Mercury Cut Delay Could Endanger Newborns
 (NY, Reuters Health, 12/4/03)

The environmental group, Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) opposes the Bush administration’s plan to extend the time that utilities have to cut mercury in compliance with terms of a finding by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The terms, which mandate emissions reductions of up to 90%, were scheduled to take effect in 2008, but the power industry claims that this is unreasonable because it does not allow sufficient time to properly upgrade their systems and that they need a ten-year postponement to develop improved methods for cutting emissions. But the NRDC notes that mercury can be transferred from mothers who eat contaminated fish to their nursing infants and contends that the tens of thousands of tons of additional pollutants produced by power plant smoke during the delay would constitute a significant risk to the neurological health of children.