Mercury Policy and Regulations

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Mercury Policy and Regulations

• Biying Gao, Elliot Hayden, Lizzie King

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Mercury - What is it and where it comes from

• - Forms of Mercury - Elemental, Inorganic and
  Organic
•     - Methylmercury
• - Sources of Mercury
•     - Natural sources
•     - Anthropogenic
•         - Combustion
•         - Manufacturing
•         - Mining
•     - Re-mobilization

EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).
(1997). Mercury Study Report to Congress. Volume
VI An Ecological Assessment for Anthropogenic
Mercury Emissions in the United States
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Exposure to Mercury

• - Environmental Effects
•     - Ecosystems
•         - aquatic
•         - terrestrial
•     - Bioaccumulation
•  
• - Health Effects
•     - Consumption of fish
•     - Dental amalgams
•     - Spills, Products, Airborne Mercury
•     - Minamata Disease

EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).
(1997). Mercury Study Report to Congress. Volume
VI An Ecological Assessment for Anthropogenic
Mercury Emissions in the United States
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• Indirect Effect

Direct Effect
Environmental standards
Procuring/Using Mercury
Releasing Mercury
Air
Products -FIFRA -FFDCA

• Commerce
• Obtainment
• Excise Tax
• Import Tax
• SCMC Act
• Transporting
• HMTA
• Using

Biota

• Water

Mercury American Regulation Overview
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United States Clean Air Act, Background

• Specifies national standards for ambient air
  quality (NAAQS)
• Criteria" air pollutants are six commonly found
  chemicals found nearly everywhere in the United
  States where there is air pollution
• Criteria for setting allowable levels of
  "criteria" air pollutants based off of minimally
  acceptable environmental/human health damages,
  rather than econometrically-derived emissions
  level
• Additionally, sets National Emissions Standards
  for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP's), which in
  1990 began to follow a different criteria
  emission levels EPA deems to be 'achievable'
  (i.e. MACT)

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Clean Air Act Amendments 1990

• Establishes market-based approach to regulating
  emissions, including emissions trading and
  performance-based standards
• Prior to 1990, EPA promulgated rules under the
  CAA for hazardous air pollutants "HAPs" one
  chemical at a time
• Between 1970 and 1990, EPA establishes rules
  for only seven (7) chemicals
• The 1990 Amendments required EPA to identify
  categories of industrial sources for 187 listed
  toxic air pollutants, given that a single
  industry releases multiple chemicals at given time

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EPA's Maximum Achievable Control Technology
(MACT) Standards

• Performance-based standards 
• Require sources to meet emission levels based on
  abatement achievement by cleanest facilities 
• these levels establish the baseline, or "MACT
  floor", that other firms within source category
  must meet 

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Clean Air Act-State Level

• Under the Title V Operating Permits program,
  states may impose emissions fees up to 25/ton of
  emissions for all chemicals.
• Individual states may impose specific mercury
  emissions limits on individual facilities.
• Fact 21 states have adopted or are working on
  rules that will require more mercury reduction
  than the federal rule, including coal-producing
  states such as Illinois and Pennsylvania .
• http//ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/07March/RL335
  35.pdf

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Anecdotes Indiana

• Emissions from coal-fired power plants are by far
  the biggest source of mercury emissions in
  Indiana 5000 pounds per year.  Indiana has the
  fourth highest mercury emissions in the country
  (total U.S. emissions are approximately 96,000
  pounds per year).

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Anecdotes Indiana (continue)

• Indiana Code IC 13-20-17 - Restrictions on
  Batteries Containing Mercury
• This law restricts the sale and distribution of
  batteries containing mercury.
• Indiana Code IC 13-20-17.5- Mercury and Mercury
  Products Law
• This law restricts the sale of mercury-added
  novelties, thermometers, mercury compounds, and
  equipment for use in school laboratories, and the
  general sale of mercury-containing commodities.
• Universal Waste Rule Guidance PDF - 45KB (329
  IAC 3.1-16, incorporating 40 CFR 273)
• The Universal Waste Rule is a modification of the
  Hazardous Waste Rules, enacted under the Resource
  Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which is
  designed to reduce regulatory management
  requirements so as to foster the environmentally
  sound recycling or disposal of certain specified
  categories of commonly generated hazardous
  wastes.

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Fish Advisories

• For exposure of mercury from the ingestion of
  contaminated non-commercial fish, primary
  responsibility falls upon the state and local
  government
• consumption advisories
• group/location specific
• information symmetry as a policy tool

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Environmental Standards for Mercury--Water
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Clean Water Act

• Technology-based effluent limits
• Water quality standards for pollutants including
  mercury
• Permit systemnational pollutant discharge
  elimination system (NPDES)
• Publicly owned treatment plant (POTW)
• Regulatory Mechanism(s) effluent limits,
  effluent fees (WI), permits, operating
  requirements, control requirements,
  monitoring/reporting

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Mercury use regulations

•  - Commerce-related regulations 
•     - Obtaining Mercury
•         - Excise Tax Internal Revenue Code of
  1986
•         - Import Tax Harmonized Tariff Schedule
  of the United States
•         - Strategic and Critical Materials
  Stockpile Act
•     - Transporting Mercury
•         - The Hazardous Materials Transportation
  Act
•     - Using Mercury
•         - Minnesota use-restriction law
• - Product-related restrictions
•     - Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and
  Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) 
•     - Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
  (FFDCA)
• - Reporting requirements
•     - SARA 312 (threshold planning) - Michigan

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Global Background Control of Mercury

• Global convention
• Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air
  Pollution and The 1998 Aarhus Protocol on Heavy
  Metals
• Mercury waste guidelines under Basel Convention
• International trade in mercury under Rotterdam
  Convention
• UNEP Global Mercury Negotiation and Partnership
• Global Legally Binding Instrument on Mercury
• UNEP Global Mercury Partnership Action Priorities

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Questions or Recommendations