To hear the eco-wackos tell it, most of mankind’s ills – all the way from global warming to declining SAT scores – result from mankind’s burning of coal. Actually, they haven’t yet blamed declining SAT scores on coal, but they probably will after reading this column.
Burning coal, some of which is 95 percent carbon, produces carbon dioxide. Trees love carbon dioxide. Flora couldn’t live without it. And if there were no flora then there could be no fauna. Only flora can fixate nitrogen via photo-synthesis to make the 20 amino acids all life is based upon. No wonder tree-huggers hug trees. Nevertheless, the eco-wackos – including many tree-huggers – are dead set against our burning coal. Something about carbon dioxide being a greenhouse gas that is causing the planet to heat up – although there is no evidence that it is.
Coal does have some sulfur and nitrogen in it, and the oxides, sulfates and nitrates that are produced when that coal is burned are properly classified as “pollutants.” All kinds of respiratory diseases in tree-huggers are blamed on these air-borne pollutants. So is acid rain, which is alleged to cause diseases in trees in upstate New York. As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) restricts the amount of pollutants that a commercial entity – like a power plant – can emit.
Coal can also contain small concentrations of heavy metals, such as uranium and very small concentrations of mercury, arsenic, etc. Although the uranium would appear to be the bigger environmental threat, the EPA has thus far mostly concentrated on mercury.
On this, the EPA – which regulates industrial releases of toxic chemicals – is in cahoots with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – which regulates commercial sales of fish and seafood. The principal FDA problem is the occasional high concentration of mercury found in deep sea fish. The principal EPA problem is the occasional high concentration of mercury found in U.S. lakes and rivers.
After years of study, FDA-EPA decided that a dose of a tenth of a microgram of methyl-mercury – per kilogram of your body weight – per day is the amount you can consume on a daily basis without adverse health consequences.
The NAS concluded in its report on the Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury that “EPA’s methyl-mercury guideline is scientifically justifiable for protecting most Americans, but some may be at risk”. That is, the majority of Americans are at low risk of adverse health effects if they adhere to the FDA-EPA guidelines. However, the NAS experts went on to estimate that, even if everyone adheres, “each year about 60,000 children may be born in the United States with neurological problems that could lead to poor school performance because of exposure to methyl-mercury in utero.”
Neurological problems for upwards of a million kids? Poor school performance? Lowered SAT scores?
On March 9, 2001, the FDA issued this advisory:
The Food and Drug administration (FDA) is announcing its advice to pregnant women and women of childbearing age who may become pregnant on the hazard of consuming certain kinds of fish that may contain high levels of methyl-mercury. The FDA is advising these women not to eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish. As a matter of prudent public health advice, the FDA is also recommending that nursing mothers and young children not eat these fish as well.
Most mercury pollution is released into the air. It falls down directly onto waterways or is deposited on land where it can be washed into the water. Bacteria in the water cause chemical changes that transform mercury into a highly toxic form – methyl-mercury. Methyl-mercury accumulates in fish, with larger fish generally accumulating higher levels of methyl-mercury.
What about fresh-water fish? Well, according to the FDA, some fresh water “predator” fish – like brown trout in some lakes in Minnesota, for example – also accumulate high levels of methyl-mercury.
Since the FDA can’t check the methyl-mercury levels in the fish your son catches and brings home for you to clean and cook, the FDA apparently assumes a worst-case scenario and advises all soccer moms – not just you in Minnesota – to eat no more than six ounces of fresh-water fish a week and to feed your kids no more than two ounces per week.
Given that the levels of methyl-mercury in Minnesota lakes used to be greater than now, and that many mothers must have been eating more than six ounces of fish a week, then if the NAS is right, the average SAT score in Minnesota ought to be the lowest in the country.
It’s not, but if it were, who would the EPA have us throw in jail?
Of the estimated 5 to 10 thousand tons of mercury released into the environment every year, worldwide, only 50 tons is emitted by U.S. coal-burning power plants. So, as you might have guessed, last December the EPA “determined” there was “sufficient cause” to require U.S. coal-burning power plants to drastically reduce mercury emissions. A proposed rule, which would include the required mercury-removal levels, is to be completed by December of 2003, with the final version due the following December. Power-plant operators would have until December of 2007 to come into compliance with the new rule, or go to jail.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the cost of drastically reducing current mercury emissions – using current technology – would cost $7 billion per year. And it would be like complying with the Kyoto Protocols. If we quit burning coal – went totally nuclear – and henceforth emitted zero carbon dioxide, pollutants and toxic chemicals, then more than 99 percent of the alleged global problems would remain unsolved.
Does anyone in government really believe that spending $7 billion per year to eliminate relatively insignificant U.S. power-plant emissions of mercury will result in higher SAT scores, nationwide? In any case, if the NAS is right and methyl-mercury in fish may be such a problem for soccer moms, how could all the kids in Wobegon, Minn., be above average?
