels. "We looked very closely at this issue," said Jason Burnett, policy adviser to the assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. "We can say that based on what we know, there isn't any evidence that there will be (hot spots)."
Critics of the new mercury rule contend it is not only weak, but also illegal under the Clean Air Act because it allows plants to buy their way out of compliance. They include former EPA scientist Martha Keating, who was project manager on the agency's mercury report to Congress in 1997 and, after leaving the agency, worked on an advisory group to the EPA for the mercury rule. She said there was virtually no discussion of a cap-and-trade system during the advisory group meetings and was astounded when the federal government decided to go that way. "What the group operated under was the assumption that requirements from the Clean Air Act would be followed," she said. "When the group convened, EPA managers said that cap and trade was not even on the table."
Keating, who now works for the environmental group Clean Air Task Force, said the EPA simply ignored the requirements of federal environmental laws and changed the status of coal-fired power plants in the Clean Air Act to allow for the cap-and-trade system.
States sue feds
Critics of the rule aren't limited to environmental organizations. Eleven states, mostly in the Northeast, sued the Bush administration over the rule last year.
That litigation continues. And earlier this month, a federal judge ordered the EPA to release documents outlining the agency's analysis of the cap-and-trade program verses one that would have required all plants to put on the best available mercury-control technology.
The EPA's inspector general also was critical of the agency on this point, saying in a report that federal regulators failed to adequately research what reductions could be achieved with specific mercury controls. Burnett conceded this point. He said the 2010 mandated levels are a calculation of the mercury reductions coal plants can achieve by adding pollution-control equipment already mandated to reduce smog-forming nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide. However, he pointed out that the program becomes much tougher in 2018. "Utilities have the incentive to overcomply in the first phase in order to ease their transition," Burnett said. "Over time we expect mercury-specific control to be installed."
Texas came out at the top, or last, depending on your point of view, in the new program. Its plants were allocated 9,314 pounds per year -- by far the most in the country and more than twice that of second place Ohio's 4,112 pounds. It's not only the size of the state's coal plant inventory that netted it such a large allowance, but the type of coal used. Many of the state's plants use dirty lignite coal mined in Texas. It is much harder to remove mercury from such coal, Burnett said, so the federal government allowed lignite plants to emit up to three times the mercury as plants that burn cleaner coal. The state's allocation is about on par with what Texas plants emitted in 2000, but 1,500 pounds less than they emitted in 2004. By 2018, the state's overall output needs to drop to 3,676 pounds. "They've got all these existing plants and all these new plants coming," said Carman of the Sierra Club. "They've got some big problems."
by Warren Cornwall, Seattle Times
April 21, 2006
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002943714_asianair21m.html
On the day a Boeing 747 delivered Chinese President Hu Jintao to Everett this week, a tiny twin-propeller airplane loaded with electronic instruments lifted off from the same airport, looking for another delivery from China: dirty air. Toxic mercury from Asian power plants. Ozone produced by growing fleets of Chinese cars. Smoke from burning Siberian forests. It all rides the jet stream across the Pacific Ocean and lands in places as remote as the Olympic mountains, scientists are discovering.
Most pollution here is still from local sources, and much of the Asian pollution is thought to reach the Northwest only in the spring because of seasonal weather patterns. But some local problems -- mercury in fish in local lakes, for example, or the haze that rings Mount Rainier -- could have Asian connections.
While local air-quality officials aren't worrying, federal scientists say the influx of bad air can exacerbate West Coast air-quality problems, especially as countries such as China rapidly industrialize. "Environmental issues are really now a global concern, there's no question about that," said Professor Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Washington's Bothell campus.
Using a cramped Beechcraft Duchess airplane launched from Everett's Paine Field, Jaffe and his team of researchers have been continuing a yearslong search for international pollution to gauge how serious the problem is. Now the hunt is getting a big boost with the addition of two huge, state-of-the-art planes, the first concerted federal effort to decipher how the air floating from Asia carries pollutants to America.
Years on the trail
Jaffe's quest to pinpoint the pollution from Asia has taken him and his teams from laboratories atop Mount Bachelor in Oregon to high on Cheeka Peak in the Olympics. They use complicated computer models and measure certain chemicals that are associated with industrial activity, such as mercury and carbon monoxide.
In 1997, on Cheeka Peak, near the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, Jaffe started finding higher-than-expected levels of carbon monoxide and a chemical that helps create ozone when the winds were blowing from Asia. Four years later, he discovered that dust from massive Asian dust storms made up more than half of the small-particulate pollution in Seattle during one particular week. In 2003, he determined ozone that had pushed Seattle-area levels above federal air-quality limits could be traced to Siberian forest fires. Then in 2004, Jaffe and his team found that mercury in the air around the summit of Mount Bachelor had originated in Asia, where coal burning is a major source of atmospheric mercury.
Cruising for plumes
Tuesday, Jaffe and two other UW scientists scrambled about the tarmac at Paine Field, piling computers, scientific instruments, and yards of wires and air hoses into the back of their rented Beechcraft. The skies were relatively clear, but Jaffe's computer models suggested that a big puff of pollution was about to arrive from Asia. So the mission was to fly toward Tatoosh Island off Cape Flattery, the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets the Pacific. The pilot and one scientist would go up to 20,000 feet, so high they would need to bring oxygen to breathe. Then they would gradually descend, measuring air all the way. This particular mission came back empty-handed -- they didn't find the pollution they had expected.
But now they have some help. Monday, a modified C-130 cargo plane from the National Center for Atmospheric Research landed at Paine Field. And in Hawaii, a DC-8 jet from NASA has joined the hunt. In a project spearheaded by NASA, both planes will spend the next month buzzing over the Pacific Ocean, sucking up samples from plumes of pollution from Asia.
Industrial growth
There has been a greater awareness lately that Asia is a source of U.S. air pollution, said Bill Brune, a Penn State professor who is helping to head up the NASA project. That's partly because scientists have more sensitive equipment to track the pollution. And it's partly because Asian industry is growing. "The concern is ... if it's business as usual, it's just going to get worse," Brune said.
For its part, China has been sensitive to claims that its pollution is spreading overseas. Earlier this month, the government-run Xinhua News Agency reported that a Chinese environmental official called the idea that mercury from Chinese factories was reaching the U.S. "entirely groundless." And Denis Hayes, a leading environmentalist from Washington who has traveled and spoken in China about environmental problems, cautioned that while it's easy to point a finger across the Pacific, some of the Asian pollution is created by factories making products for U.S. markets. "It's American consumers that are still creating demand for it," he said. "We've just off-shored the production and the pollution."
For now, air-quality officials in the Puget Sound area aren't focusing on air pollution from Asia. "It's not an issue that we have a great ability to control, and it's insignificant in comparison to the local emissions that we can work with," said Dennis McLerran, executive director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
Nonetheless, the added pollution could push parts of the country over clean-air thresholds, or erase gains made from costly efforts to cut local pollution, said Terry Keating, a senior scientist in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) office of Air and Radiation. "If it takes millions of dollars of investment in the United States to get a small change in ozone and fine particles, and that same increment can be coming from overseas and may potentially grow in the future, then that's something that we're concerned about," he said.
The EPA has been seeking alliances with China to help cut air pollution there. In 2003 the EPA struck a deal to help Chinese officials monitor air-pollution levels and cut emissions. Such efforts will lay a foundation to address the air pollution crossing oceans, said Keating. "We're just at the beginning," he said.
by Rebecca Renner, Environmental Science & Technology
April 19, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/apr/policy/rr_childhealth.html
The U.S. EPA's new perchlorate cleanup goal isn't supported by science, fails to protect children's health, and needs to be lowered, according to an agency scientific advisory panel. The goal, revised in January by the EPA's Office of Solid Waste, is at least 4 times less stringent than similar goals recently proposed by 3 states. The cleanup goal, a target level for drinkable water when contaminated sites are remediated, allows for perchlorate levels of 24.5 parts per billion (ppb) up from the previous level of 4-18 ppb. The new cleanup level "is not supported by the underlying science and can result in exposures that pose neurodevelopmental risks in early life," wrote Melanie Marty, chairperson of EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee and chief of the Air Toxicology and Epidemiology Section in California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
These risks include impaired brain development that can result in such problems as low IQ scores and attention deficits. In sufficient amounts, perchlorate inhibits the uptake of iodide, an essential component of hormones produced in the thyroid. These hormones help guide proper brain development in fetuses and infants.
The EPA goal is based on National Academy of Sciences recommendations that allow an uncertainty factor to account for one sensitive population -- the fetuses of pregnant women who have untreated thyroid problems or low iodine levels. But that factor doesn't protect infants, who could be exposed through breast milk and drinking water used in formula, the advisory committee writes.
The committee of 26 scientists wrote that because the goal follows the current EPA policy of assuming that all exposure comes from drinking water, it does not account for exposures from other sources. "This is an obvious concern given the recent widespread detection of perchlorate in lettuce and milk," the advisers write.
As reported in February in ES&T, perchlorate appears to be ubiquitous. Water contamination was first linked to rocket fuel and ammunition, but studies have shown that perchlorate also forms naturally. Recently, it has been found in prenatal vitamins and seaweed. A small U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study designed to test a new analytical method that detects minute amounts of the chemical found perchlorate levels in the urine of 61 CDC workers that could not be explained if the only source were drinking water.
On March 14, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection released its proposed drinking-water and waste-site cleanup standards of 2 ppb. This proposal assumes that 20% of perchlorate exposure comes from water. New Jersey is considering a standard of 5 ppb and uses the same assumption, whereas California has proposed a drinking-water standard of 6 ppb and assumes that 60% comes from drinking water. EPA has not responded to the committee's letter, but that's not unusual, Marty adds.
by Julie Davidow, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
April 19, 2006
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/267209_fillings19.html
Two new studies, one from the University of Washington involving orphans in Portugal, found no evidence of IQ or other neurological impairment caused by dental fillings made with mercury. But the studies have come under fire from some groups who say researchers unnecessarily exposed children to a known toxic substance, failed to get the proper consent from parents and guardians and overstated the results.
The studies are the first to follow children from the time they received the fillings rather than trying to piece together evidence of health problems in retrospect. "It's the first bit of objective evidence other than heated opinion and observational studies," said Dr. Timothy DeRouen, lead author of the Lisbon study and executive associate dean for research and academic affairs at the UW School of Dentistry. DeRouen tracked neurological development in 507 children, ages 8 to 10, at a school in Lisbon where about 20 percent of the students are wards of the state.
The other study, led by researchers in Boston, looked at the effect on intelligence, memory and kidney function in 534 children, ages 6 to 10, from New England. Neither study found a difference in neurological or kidney function in the children with amalgam fillings compared with their peers who received fillings made with other materials. But those with amalgam fillings did have higher levels of mercury in their urine.
Funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, the studies were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The studies, which both began enrolling children in 1997 and ended last year, did not test for autism. In recent years, the discussion about mercury toxicity has centered on parents who believe a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines may have caused their children's autism. Most experts, however, say there is no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism.
Fewer and fewer dentists are using amalgam fillings, which have been around for more than 100 years. Patients prefer the newer white, resin composite fillings because they blend with teeth, said Dr. Robert Kelly, spokesman for the American Dental Association and a professor of dentistry at the University of Connecticut. Some dentists, however, still favor amalgam for its durability, Kelly said. Amalgam can last up to 14 years, while composite fillings need replacing after four to six years, he said. "I have amalgams in my teeth, and I would use them in my family."
Last year, the UW's Human Subjects Office, at the request of the federal Office for Human Research Protections, investigated concerns raised by Consumers for Dental Choice, according to DeRouen. The advocacy group wants to end the use of amalgam for fillings.
In a letter sent to DeRouen in August, the Human Subjects Office said the consent forms could have more clearly spelled out that the amalgam contained mercury. "However, we don't know how these terms translate into Portuguese, and the terms used may be culturally appropriate," the letter stated. The university office found no basis for other allegations, including claims of conflicts of interest, inappropriate advocates for the wards and that the benefits of the research were overstated in the consent forms. A spokeswoman for the federal agency said the UW study is still under investigation.
The authors acknowledged the limitations of the studies. For example, in the study of the New England children, the authors said the "possibility of very small adverse effects of amalgam on IQ score cannot be completely ruled out." Others cautioned against reading too much into either study. "It is predictable that some outside interests will expand the modest conclusions of these studies to assert that use of mercury amalgam in dentistry is risk-free," Dr. Herbert Needleman, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote in an accompanying editorial. "This conclusion would be unfortunate and unscientific." He said, for example, that it is not clear whether either study could measure subtle effects on IQ.
Charlie Brown, counsel for Consumers for Dental Choice, said the studies ignore research that indicates that mercury causes a host of physical and mental problems. Brown blasted both studies as unethical, saying that children or their guardians were never told of the potential risks of the mercury fillings.
DeRouen said the children at the Lisbon school had a large number of untreated cavities and tend not to move around and change schools -- both important criteria for the seven-year study. "We were not doing anything experimental. We were providing standard dental care," DeRouen said.
Critics of the study said purposely exposing children to mercury is unethical and potentially dangerous. "It's obscene, outrageous and definitely wrong," said Dr. David Kennedy, a dentist and past president of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. The group, which has about 500 members, including dentists and physicians and is opposed to using mercury in fillings, filed ethics complaints with the schools involved in the new studies, including the UW.
by Kathleen Schalch, NPR Morning Edition
April 19, 2006
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5350341
Teflon may make a great plate of scrambled eggs, but it also may make for a kitchen full of toxic fumes. That is the issue behind a class action lawsuit against the maker of the non-stick coating, DuPont.
Listen to this story at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5350341.
by Jeremy Laurance, [UK] Independent
April 18, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article358352.ece
One of the largest studies of the impact of food and drink on mental decline has found that eating a Mediterranean diet cuts the risk of Alzheimer's disease by up to 40 per cent. The diet of southern France, Italy and Spain, rich in olive oil and red wine, is known to protect against heart disease and high blood pressure but this is the first time it has been shown to prevent Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers monitored 2,258 healthy, elderly people in New York who were part of a research project into ageing. Their medical and neurological history was assessed, they had standard physical and neurological tests and their cognitive function was measured every 18 months.
To purchase the full article, please visit http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article358352.ece.
by Steven Oberbeck, Salt Lake Tribune
April 17, 2006
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3721529
Huntsman Corp., the nation's fifth-largest chemicals producer, wants to go green in a big way. The Salt Lake City-based conglomerate said Monday it has organized a business unit to expand the use of "green chemistry" in its products and production processes.
Coined in 1991 by Paul Anastas, the father of Green Chemistry, the term refers to the use of cutting-edge technology by chemists to design products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. "Green chemistry has been around for quite sometime now," said Anastas, director of the Green Chemistry Institute in Washington, D.C. "The chemicals industry, though, has always been a bit traditional, so it has taken awhile for its chemists and chemical engineers to embrace the idea."
Don Olsen, spokesman for Huntsman, said the company started using green chemical principles several years ago and already markets products such as solvents that lower the toxicity of agriculture and industrial cleaning agents, carbonates that reduce the volatile fumes given off by paints, and wood preservatives that can be used in place of a known carcinogen. "With the formation of this new business unit we've committed ourselves to putting a lot more focus on green chemistry," Olsen said. "And one of the nice things about it is that we can take it [green chemistry] as far as we want to go."
Anastas said the use of green chemistry frees companies from having to find "elegant technological bandages" to deal with environmental and health concerns from hazardous spills and unintentional exposure to toxic chemicals. "Instead of a company spending a lot of money to make something less bad, Green Chemistry allows them to focus right up front on building and designing chemicals that are less toxic and better for the environment," Anastas said.
And it also makes good business sense. "It is a profitable way to do things," Anastas said. "Not only is green the color of a healthy environment, it also is the color of our money."
Huntsman's business initiative, dubbed the Green Chemistry Strategic Business Unit, will be based out of the company's new $60 million Huntsman Advanced Technology Center at its operations headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas. Don Stanutz, president of Huntsman's Performance Products Division under which the business unit was organized, said in a statement that the company is eager to expand into the burgeoning "green chemistry" field by taking advantage of the growing availability of "bio-based feedstocks." Such feedstocks include glycerin, natural alcohols, methylesters, carbohydrates and sugars, and are increasingly available as by-products from the growing production of ethanol and biodiesel fuel, Olsen said. And Anastas pointed out there is a lot of new and emerging science that focuses on increasing the uses of such feedstocks.
Olsen added that Huntsman's growing commitment to green chemistry fits in well with its recently announced strategy to separate its commodity chemicals business from its specialty chemicals business, where a lot of opportunities exist to use green chemical principles.
by John Flesher, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune
April 17, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/michigan/chi-ap-mi-granholm-mercury,1,55659.story?coll=chi-newsap_mi-hed
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- Michigan electric companies are being ordered to slash mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants by 90 percent within nine years, a step toward cleansing the state's waters of a poison that has prompted fish consumption warnings. Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday said the Department of Environmental Quality would develop a rule requiring utilities to achieve the reductions by 2015. The state policy goes beyond mercury reduction standards announced by the Bush administration last year. The federal goal is to cut mercury pollution 70 percent nationwide by 2018, although the DEQ says Michigan probably would see little if any reduction until 2025 or later.
Michigan and more than a dozen other states are suing the federal government, saying its standards are too weak. The governors of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Georgia recently have announced plans to seek 90 percent reductions. "Mercury poses a real and serious health concern for the people of Michigan," Granholm said in a statement. "We are ensuring that future generations can enjoy clean air, and safe water."
The governor, up for re-election this year, pledged during her 2002 campaign to phase out mercury pollution and has drawn criticism from environmentalist groups for not acting sooner. But they praised her plan Monday. "The public asked to be protected from toxic mercury and the governor delivered," said Jason Barbose, spokesman for the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan.
Industry spokesmen reacted cautiously. Dan Bishop of Consumers Energy said the federal rules were sufficient but the company would cooperate with the DEQ as it develops a state alternative. "It's important to balance energy policy, environmental protection and economic issues as we go forward," Bishop said.
Coal-fired power plants are by far the biggest source of airborne mercury pollution in Michigan. The DEQ estimates their annual combined emissions at more than 2,500 pounds, or 57 percent of the statewide total. U.S. power plants generate only 1 percent of worldwide mercury emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency says.
Mercury is spewed into the atmosphere through smokestacks before settling in waterways, where it contaminates the food chain. It accumulates in fish, posing a risk of nerve damage for people eating them -- especially pregnant women, women of childbearing age and young children. The Department of Community Health has issued guidelines for eating certain fish species caught in Michigan's inland waters and along its Great Lakes coastlines because of mercury, PCBs and other toxins.
In 2003, Granholm convened a work group with representatives of government agencies, industry, environmentalist groups and academics to develop a mercury plan. The group submitted a report last year that agreed on many points but differed on whether Michigan should exceed the Bush administration standards. Granholm ended up siding with environmentalists, who wanted deeper and quicker emission cuts. "The federal rule is just too little, too late," DEQ Director Steven Chester said.
Power companies say they are developing mercury reduction technology but may be unable to meet the deadline for the steep cuts the state is demanding. Chester said the state rule will grant the industry some flexibility. Unlike the federal plan, it won't let heavily polluting companies avoid cleanups by buying pollution allowances from plants well under the allowable limits. But it also won't require 90 percent reductions at every power plant. Some plants can fall short -- if the company's other plants exceed the standards enough to produce an overall 90 percent average. Companies won't be allowed to achieve that average by concentrating so much pollution at individual plants that they become toxic "hot spots," Chester said.
The Michigan rule will give companies additional time to comply if they install mercury reduction devices that don't perform as expected, or if the cost of meeting the requirements would exceed a certain percentage of their gross revenues. Granholm will appoint another work group to help the DEQ craft the regulation, Chester said.
Bishop said industry would push for higher electric rates to recoup the costs of developing mercury control technology. "Utilities should not be put at a competitive disadvantage by the rule," he said.
Environmentalists said cutting mercury emissions should boost the typical residential customer's monthly electric bill by less than $1 a month because rapid innovation is driving down costs. Cleaner waters will benefit public health and the Michigan economy -- particularly tourism -- in the long run, they said. "This modest investment now will pay big dividends for future generations, whose mothers will no longer need to consult complicated health advisory tables to see if it's OK to eat a walleye fillet," said Lana Pollack, president of the Michigan Environmental Council.
By Jeff Kart, Bay City [Michigan] Times
April 17, 2006
http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1145286978205940.xml&coll=4&thispage=1
The air over Bay City will feel lighter in the next few years, and so will wallets. Consumers Energy plans to install controls to cut out thousands of tons of harmful emissions at two of its four coal-fired power plant sites in Michigan: the Karn-Weadock complex in Hampton Township, and the J.H. Campbell complex in West Olive. The utility plans to spend about $800 million to retrofit the two sites with systems to knock out nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from the air, company officials say. Some mercury also will be removed in the process.
The work addresses a Clean Air Interstate Rule that utilities in Michigan and 27 other Eastern states have to meet, beginning in 2009. The CAIR rules, meant to cut into air pollution that moves across state boundaries, became final in March and will be fully in practice by 2015.
Consumers Energy plans to ask the Michigan Public Service Commission to recover its costs through a rate increase in the future. The PSC estimates an average monthly residential increase of $2.55 by 2015, based on federal numbers, which Consumers says is a low estimate. Clean air is good, but it costs money, explained Kelly Farr, Karn-Weadock spokesman. "You have to balance the environment, energy reliability and the economy and not just look at any one of the three in a vacuum, because they're all related," Farr said.
As part of the reductions, two selective catalytic reduction units installed at Karn-Weadock in 2003 will operate year-round to cut levels of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog. Usually, the two units only run during the "ozone season," from May through September, said Louis P. Pocalujka, senior environmental planner for Consumers Energy and a former state Department of Environmental Quality coordinator. Running the two units year-round will reduce annual nitrogen oxide emissions from Karn-Weadock by 77 percent, from 4,370 tons to 1,005 tons, Farr said. Consumers Energy also is looking at installing scrubbers at Karn-Weadock to wash out levels of sulfur dioxide, which contribute to fine particulate matter, or soot, in the air. Both targeted pollutants are linked to respiratory problems and premature death, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's definitely in the right direction," David Gard, energy program director for the Michigan Environmental Council, said of the regulations. "But we were hoping for something stronger," said Gard, whose organization includes the Bay City-area Lone Tree Council. Gard said he doesn't think the emission cuts will be strict enough to meet related rules for allowable levels of soot in the air, which are already less strict than ones recommended by an EPA Scientific Advisory Committee.
Teresa Walker, senior environmental quality analyst for the DEQ, said it's also her opinion that CAIR doesn't go far enough, but further reductions would have led to "through the roof" utility rate increases. For example, the state OK'd a Consumers Energy rate increase in January that averaged $4 a month for residential customers; a significant portion of that increase involved gradually recovering $333 million in clean air-related costs.
Walker said the effect of CAIR in Michigan remains to be seen, because it deals with pollution regionally, and plants that upgrade can sell credits to those who don't to help meet the standards. EPA officials say CAIR will achieve the largest reduction in air pollution in more than a decade, with health and environmental benefits valued at more than 25 times the cost of compliance. By 2015, CAIR will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 70 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 60 percent from 2003 levels, the EPA says. For Michigan, the EPA estimates a 29 percent, or 34,000 ton cut, in nitrogen oxide emissions.
Meeting CAIR will probably cost Consumers Energy about $800 million, company officials say. That's the amount the utility spent systemwide to install previous nitrogen oxide controls, including the two units installed at Karn-Weadock, which totaled $120 million, Pocalujka said. The $800 million was four times more than the government estimate, he said. "It's a lot easier to do this on the front end when you're designing a plant from scratch," he said. "You've got a lot more design work that goes in when you're retrofitting an existing facility."
Consumers Energy burns about 10 million tons of coal a year, including 3 million tons at Karn-Weadock, which is 45-50 years old.
CAIR also will cut out some mercury, in part to meet a related federal mercury rule estimated to cut 70 percent of utility mercury emissions by 2018. Farr and Pocalujka say it's too early to say how the full mercury cuts will be achieved, because sampling and control technology isn't commercially available yet. But Consumers will make a "significant investment" for mercury controls at Karn-Weadock in future years, Pocalujka said.