Hair Tests Show Widespread Mercury Contamination

If someone steps onto your property and dumps a pile of mercury, he would face arrest for trespassing and violating environmental laws. But if he spews the deadly neurotoxin into the air from his dirty power plant and it ends up inside your body, he’s broken no law at all.

It’s not right. In fact, it’s totally outrageous. Yet it’s the sad reality in our country, where millions suffer because of legal chemical trespass by corporations.

Today a whopping one-fifth of American women of childbearing age tested nationwide as part of Greenpeace’s Mercury Hair Sampling Project have mercury levels exceeding the federal recommended limit of 1 microgram per gram of hair. The Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina-Asheville released the preliminary results earlier this week.

The survey found elevated mercury levels in 126 out of 597 women of childbearing age who were tested. Mercury contamination is a particular concern for these women because mercury exposure in the womb can cause neurological damage and other health problems in children.

Coal-burning power plants are the nation’s biggest source of mercury, releasing 41 percent of industrial mercury pollution. Mercury from these dirty power plants and other sources falls into lakes, streams and oceans. It concentrates in fish and shellfish, which are then eaten by people.

“In the samples we analyzed, the greatest single factor influencing mercury exposure was the frequency of fish consumption,” says EQI Co-Director Dr. Richard Maas. “We saw a direct relationship between people’s mercury levels and the amount of store-bought fish, canned tuna fish or locally caught fish people consumed.”

North Carolina public health officials have issued advisories against eating largemouth bass, jack fish (chain pickerel) and blackfish (bowfin) caught east and south of Interstate 85 due to unsafe levels of mercury. They advise most people to limit their consumption of these freshwater fish as well as saltwater species including shark, swordfish, tilefish, king and Spanish mackerel, and albacore or “white” tuna.

For more details on the findings and tips on what you can do to change the situation, visit the Greenpeace Web site.