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Portland Press Herald
Copyright 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Friday, June 28, 2002
Local & State
COLLINS URGES NATIONAL MERCURY EFFORT ; The Maine senator's bill would buy up
surplus mercury and start a thermometer exchange program.
MEREDITH GOAD Staff Writer
"What this bill does is for the first time establish a national policy for
dealing with mercury." Sen. Susan Collins
A Senate bill that would create a national program to manage
surplus mercury may finally give Maine a way to dispose of more than
80 tons of the toxic substance stockpiled at the former HoltraChem
manufacturing plant in Orrington.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Susan Collins, would authorize $1
million a year for the Environmental Protection Agency to buy
mercury collected from thermometers or stored at places such as
HoltraChem and find a way to retire it safely.
It also would create a federal task force that would have a year
to come up with long-term recommendations for handling the nation's
surplus mercury.
The bill, approved unanimously Thursday by the Senate's
Environment and Public Works Committee, would ban the sale of
mercury thermometers without a prescription - a step that Maine and
nine other states have already taken. It also would authorize $19
million for a national exchange program in which consumers could
trade in their old thermometers for alternatives that do not contain
mercury.
"What this bill does is for the first time establish a national
policy for dealing with mercury," Collins said.
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that gets into lakes, rivers and
streams and works its way up the food chain. Forty-one states,
including Maine, have fish consumption advisories because of
mercury's harmful effects, particularly on children and pregnant
women.
Maine's congressional delegation has tried to force the
Department of Defense to take the mercury from the defunct
HoltraChem plant, but every proposal has fallen through so far. That
mercury, 84 tons of it, was originally destined for recycling in
India until protests led to it being stored in Maine indefinitely.
It is now being transferred into shippable containers, said Scott
Whittier, director of the oil and hazardous waste facilities
division at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. It is
inspected daily, he said, and air monitoring measurements are taken
daily in the storage area.
Collins' bill would allow the EPA to take custody of the mercury
and permanently retire it, "so it doesn't get shipped back to India,
only to have India process it and ship it right back to the United
States," she said.
Michael Bender, national director of the Mercury Policy Project
in Vermont, said there are 10 other sites like HoltraChem in the
United States, and 50 more in western Europe.
Bender said Collins' bill lays important groundwork for a United
Nations Environment Programme meeting in Geneva in September that
will explore the issue of eliminating mercury pollution on a global
scale. "The timing here is just crucial," he said.
Bender said the bill also "breaks through this sort of artificial
barrier that we can't ban products from sale in this country,
especially when they're toxic."
The bill is being endorsed by organizations ranging from the
American Academy of Pediatrics to the Association of Metropolitan
Sewerage Agencies and The Chlorine Institute, an industry group.
The federal task force envisioned by the bill would be headed by
the administrator of the EPA and include representatives of the
state, defense and energy departments and other agencies. The
American Public Health Association also would participate.
The thermometer exchange program would be administered by the
EPA, which would hand out grants to states, municipalities,
nonprofit organizations and other groups. The program would remove
an estimated six million mercury thermometers from the waste stream.
Exchange programs have become a popular but expensive way for
communities to clean out their medicine cabinets. Maine hospitals
have sponsored an exchange program, and the state has held one for
state employees.
"They're all over the country, and the limiting factor is the
financial ability of local and state governments to deal with the
outpouring of support and participation from the public," Bender
said.
But it is also expensive, both ecologically and economically, to
quit before the job is done. The amount of mercury in one
thermometer is enough to contaminate a 20-acre lake, and it can cost
a minimum of $2,000 to remove it from the waste stream.
"When communities or states have these programs to collect these
mercury thermometers, they are then faced with the situation of 'Now
what? What do we do with them' " Collins said. "That's why I think
we need national policy to get the mercury out of the environment,
out of households, and have a safe repository for it."
Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at:
mgoad@pressherald.com.