Mercury rising: the USGS report tells only part of the story

A new report released last week by the U.S. Geological Survey measuring mercury levels in fish is not the first such warning we’ve had about this. In fact, the report probably understates the seriousness of mercury contamination in America, and certainly in this part of Texas.

According to the report, one of every four fish caught in U.S. rivers, streams and wetlands is contaminated by so much mercury, it is unsafe to eat. That’s sort of like playing Russian roulette with a rod and reel. I mean, given four fish, how do you know which three are safe to eat and which one could leave you with brain damage?

USGS researchers found traces of mercury — a heavy metal that causes brain damage and, when eaten by expectant mothers, birth defects and autism — in every fish it tested. In more than a quarter of those fish, the level of mercury contamination exceeded the levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency as being safe. The fish tested were taken from nearly 300 American rivers, streams and wetland areas.Around here, it’s a lot higher than that. The main source of mercury released into the environment comes from burning low-grade lignite to generate electricity. There have been several studies in the last few years that linked burning lignite coal to extremely high concentrations of mercury in Texas' lakes, streams and marshes.

In 2004, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund released its report, "Reel Danger: Mercury pollution and the fish we eat," which found that 57 percent of the fish sampled in Texas contained unsafe levels of mercury and that 83 percent of both predator and bottom feeding fish, like several varieties of catfish and bass, had unsafe levels of mercury.

Last year, a University of Pittsburgh research group found that fish caught downstream of coal fired electric plants have been contaminated by dangerous levels of mercury. These fish had up to 19 times more mercury than store-bought, farm-raised fish.

Also last year, the University of Texas Health Science Center found the risk of autism is greater for children living near Texas power plants and that the incidence of autism increases as power plants increase emissions of mercury.

This most recent report warning that our lakes and rivers are contaminated with dangerous levels of mercury really shouldn't surprise us. After all, we share our immediate environment with several coal-fired power plants that, in the past, have individually pumped out more than 180,000 tons of airborne solid waste each year.

The new Sandow plant in Rockdale is permitted to emit 300 pounds of mercury annually but the two lignite plants being built near Franklin in Robertson County will combine to generate nearly 1,600 pounds of mercury annually, once they’re on line. The Bremond generating plant is permitted for about 600 pounds annually.

So, we have (or will have) four lignite-burning power plants within about an hour’s drive combining to release more than a ton of mercury into the atmosphere each year — and our state government condones it through its permitting process.

And this doesn’t even count the Limestone plant up in Jewett — about 70 miles away — that has been called the dirtiest power plant in America. The Limestone plant releases 1,800 pounds of mercury each year, more than any other plant in the country. To our shame, Texas is home to five of the nation’s top 10 dirtiest power plants.

I’m not saying that you should never eat fish caught in the Little River, or Lake Sommerville, or Stillhouse Hollow, or Lake Limestone … but, I’d think long and hard before letting my pregnant daughter or granddaughter eat any fish caught in Texas.

Sources on the Web …

The USGS report is here: http://www.doi.gov/news/09_News_Releases/081909.html
The “Reel Danger” report is here: http://agresearch.umd.edu/cfnap/realmercuryfacts/studies/reel.htm
A similar report from the Pew Trust is here: http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=30683
The University of Pittsburgh report is here: http://www.upmc.com/MediaRelations/NewsReleases/2007/Pages/APHA2007VolzUpstream.aspx
The University of Texas Health Science Center report is here: http://www.uthscsa.edu/hscnews/singleformat.asp?newID=2732

Fly and bottom — toxic coal

For decades, manufacturing companies like Alcoa told us that their process was safe, that workers weren't at risk when they toiled on the potline or that the clothes they wore home -- laden with asbestos dust -- would not harm their families.

And, we trusted them. Right? Of course we did! This was the 1960s and we were urged to pursue plastics and better living through chemistry. Besides, companies like Alcoa virtually kept towns like Rockdale alive.

Later, we found out that, much like many other chemicals and compounds, asbestos was deadly, that the airborne fibers would work their way into our lungs where they would never go away and, in fact, would cause some of us to die particularly gruesome deaths.

Worse, the managers at these companies knew this. They were quite aware that exposure to asbestos (or other carcinogens) had the potential for nasty side effects but, instead of warning their work force or the people who lived around their smelters, they just kept on, hoping that no one would understand or care about the research being developed, research that confirmed just how deadly asbestos really was.

Today, they are telling us that the waste left from burning the coal to make the electricity to run the smelter to refine the aluminum is safe. The stuff is full of oddball contaminants and heavy metals like beryllium and chromium and mercury and lead and selenuium. There's nothing wrong with any of that stuff, right?

Over the decades, Alcoa and TXU dumped all the fly and bottom ash they couldn't sell back into the strip mines the coal originally came from. That's how they reclaimed the acreage, and back filling was accepted land management practice for years, never mind that it merely made it more likely all those heavy metals would seep into the groundwater.

TXU acknowledges it keeps 314,400 tons of coal waste at the Sandow power plant south of Rockdale. It's a toxic brew that includes about 500 tons of heavy metals. Indeed, the Sandow power plant in Rockdale was ranked #31 of the top 100 waste producer coal plants by the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2005.

Further, many researchers contend that the toxic waste from the typical coal-fired power plant is more radioactive than a typical nuclear plant because the toxins are so heavily concentrated and the waste is regarded as simple "solid waste" by regulatory agencies.

So, unlike the poor folks in Tennessee, those of us here in Milam County are not likely to experience rupturing holding ponds that might spew hundreds of thousands of gallons of stuff all over the country side. It's already in our groundwater!

But, no ... it's all perfectly safe. No reason to worry, no reason for more oversight, right?

Why is Wal-Mart in the news ... again?

I just learned that an anonymous source at some anonymous Wal-Mart some-anonymous-where has confirmed rumors that it will be the newest outlet for the iPhone.

Wal-Mart? Really!? Again, I say it -- oh shit, oh dear.

Apple could make no announcement more calculated to bring me feelings of ... well, ambivalence, at best, but more like feelings of mild disgust. An announcement that the iPhone can work on any network, that I'd greet with glad tidings of great joy.

The fact that Wal-Mart may soon carry iPhones doesn't change my opinion about Wal-Mart; nor will it make it more likely I'll willingly set foot inside one. Rather, it cheapens the allure of owning an iPhone of my very own.

I'll have to cop to being a fan of Apple computers. While it would stretch the truth to call me an original fan, I did once own an Apple IIe and, in the late 1980s, I learned the basics of Pagemaker (a version of it with none of those annoying suffixes) on a cool, boxy Apple Macintosh SE.

Indeed, for a while there in the late 1990s, our home computer was a genuine, first-generation Mac, albeit one hopped up with a screaming-fast 4 meg of RAM, a versatile 800k internal drive and two powerful external 40 meg hard drives. We still have most of the pieces it on a shelf in the garage, right next to the old black Underwood typewriter.

Today, I couldn't survive professionally without my MacBook, our home computer is a 17" lamp-shade iMac and I really like the music on my 80-gig iPod (and for some reason, this fact fills me with surprised delight). It is only by main force of will that I've managed to refrain from putting one of those discreet white Apple logos on the rear window of my conservative black Buick.

I'd already have an iPhone but, alas, the folks that provide exclusive cellular service for it isn't kind to the part of the world where I live. Their signal's spotty out here in the hinterlands of Milam County.

So, I deal with it. No iPhone for now. Maybe later. But I wonder if anyone else sees the irony in this ... that the average Wal-Mart shopper will soon have easy access to one of the coolest personal computers ever made (if you wonder what I might think of that, see the immediately previous post).

Did Alcoa really benefit Milam County?

I just finished reading Cameron Mayor David Barkemeyer's effusive praise of Alcoa in the Oct. 23 issue of The Cameron Herald. I mean no disrespect to the mayor or to his opinion of Alcoa's impact on Milam County because, in may ways, he's absolutely correct.

However, not everything that company did was beneficial. Defining a company's legacy in strictly economic terms often overlooks less tangible costs.

Yes. Many Milam County residents earned good money working in the smelter and a lot of locals owe their moderately comfortable retirement checks to Alcoa. But, an unusually high percentage of them were exposed to toxic levels of asbestos and other poisons, and many of those have contracted fatal lung cancer — despite the fact that Alcoa knew in the early 1950s that asbestos exposure could have all sorts of ugly side effects.

I'll also grant that the presence of Alcoa had a positive impact on our tax base and, without that tax revenue, some of our governments will have trouble providing essential services. On the other hand, for the vast majority of those 50 years in Milam County, Alcoa polluted our land, our water and our air. Our children will pay those environmental costs, whatever they turn out to be.

And, sure ... Alcoa spent a lot of money on parks, grants, athletic fields, schools and what have you. By some standards, they poured a small fortune into Milam County. But, they also made a lot of money. Make no mistake, the money they handed out (and paid out in the form of salaries and taxes) was a pittance compared to the amount of money they made off their Rockdale operations.

In the end, Alcoa showed its true nature — as big companies like this will do. Under the cover of a spat with Luminant (the company they sold their generating capacity to) and a national economy in flames, they simply abandoned a community that had been its faithful partner for over 50 years.

I wonder who got the best of that deal? I'll lay odds that it wasn't us.