DEQ to help polluter seek federal break on mercury emission

[this_side_up]

Oregon's top environmental agency plans to side with one of the state's biggest polluters in its effort to seek an exemption from tough new federal rules controlling the release of toxic mercury.
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But that deal was reached in the absence of any federal regulation of mercury from such kilns. Now the federal government is stepping in with nationwide rules that would require an even greater drop in mercury pollution from the Baker County plant, the nation's largest single source of airborne mercury.

The cement plant, situated near the rural community of Durkee, employs 116 people and carries a payroll of roughly $9 million. The new rules would force it to shut down, say its Kansas-based owners.

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If the new federal rules are enacted as written, mercury emissions would drop by between 81 and 93 percent by 2013, the EPA predicts.

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The proposed rules would limit mercury emissions from the 152 plants like that in Baker City to 43 pounds of mercury per million tons of clinker. Currently the Durkee plant emits roughly 2,500 pounds of mercury per million tons of clinker, nearly 60 times what would be allowed under the new rules.

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That's just what has happened. The proposed rules, Hrizuk said, would require that their mercury emissions be about 1 percent of what they are now.

"We don't think that's technologically achievable, and the company doesn't, either," said DEQ's Ginsburg.

Even the EPA acknowledges that the Durkee plant won't be able to meet requirements under the new rule with the new carbon capture system alone, and that it could close.

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http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/08...

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[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. The two minute mark shows why mercury should be in everything

we breathe, eat and drink.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImCpWzXJ_w