Urging the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce mercury emissions by 90% by 2008.

WHEREAS, Mercury is a dangerous toxic metal that can cause severe neurological and developmental problems in unborn fetuses and very young children whose brains are still developing; and

WHEREAS, Pennsylvania and forty-two other states have now issued advisories warning people, especially women and children, to avoid or limit eating local fish because of mercury; and

WHEREAS, The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention and the EPA estimate that I out of 6 U.S. women of childbearing age already have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood due to fish consumption; and

WHEREAS, The best way to protect women and children from mercury is to eliminate it from its largest source: power plants; and

WHEREAS, Power plants have yet to be regulated for mercury pollution under federal clean air standards; and

WHEREAS, Pennsylvania’s power plants emit 7,427 pounds of mercury into the air each year, enough to rank our state the third in the nation behind only Texas (8,992 pounds) and Ohio (8,050 pounds); and

WHEREAS, Two years ago, the EPA’s own scientists said current technologies could achieve a 90 percent reduction of mercury from power plants; and

WHEREAS, After years of work by PennEnvironment and other environmental advocates across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now under a deadline to reduce the dangers of mercury from power plants; and

WHEREAS, The EPA indicated their intention to reclassify mercury so that it’s not considered a “toxic pollutant,” despite long-standing, clear evidence of mercury’s effects as a developmental toxin which will allow the EPA to avoid requiring power plants to use the best available technology to reduce emissions, as stipulated by the Clean Air Act; and

WHEREAS, The EPA is collecting comments on the current proposal giving this City Council an opportunity to weigh in on behalf of the health of all Philadelphians; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That we hereby urge the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce mercury emissions by 90% by 2008.

End