Mercury pollution a threat to kids' ability to learn

Pedro Jose Greer, "Mercury pollution a threat to kids' ability to
learn", Tallahassee Democract, September 4, 2005,
Link: http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democ...n/12536685.htm

As another school year gets under way, many parents are focused on how
well their kids are being prepared to compete in the global
marketplace.

For the generation of students being born today, there's a new threat
in their mother's milk - mercury pollution that could affect their
ability to learn for years to come.

The Environmental Protection Agency, despite its stated mission to
protect public health and the natural environment, is failing these
young Americans.

The agency's bureaucrats, many of them former energy industry
executives, have written a regulation that delays the reduction of
mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the chief source of
this potent neurotoxicant. Too much mercury can cause health problems
for anyone. But because young brains are exquisitely sensitive to their
environment, this pollutant can cause irreparable harm, including a
lowered IQ, learning disabilities and developmental delays.

The EPA's new mercury rule delays by at least 10 to 15 years
protections from increased mercury emissions, which end up in rivers
and oceans, fish and ultimately humans. It is too weak and does too
little, too late to protect the next generation of students from the
harmful health effects of mercury. Members of the U.S. Senate will vote
this fall on whether or not this rule does enough to protect the
neurological health of our young children. They are expected to debate
and vote on whether the energy industry's interests trump the need to
protect the public interest, namely the next two generations of
American workers.

Using national blood mercury prevalence data from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that between 316,588
and 637,233 children each year have cord blood mercury levels greater
than 5.8 ug/L, a level associated with the loss of IQ. This damage to
our nation's "intellectual capital" will be costly. It will cause
diminished economic productivity over the working lives of these
children, which researchers at the Center for Children's Health and the
Environment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine estimate will cost us
$8.7 billion annually. Of this annual amount, they estimate that $1.3
billion is linked to mercury emissions from American power plants.

Even those who embrace a self-policing, cost-benefit, small government
approach for energy utilities should recognize that strengthening
regulation of power plant sources to reduce mercury exposure is a
no-brainer.

Our kids deserve nothing less.