The Department of Environmental Protection this week convened a special work group it will use to help develop a Pennsylvania-specific rule limiting mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The DEP Citizens Advisory Council and Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee will also be involved in developing the rule.

As outlined by Tom Fidler, DEP’s Deputy Secretary for Air, Recycling and Radiation Protection, the agency is looking to the group to provide comments from the individual members, but not a formal group report, consensus or group recommendations.

DEP’s objective is to have a final rule in place by November 2006.

Twenty-three members attended the meeting including representatives of electric generators, environmental groups, labor organizations, business groups, two universities, the coal industry, generators using waste coal, the Fish and Boat Commission, Allegheny County Department of Health and the state Health Department. (A complete list of members will be posted on DEP’s Mercury Rule webpage.)

The group heard from four presenters—

· Dr. James Lynch, Penn State, gave an overview of mercury disposition in Pennsylvania measured by DEP’s mercury monitoring network;

· Dr. Leonard Levin, Electric Power Research Institute, provided information on atmospheric fate and transport of mercury around the world and across the United States;

· Ray Chalmers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 3, gave an overview of the federal mercury reduction rule; and

· Robert Reiley, DEP Attorney, gave a status report on mercury litigation and other state mercury legislation and regulations.

Dr. Lynch reported that Pennsylvania’s mercury monitoring has demonstrated a generally declining trend in wet deposition of mercury since monitoring began in 1995. This was due in part to additional controls placed on power plants to limit sulfur dioxide emissions which also helped reduce mercury.

The pattern of deposition is also directly related to the pattern of precipitation in the state, varying dramatically not only from year to year, but from season to season. Dr. Lynch is expected to have the most recent report on mercury monitoring compiled by next month.

Dr. Lynch’s presentation and the other presentations will be posted on DEP’s Mercury Rule webpage in the near future.

There is a federal mercury reduction rule in place now that will reduce mercury emissions from power plants by at least 86 percent in Pennsylvania. However, the Environmental Quality Board in August voted to move ahead in developing a Pennsylvania-specific rule. DEP has called for a rule that would reduce emissions by 90 percent.

The public health threat from mercury in the air does not come from breathing it in like with smog or other air pollutants. It comes from eating fish that are contaminated by mercury through the contact fish have with mercury deposited from the air into water, from mercury in the water itself or from naturally occurring sources.

Pennsylvania, like other states, has issued fish advisories limiting the consumption of sport fish to help deal with the public health threat posed by mercury; that limit is one-half pound per week of sport fish caught in the state’s waterways.

A tentative work group schedule discussed by DEP has the group gathering background information and commenting on a proposed rule through February, a proposed rule going to the Environmental Quality Board for consideration in March, additional consideration of public comments by the work group and then returning to the EQB in September 2006 for action on a final rule.

The next meeting of the work group is tentatively set for October 28.

For more information on the mercury rulemaking process, visit DEP’s Mercury Rule webpage.

10/14/2005