Mercury on rise in CT.River. Article in the Hartford Courant

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AMERICA'S RIVERS AT RISK Toxins On The Wind Despite Efforts, Mercury And Nitrogen Remain Pervasive
October 26, 2005
By STEVE GRANT, The Hartford Courant PITTSBURG, N.H. -- The moose are like mosquitoes they're so abundant. Factories, cities and highways are many miles away. Forget about cellphone service.

Pittsburg is a big town, 291 square miles, the size of many counties, but only 900 residents live amid mountains, streams and lakes. There are trees and water - and nothing to account for the sign at the boat launch on First Connecticut Lake.

ADVERTISEMENT [url "http://clk.atdmt.com/CAC/go/ctnwxwad0010000007cac/direct/01/bbyANtz,bbvWAoqcudnng"][/url] Adults should eat no more than four meals of fish a month from the lake, the sign warns, and pregnant women and children should eat no more than one meal a month.

The problem with the fish is mercury, a toxin, and even in the northernmost reaches of the Connecticut River, a vast playground for lovers of the outdoors, the fish and loons can carry troublesome levels of the element in their flesh and organs.

"It's an incredible commentary on where we're at in America, environmentally," said Brian O'Donnell of Enfield, Conn., who had just climbed up the bank of the Connecticut River after a morning of fishing.

The mercury that fouled the Connecticut, which begins in Pittsburg as a chain of lakes, was not dumped there, however. And it didn't come from broken thermometers.

It drifted in with the wind and continues to do so; airborne mercury is affecting rivers and lakes to varying degrees virtually worldwide. At tiny Fourth Connecticut Lake on the Canadian border, the very beginning of the 410-mile-long Connecticut and accessible only by a hike of more than a half-mile through spruce forest, the sediments are laced with mercury.

Despite more than 30 years of far stricter environmental regulations, both for discharges into air and water, mercury is still emitted into the air by the ton from industrial and other sources. It falls to earth, often many miles away, as does another airborne pollutant, nitrogen, that essential element of growth that nonetheless can cause major problems when too much of it gets into a river, lake or estuary.

Airborne pollutants are but another reason that, despite the environmental reforms of the late 20th century, American rivers remain beleaguered and, in the opinion of a growing number of researchers, are declining again.

Mercury in rivers is so pervasive that 47 states now have posted advisories either statewide or for specific waters instructing people to limit their intake of freshwater fish. The New Hampshire fish consumption advisory is statewide, and even stricter for fish taken from several impoundments of the Connecticut in New Hampshire and Vermont. Predator fish species from those impoundments carry high levels of mercury in their flesh.

Neil Kamman, environmental scientist at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, said higher readings in fish from impoundments is typical, because fluctuating water levels in the impoundments behind dams provide ideal conditions for microorganisms to convert mercury into methylmercury, the highly toxic form that accumulates in animals.

A major new federal and state study of mercury levels in fish flesh throughout the Connecticut River is under review by the states, and, when released shortly, is expected to conclude that mercury remains a serious problem, particularly in the northern sections of the river.

Mercury not only affects fish, but other wildlife species, including loons and songbirds, mink and otter. Exposure to high levels of mercury can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and immune systems of humans.

It remains at troublesome levels in the environment even though states and the federal government have been aware of the problem for decades and have made advances in controlling emissions. Indeed, mercury emissions in the United States have been falling in recent years.

William F. Fitzgerald, a marine geochemist at the University of Connecticut and an international authority on mercury in the environment, said the use of lower-sulfur coal in this country to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions had the added benefit of also reducing mercury emissions, because low-sulfur coal also has less mercury. Also helping to reduce emissions were stricter mercury emission limits imposed on incinerators and other sources.

But mercury remains ubiquitous in the environment and will persist for years.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans for a new program to further reduce mercury emissions from power plants, but 17 states and environmental groups have challenged it in court as too weak to get the job done.

One trend is worrisome.

Mercury emissions from rapidly developing Asian countries including China are increasing, even as emissions in the United States and other highly developed countries have decreased. Some of those distant emissions may reach this country.

At the moment, "there may be a balance," Fitzgerald said of conditions over North America. "It doesn't appear that mercury in the atmosphere is increasing."

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David C. Evers, executive director of the Biodiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine, a private research organization, said New England states had worked hard to reduce their own mercury emissions, and emissions from the region itself are unquestionably down. But he cautioned that mercury remains a problem.

"There are still problem areas for human health and ecological health on the river, even all the way up near the headwaters in the Connecticut Lakes," he said. "The landscape is saturated with mercury right now, probably more than ever before, and how long it takes nature to clean itself out is an unknown."
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