SOURCE: EPA

Dr. Noelle Eckley Selin, an Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a researcher in MIT’s Joint Program on Global Change, participated in a public availability session to discuss the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. Noelle was joined by EPA’s Regional Administrator Curt Spalding, New England’s American Lung Association President Jeffrey Seyler, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Kenneth Kimmell and other public health experts. The event was held at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards – issued December 21, 2011 – are the nation’s first standards to protect American families from power plant emissions of mercury and toxic air pollution like arsenic. To learn more about the standards, click here.

The following are Dr. Selin’s remarks from the event:

Thank you for having me here today. I’m pleased to be here to talk about these historic standards.

I’m at MIT and I do research in atmospheric science. I look at the pathways by which mercury actually reaches the environment and what it does once it gets there. So I’ve spent much of my career studying the ways in which mercury reaches the environment where it then affects human health. I’ve tracked the path that mercury travels from power plants – which are our nation’s number one source of mercury – through the air, into our waterways and then eventually the fish we eat.  And I’ve also analyzed the steps we could take to prevent further contamination. These standards do represent a strong step towards that goal.

These mercury standards help prevent the developmental delays and neurological damages that could come from eating contaminated fish. This is in addition to the tens of thousands of cases of asthma and acute bronchitis that are avoided by controlling other air toxics other than mercury. Specifically on the mercury standards, these will especially protect newborns who are at a greater risk during their development. It’s estimated more than 300,000 newborns in the US are exposed in utero to dangerous levels of mercury. This can cause lower IQ and neurological damages.

Importantly, this standard will have a large impact right here in the Northeast, especially for people who eat fish caught in local waterways. And that’s because mercury released from U.S. power plants contaminates what’s nearby. This standard will especially benefit residents here in Massachusetts and the Northeast because we’re down wind of the emitting power plants in coal mining and producing states. You can see this from our map (below), which shows the fraction of mercury entering the environment that comes from domestic sources.  Here in the Northeast, most of the mercury that enters our waterways comes from the sources in the US that will be controlled by these standards.

Here in Massachusetts, efforts to cut mercury from local power plants have led to significant mercury declines in fish in recent years. This experience has shown that tough standards can have a substantial effect on the environment. But these reductions are not enough, and mercury levels in fish here are still too high. Much of the mercury in our local fish comes from sources outside the region, which is why federal regulations are needed.

In addition, countries around the world are currently negotiating a global treaty to limit mercury pollution because mercury is a problem worldwide. These standards show that the US is taking leadership at home to address a widespread and substantial global problem.

Percentage contribution from North American primary anthropogenic sources to total (wet plus dry) annual mercury deposition simulated by the GEOS-Chem global mercury model for 2004–2005. Reproduced from the Selin, Global Biogeochemical Cycling of Mercury: A Review, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 34: 43-63, 2009, MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Reprint Series.