House members challenge Bush on mercury pollution-cutting plan

[Nambe]

Almost a third of the House members urged President Bush in a letter Monday not to weaken controls on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The 138 signers from the East and Midwest, where regional air quality and drifting pollution from power plants has long been a major worry, included 14 Republicans and Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt.

"Mercury emissions jeopardize the environment and public health, especially the health of young children," the House members wrote. ---


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[Name removed]

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[diamond14]

5. coal has lots of Mercury and many other toxic metals...cadmium

arsenic, chromium, lead, and all the naturally-occuring radionuclides: uranium, radium....

the metals are imbedded in the coal as it forms, and as the coal burns...the metals become oxidized, forming a variety of different "species" of that metal, which then reacts with the different soils that the metals fall on, creating even more different "species"....polluting air, soil, and water all at the same time...


for example, Mercury.... symbol: Hg (from the latin word "hydrargyrum" meaning "liquid silver")

Hg will form a variety of species in soil:

CH3HgCl
CH3CH2HgCl
HgCl2
Hg(OH)2
Hg(NO3)2
HgSO4
HgO
Hg - Metal complexes
Hg2Cl2
HgS
HgSe
and more.......some species will move thru water and soils...

anyhow, EPA refuses to regulate these "species" and refuses to even put out methods for chemically extracting and analyzing these species...so this pretty much prevents anyone from reporting the huge amounts of mercury that are all around us...

despite this, there have been estimates on how much Hg and other heavy metals fly out of coal-burning operations, based on the analyses of coals, which vary in metal composition, and the assumption that what-goes-up-must-come-down, which is a really good assumption...and all the data that I have looked for air emissions from coal burning and from soil studies near the areas of coal burning, indicate huge levels of Hg and other heavy metals...

since bush* and all reTHUGlicans will not be doing anything about this in the near future....the best approach is for us to DEMAND that there be alternative energy sources....we are just poisoning ourselves and our children with many toxic metals from coal...coal, and oil should both be sent away as OLD technologies...and a BIG man-on-the-moon-type scientific project should be funded to use wind, water, solar, and biomass for our energy needs...America can do it and we can do it very quickly...we are the world's best in the sciences ....if we would stop using our scientists mostly to make weapons and start using our scientists to make peaceful clean solutions to our energy needs....but that would take REAL Presidential leadership.....

[SeattleDem]

2. people worry about a mercury derivative in vaccines

causing autism, yet no one seems to worry about the mercury being spewed in vast quantities into our rivers, onto the soil we grow our food in and so on.

We need to demand that controls not be weakened! We already have an epidemic of autism in this country that is more likely linked to our environment than to vaccines. We cannot afford to weaken controls any further!

[RainDog]

3. I have a child with autism

Bush can eat mercury and die...a worse insult than shit. Has there ever been a bigger corporate whore than Bush????

oh man oh man I wish he would drop dead. that Bush continues to live to whore and kill another day is all the proof I need that there is no god, or justice.

[arcane1]

4. but but but, all that mercury is good for the economy!!

somehow, right? Our great leader, by his divine providence, would never make a decision that wasn't for the ultimate good of the economy, wouldst he?

well, if by 'economy' you mean 'corporate tycoon's wallets'...