CHICAGO—Illinois public health advocates, environmental groups, and public interest organizations today denounced a Bush administration proposal to roll back standards for dangerous mercury emissions from coal fired power plants. They joined with a coalition of national clean air and public health organizations in saying that the proposed rules fall far short of current Clean Air Act requirements, place vulnerable populations including babies and women of childbearing age at risk, and threaten fish and wildlife populations.

"The mercury rule published in the federal register today falls far short of what the law requires, and of what health experts say is necessary to protect children from the neurotoxin mercury," said Ryan Canney, environmental organizer for Citizen Action/Illinois, the state's largest public interest organization. "The Bush administration ignored the advice of their own Federal Advisory Committee when it recommended serious controls. Now they want to shut the public out of the process."

More than 50 editorials nationwide have already urged the administration to issue a rule that recognizes the dangers of toxic mercury and takes immediate action to address the problem. However, the administration's plan gives utility companies another decade to begin reducing their mercury emissions.

Nationally, the electric utility sector, including coal-fired power plants is responsible for 60 percent of mercury emissions. In Illinois, the utility sector emitted 4,894 pounds of mercury in 2001 according to Toxics Release Inventory data. Illinois ranked sixth in the nation for mercury emissions from power plants. Additionally, according to 2001 EPA data, 43 states have issued consumption advisories for mercury contaminated fish. Illinois issued a statewide advisory to limit consumption of all fish caught in Illinois rivers and lakes.

"EPA's own data shows that most modern coal-fired power plants can and do achieve greater than 90 percent control of mercury and other toxic chemicals," said Diane Brown, executive director of Illinois Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). "Other industries, like hospital and city garbage incinerators, have been required to meet that 90 percent standard for over a decade. The EPA should require power companies to do no less. There is no reason all coal-fired power plants cannot meet the same standards everyone else does."

"According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 12 women of childbearing age in the U.S. already have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood," said Rochelle Davis, Executive Director of Generation Green, a Chicago-based children's environmental health organization. "That means that more than 300,000 babies born each year are exposed to unsafe levels of the neurotoxin, which can cause developmental defects."

"Illinois waters are currently contaminated by levels of mercury that are unsafe for people, fish, and wildlife, and contamination is so widespread we now have a statewide fish advisory in effect," said Jean Flemma, Executive Director of Prairie Rivers Network, a Champaign-based river conservation organization. "To ensure that our waterways become healthy once again, we need to seriously curb mercury pollution in our state and around the country and the Bush Administration's proposal simply doesn't go far enough."

In late February of this year, EPA will hold a public hearing on the new mercury rule be in Chicago. The final date, time, and location have yet to be announced.