MERCURY RISING: WHY DOES PIONEER HATE FREEDOM?
I just hung up from a radio interview with Don Dubuc on New Orleans' WWL radio, discussing the problems with mercury pollution in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. WWL is Louisiana's most powerful radio station, and the number one news channel in NOLA, so it was a fantastic opportunity to get the word out about our effort to pressure Pioneer to switch their chlorine plant outside Baton Rouge to a mercury-free technology, sparing our air (and eventually waters and fish and us) 1,500 lbs of mercury per year!
We had some great calls - one from Tracy Kuhns, the Louisiana Bayoukeeper, thanking us for urging alternatives to mercury pollution, and not simply scaring people off seafood, and another from a woman who swore that her microwave sparked when she heated up some tuna for her cat - and the tuna wasn't in the can! Could high mercury levels have caused that reaction that typically happens with metal in your microwave? Don and I couldn't really hazard a guess, but it was a crazy thought.
Louisiana and the Gulf Coast have an incredibly high concentration of fishermen - recreational, commercial, and subsistance - so the idea that we also have to put up with more sources of mercury pollution than other areas is absurd and dangerous. Whether it's the chlorine holdout Pioneer, the thousands of abandoned mercury menometers scattered throughout the state's gas fields, or the mercury in drilling muds dumped at offshore drilling rigs, they all need to be identified, cleaned up, or remediated in some way to finally end emissions into our environment and start bringing down levels in our fish. With one in six women of childbearing age estimated to have levels of mercury that put a developing child at risk of neurological disorders, there's really no time to waste.
Thankfully, the seafood Louisiana and the Gulf Coast are best known for, such as shrimp, oysters and crawfish, are all typically low in mercury pollution. Of course that's due more to their lifecycles than it is to a clean environment. Freshwater species like bass and catfish can all accumulate problematic levels, and marine fish like cobia (lemonfish), greater amberjack, king mackerel and blackfin tuna have all been identified as unsafe offshore.
But it's not just fish that develop dangerous mercury levels. Anything at the top of a food chain with a lot of fish links will be at risk. Here is an interesting story about a bald eagle that was found in Louisiana with such accute mercury poisoning that it couldn't fly! After six weeks of therapy from LSU veterinarians, it was able to be re-released into the wild, but of course, it will go back to it's normal diet, and could be in trouble again soon.
So there you go - this is a story about motherhood, our national symbol, and fishing - all wrapped up with one simple request: Pioneer must go mercury-free!
Aaron Viles is the GRN's Campaign Director
I just hung up from a radio interview with Don Dubuc on New Orleans' WWL radio, discussing the problems with mercury pollution in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. WWL is Louisiana's most powerful radio station, and the number one news channel in NOLA, so it was a fantastic opportunity to get the word out about our effort to pressure Pioneer to switch their chlorine plant outside Baton Rouge to a mercury-free technology, sparing our air (and eventually waters and fish and us) 1,500 lbs of mercury per year!
We had some great calls - one from Tracy Kuhns, the Louisiana Bayoukeeper, thanking us for urging alternatives to mercury pollution, and not simply scaring people off seafood, and another from a woman who swore that her microwave sparked when she heated up some tuna for her cat - and the tuna wasn't in the can! Could high mercury levels have caused that reaction that typically happens with metal in your microwave? Don and I couldn't really hazard a guess, but it was a crazy thought.
Louisiana and the Gulf Coast have an incredibly high concentration of fishermen - recreational, commercial, and subsistance - so the idea that we also have to put up with more sources of mercury pollution than other areas is absurd and dangerous. Whether it's the chlorine holdout Pioneer, the thousands of abandoned mercury menometers scattered throughout the state's gas fields, or the mercury in drilling muds dumped at offshore drilling rigs, they all need to be identified, cleaned up, or remediated in some way to finally end emissions into our environment and start bringing down levels in our fish. With one in six women of childbearing age estimated to have levels of mercury that put a developing child at risk of neurological disorders, there's really no time to waste.
Thankfully, the seafood Louisiana and the Gulf Coast are best known for, such as shrimp, oysters and crawfish, are all typically low in mercury pollution. Of course that's due more to their lifecycles than it is to a clean environment. Freshwater species like bass and catfish can all accumulate problematic levels, and marine fish like cobia (lemonfish), greater amberjack, king mackerel and blackfin tuna have all been identified as unsafe offshore.
But it's not just fish that develop dangerous mercury levels. Anything at the top of a food chain with a lot of fish links will be at risk. Here is an interesting story about a bald eagle that was found in Louisiana with such accute mercury poisoning that it couldn't fly! After six weeks of therapy from LSU veterinarians, it was able to be re-released into the wild, but of course, it will go back to it's normal diet, and could be in trouble again soon.
So there you go - this is a story about motherhood, our national symbol, and fishing - all wrapped up with one simple request: Pioneer must go mercury-free!
Aaron Viles is the GRN's Campaign Director
posted by Aaron at 9:35 AM
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