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 Lawsuit: Contaminated Fish But Clean Water? A Fishy Tail of Denial
Mercury is a poison that delays mental development, increases learning disabilities, and creates deficits in language, motor function, attention, and memory. It is especially dangerous for women in their childbearing years, new mothers, and young children. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently estimated that one in six U.S. women of childbearing age have mercury levels in their blood high enough to put their baby in jeopardy. That means approximately 630,000 newborns are at risk each year.1 In 2003, the Florida Department of Health issued a statewide fish consumption advisory cautioning all Floridians-especially young children and women of childbearing age-to limit their consumption of largemouth bass, bowfin, and gar caught in Florida's waters. In addition, they issued specific advisories for 50 waterbodies across the state.2 The Clean Water Act requires that every state establish water quality standards for their surface waters based on the uses of the waters and the amount of pollution that would impair those uses. If a stream, river, or lake is too polluted for swimming, fishing, or some other designated use, the state must list the water as impaired and create a plan for its cleanup. These plans are then subject to EPA review and approval. Despite the obvious need to clean up mercury pollution in Florida's waters, the Jeb Bush administration has applied a "do not list" or "de-list" policy toward mercury-contaminated waters. President George W. Bush's administration has since approved Florida's plan to not list or remove 161 polluted Florida waters-including 97 mercury-contaminated waters-from its list of waters requiring state cleanup action. Failing to list these waters means they will not be subject to strong federal cleanup standards. "By failing to list these contaminated waters, the state and federal Bush administrations are running away from their responsibility to clean up the mercury pollution which has contaminated so many of Florida's waterways," says John Swingle, Conservation Chair for the Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club. In response to these actions, the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit challenging the federal Bush administration's illegal approval of Florida's incomplete list of impaired waters in the state. The lawsuit also challenges the federal approval of Florida's decision to remove 20 mercury-polluted river and stream segments from the cleanup list, as well as its refusal to add 77 mercury-polluted lakes, rivers, and stream segments to the cleanup list. Because of these state and federal decisions, a total of 97 river and stream segments may not get cleaned up, putting at risk the water quality that Floridians rely upon to maintain a healthy angling industry in the state. Coal-burning power plants are the chief source of mercury pollution in the United States, including Florida. Mercury spewed by power plants rains down into our waters and ends up contaminating the fish we eat. Even though we know that power plants are the source of most of this mercury pollution, and although we have the technology to clean them up, the federal Bush administration introduced a plan that would permit three times more mercury pollution than the Clean Air Act currently allows-and for decades longer. There is a better way. With strong enforcement of the current Clean Air Act, the EPA estimates that we could reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent by the year 2008.3 Action by both the federal and state Bush administrations is needed now to reduce mercury levels in Florida's waters. A speedy reduction of mercury emissions from each power plant in the state must be mandated, and Florida's leaders must list as impaired all waters that are contaminated by mercury or other pollution and begin cleaning them up immediately. "Even as the George W. Bush administration warns Americans about the dangerous mercury levels in fish, it has refused to take simple steps to address this problem and allowed the Jeb Bush administration to skirt the law," says Swingle. "When you hear about all the fish-consumption advisories, you expect that your public officials will work to solve the problem. But the federal Bush administration is failing to enforce the laws protecting the waters that flow throughout Florida and sustain our economy." For more information contact: Find out more:
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