Greenpeace

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will finalize the first ever national standards for mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollution from power plants in November. In March this year the EPA announced for the first time that it will limit some of the most dire air pollutants, most notably mercury.

Mercury, a neurotoxin is not only detrimental to adults but it can cause neurological damage in children exposed in the womb. It is also known to have significant environmental impact as it pollutes lakes, steam and marine life. For instance one-gram of mercury per year is enough to contaminate a 20-acre lake thus making fish unsafe for human consumption.

These standards will eliminate 20 years of uncertainty across industry. It would require power plants to install proven pollution control technologies to cut harmful emissions. The new power plants will have to reduce their pollution levels to same levels as the best performing plants for each type of pollutant and the existing power plants will have three to four years to meet the new standards. It would also prevent as many as 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks a year while creating 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long term-utility jobs.