First this is hardly a vegan publications.
Secondly, it documents that Clinton put legislature to improve coal
burning on all future coal burning plants.
I also recognize it is not a peer reviewed scientific journal.


http://www.fieldandstream.com/fields...605575,00.html


Don't Eat That Fish
High mercury levels in fish have prompted a new nationwide advisory: The
species you bring home could make you sick.
by Hal Herring

It is the most basic of human rights: to fish for food, to take from the
bounty of our waters a healthy meal for ourselves and our families. The
practice is as old as mankind, from a caveman bent over a river with a
sharpened stick to a modern angler powering a cast into the waves with a
surf rod. But that right is under a grave threat.

Most fishermen today are familiar with some form of fish consumption
advisories, because almost every state has waters that are contaminated
by industrial chemicals or other toxic substances such as dioxin or
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Dealing with toxins is one of the
sadder facts of being a sportsman in the modern world. And while federal
and state agencies have made progress in reducing many kinds of water
pollution, one poisonous substance is very much on the increase, and it
may turn out to be more dangerous than all the others combined.

That substance is mercury—the most widespread and pervasive toxin now
found in the fish that we like to pursue and eat. To date, 45 states
have fish consumption advisories for mercury. In December 2003, the Food
and Drug Administration (which monitors fish that are sold commercially)
collaborated with the Environmental Protection Agency (which monitors
fish caught by sportsmen for private consumption) to issue a
comprehensive warning on eating mercury-contaminated fish.

A Toxin Through History
People have known the dangers of mercury since the Roman empire, when
slaves who worked in the “quicksilver” mines invariably died after less
than three years. More recently, the expression mad as a hatter arose
because mercury was used to preserve beaver pelts in the 19th century,
and the craftsmen who made the hats would become bald and suffer from
severe muscular tremors and dementia, including uncontrollable fits of
laughter.

But the most terrible instance was identified in 1956, in Minimata Bay,
Japan, where a chemical company dumping mercury caused a rash of ghastly
birth defects and afflicted thousands of people with what came to be
known as Minimata disease. Stray cats, which had long survived by
scavenging from the many fish-packing businesses in this port city, were
the first to show symptoms of poisoning. Investigators puzzled over the
mysterious “dancing cat disease,” so called due to the bizarre muscular
spasms that wracked the cats before they died. It was the first time in
history that the phenomenon of bioaccumulation came to the attention of
scientists.

There is nothing complex about the process. Mercury is a naturally
occurring toxin, found in soils, rocks, wood, and fuels like coal and
oil. Simple soil erosion deposits mercury in rivers and lakes, but
concentrations remain low, unless, as has been discovered in the
recently deforested regions of the Amazon, erosion reaches extraordinary
levels. Burning wood also releases some mercury that has been taken up
from the soil by trees.

But of all the sources of mercury, it is our burning of coal to generate
electric power that is the single greatest contributor to the problem.
Mercury that naturally occurs in the coal is released during burning and
enters the air; it is then precipitated into the oceans, lakes, and
rivers by rain. According to the EPA, coal-fired power plants in the
United States emit about 48 tons of mercury into the air every year—and
more than half of this mercury falls within 10 kilometers of the plant
itself. When it reaches the water, microorganisms consume it and convert
it into a substance called methylmercury. Into the Food Chain
A study at the University of Tennessee recently rated methylmercury
among the most dangerous poisons on Earth (just behind plutonium). It
has no known beneficial use, and it accumulates in the muscle tissue of
fish, animals, and humans. When minnows eat plankton or algae that is
contaminated with methylmercury, it is deposited in their flesh; larger
fish prey upon the minnows, and the toxin travels straight up the food
chain to our most revered and noble gamefish—the big predators like
bass, pike, walleyes, brown trout; and to all the finest food and sport
fish of the seas—tuna, swordfish, marlin, halibut. According to the EPA,
fish at the top of the aquatic food chain bioaccumulate methylmercury to
a level approximately 1 million to 10 million times greater than
dissolved concentrations found in surrounding waters.

Of course, when you climb one more rung up that food chain, you find us,
the fishermen of the world and the millions of people who buy their fish
from their local supermarket. Just like the predatory fish that we catch
and eat, we store mercury in our tissues. Just like the ancient Romans,
we know that high exposure to mercury is fatal. But according to the EPA
and other government agencies, it is the gradual buildup of mercury over
a lifetime of low-level exposure that poses the most widespread risk.

Women and Children First
At the greatest risk are young children and women who hope to become
mothers. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control found that
one in 12 women of childbearing age has elevated mercury levels. Birth
defects can occur even with amounts too low to cause illness in the mother.

Mercury is a neurotoxin, which means that its effects are primarily
concentrated in the brain and central nervous system. The least horrific
of the related birth defects are the ones that are the most difficult to
measure—impaired brain development, leading to diminished memory,
vision, coordination, and learning ability, especially difficulties with
attention span and language skills. The same problems are associated
with high levels of mercury in young children, whose nervous systems
continue to develop until age 14.

Federal and state advisories focus on how much and what species of fish
can be hazardous to women and children, but there are increasing signs
that adult men, and women beyond childbearing age, are also at risk.
“One of the problems with the advisories is that they can make [mercury]
seem like a women’s issue only,” says Dr. Jane Hightower, an internist
at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, who is
conducting extensive research into how elevated levels of methylmercury
impact human health. “And that is not correct. I am seeing people that
are ill from this all the time.”

Hightower believes that we are just beginning to understand how the
toxin, at different levels, affects individuals. “We have the data from
Minimata Bay and other places regarding the effects of mercury
poisoning,” she says. “At a certain level of contamination you will see
muscular tremors, hair loss, personality disorders, birth defects,
inability to concentrate, and various illnesses. We know that for a
fact. But the evidence has been trickling in for years that much lower
mercury levels are linked to heart attacks, impaired cardiovascular
function, muscle and joint problems. I have patients with a host of
similar symptoms, who have not been able to get a conclusive diagnosis
for what was wrong with them, and the common link we found was elevated
mercury levels.”

Hightower also says that accumulated mercury undermines the overall
function of the body. “Whatever your weakness,” she says, “[mercury]
will make it worse.”

A Threat to Rich and Poor
Hightower’s studies have so far focused on upper-income patients from
around the San Francisco Bay area—people who eat a lot of big, predatory
fish like tuna and swordfish. “But I’d like to work with the sport and
subsistence fishermen, too,” she says. “This is clearly a growing
problem for both the poor who fish for their food, and the wealthy who
buy the more expensive kinds of fish.”

Hightower worries that many of the advisories available to fishermen are
so complicated that they might be ignored. “The California advisory that
comes with your fishing license is very good, and if you try to follow
those rules, you can catch and eat fish that are healthy for you. But
let’s be clear about this: If you are eating fish all the time—I had one
guy who ate 30 meals of fish a month—you are going to be in trouble. You
have got to pay attention. Don’t freak out about this; just pay
attention. I tell people that they’ve got to rotate their poisons. Don’t
eat the same thing day after day.”

Coincidentally, the new FDA-EPA fish consumption advisory was issued in
the same month that the EPA released new proposed federal regulations to
control mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Such regulations
have never existed.

Mercury Rising?
In 1997, the EPA under the Clinton administration presented a detailed
study that revealed the hazards of mercury contamination, pinpointed
coal-fired power plants as the leading source of emissions, and promised
action. But nothing was done. The EPA had begun work on a plan to
address mercury pollution in December 2000; in a 2001 presentation, the
agency said that 90 percent of mercury emissions from coal-fired power
plants could be cut, using what is known as the Maximum Achievable
Control Technology (MACT), by 2008.

Many environmental and fishing organizations expected that, with mercury
pollution having attained such a high profile, the Bush administration
would follow the MACT plan, but that was not to be. Instead, the EPA has
unveiled a very different set of regulations that promises to reduce
overall mercury levels by 70 percent by 2018. The new policy places them
under a “cap and trade” system, where polluters trade “credits” for
complying with the law. According to an EPA press release, this approach
will be “the most cost effective way to achieve reductions.” Indeed,
such a strategy has shown success in reducing the emissions that cause
acid rain.

But Felice Stadler, the National Wildlife Federation’s national policy
coordinator for their Clean the Rain Campaign, has worked on the mercury
issue for the past four years and believes that the cap and trade
system, as it applies to mercury, is a disaster. “Mercury is far too
toxic to be placed under this system,” she says. “Under the Bush plan,
you will have seven times more mercury released into the waters than if
we just simply followed the Clean Air Act as it is written today. There
will be no overall reduction in mercury. Every other major source of
pollution has been subject to the requirements of the Clean Air Act,
until now. The Bush administration has simply decided that the
coal-fired power industry will be exempt.”

Several states have already decided that the federal plan is too lax.
New Jersey announced in December that it will follow the MACT plan.
Massachusetts and Iowa may do the same. Michigan remains undecided. But
these are states where the coal industry has less power, and it is
extremely doubtful that Montana or Kentucky, both at the edge of a new
boom in coal-fired power plant construction, or Texas, which leads the
nation in mercury emissions, will follow any stricter regulations than
the federal government requires.

Differing Views
Jim Martin is the director of conservation for Pure Fishing, the largest
manufacturer of fishing tackle in the world, and is the former chief of
fisheries for the state of Oregon. Martin is among those who believed
that the Bush administration would adopt the most stringent controls on
mercury emissions, and he is both disappointed and outraged. “The
administration would have to try very hard to find a plan that threatens
fishing, and fisheries, more than this one,” he says. “It is more than
irresponsible. We are going to have to stand together and say, ‘No, no,
no, you cannot do this. This is just too much.’”

EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman says the uproar is hard to understand.
“People who say that this is weakening the Clean Air Act are wrong.
There has never been a regulation on mercury before. Now we are making
an effort to control it, and they are saying, ‘It’s not good enough.’
Well, nothing we do is ever good enough, according to them.”

Dr. Jane Hightower tries to remain outside of the politics of the issue.
“The only organization I’m a member of is the American Medical
Association,” she says. But she admits to reservations about the Bush
plan. “From what we are learning, I’m not sure it is fair for industry
to be allowed to trade mercury emissions. People living outside some
power plants will receive high levels of contamination, while others
will be protected, just because they happen to live somewhere else. That
doesn’t seem right.”

All sources contacted for this story agree that advances in energy
technology—and especially energy conservation and efficiency—would be
the most practical and effective way to escape our dependence on coal.
But our addiction runs long and deep.

In 1272, King Edward I of England proclaimed, “Be it known to all within
the sound of my voice, whosoever shall be found guilty of burning coal
shall suffer the loss of his head.” One unlucky London coal burner was
actually caught and executed. Clearly this isn’t an option for limiting
the amount of mercury getting into our fish. But just as unacceptable is
any threat to our absolute right to take a healthy meal from our waters.

To read the full text of the new FDA-EPA advisory on the risks of
methylmercury in fish, go to www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/mehgadvisory1011.html.