Vermont Agency of Natural Resources |
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Advisory Committee on Mercury Pollution
Meeting #73: Monday, February 26, 2007 Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 noon Location: Conference Room, Laundry Building, Waterbury State Complex, Waterbury Vermont
MINUTES
Members Present: Michael Bender, Abenaki Self-Help Association, Inc. -via telephone Bill Bress, Vermont Department of Health Gary Gulka, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Environmental Assistance Neil Kamman, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Water Quality Division Eric Palmer, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife
Guests Present: Matt Levin, Vermonters for Clean Environment Karen Knaebel, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Environmental Assistance Diana April, private citizen
The Committee members and interested parties gathered at the Waterbury State Office Complex Laundry Building Conference room and by phone. Michael Bender called the meeting to order. Agenda Item 1 Review minutes from January 8, 2007 meeting Minutes were reviewed. An incomplete line from one section was dropped. Neil Kamman added language to clarify his statement regarding wastewater discharge figures. The minutes were approved with these changes
Agenda Item 2 Legislative/Regulatory Updates
The mercury stockpiling resolution passed through the legislature. The resolution is not yet available on the legislative web site. The Secretary of State would be directed by this resolution to send a copy to the President and the congressional delegation. The resolution suggested the prohibition of the export of elemental mercury and authorized the President to provide storage capacity for mercury stockpiles. Vermont is the first state in the country to pass such a resolution.
H.121 introduces a financial incentive for collection of discarded mercury-containing thermostats and a ban on amalgam after July 2011, except in back molars. The House committee separated out the thermostat portion of the bill from the dental portion of the bill and created a committee bill for thermostats. The amalgam use ban in the bill was dropped and informed consent was added to the bill. In addition, the bill requires the VDH to develop a brochure similar to what is been developed in the state of Maine. There is a component of the bill that requires amalgam manufacturers to report on annual quantities sold into Vermont.
The thermostat committee bill should be voted on by February 27th. The bill was amended to shift the resource burden for plan development from the agency to thermostat manufacturers. The original bill required several stakeholder processes to define collection programs and financial incentives for contractors and homeowners. Most of the agency’s concerns were addressed in the bill as it was modified. There will be further discussion in the Senate regarding financial incentives. Currently the bill includes a $5.00 cash incentive when thermostats are turned in by a contractor. There are concerns by manufacturers about the cost of the financial incentives. The agency streamlined the process to benefit from the work that has already been completed in Maine during their stakeholder process by which there was a determination to require a $5.00 cash incentive for contractor collection of thermostats. It was determined that since Maine had already gone through the stakeholder process, there was no need to duplicate the same stakeholder process in Vermont. Vermont will be closely following the outcome of the Maine stakeholder process for the outcome of the homeowner incentive.
S. 81 is primarily a thimerosal and dental mercury bill. H.121 is an environmental bill whereas S.81 is related to human exposure. Because of that, this bill may end up in the Human Resources Committee of the House. Matt Levin gave the committee an overview of his understanding of the bill. He believes that the bill mirrors the recommendation on banning thimerosal in infant vaccines and the amalgam portion of the bill is a ban on amalgam and includes informed consent. Senator Snelling introduced the bill and it has findings similar to house bill but not identical. The first section of the bill talks about a brochure and poster to be developed by VDH to include environmental and health aspects of dental amalgam and alternatives outlining specific language indicated in the legislation. The bill includes a prohibition on amalgam placement in pregnant women or children effective January 1, 2008 and no placement or removal in any person after 2010. The thimerosal portion of the bill includes a definition of mercury-free vaccines and a ban in 2007 which includes the Vermont Department of Health’s exemption language regarding bio-terrorists and VDH to assure there is an adequate amount available to protect public health.
By January 31st all dental offices are required to file with the agency regarding implementation of BMPs and installation of amalgam separators. Following the filing approximately 200 dental offices installed separators and followed BMPs for amalgam management. There was a good response by dentists, not 100% but certainly very high. Requirement to file and indicate that the dentist has installed a separator has probably helped on the compliance rate. All dentists are required to file the brand of separator installed. Gary Gulka acknowledged the efforts of the Vermont Dental Society for sending reminder notices to dentists. The DEC completed an amalgam use survey with help from the Dental Society to ascertain which practices are using amalgam and number of amalgam fillings being placed. Mr. Gulka anticipates about 250 or fewer practices should be providing information.
Gary Gulka told the committee that DEC was finalizing the process for submission of hospital mercury reduction plans. He stated that the hospitals are being given adequate opportunity to comment on the plan requirements. Plans are due by July 1, 2007.
To date, there are 62 salvage yards participating in the auto switch program. The salvage yards have been provided with a collection container and the container is shipped back once full, and the salvage yard receives a $1.00 rebate per switch. DEC has a contractor that is conducting field visits to verify that the salvage yards are appropriately set up for collection. January 1, 2007 was the implementation date and all salvage yards should have collection buckets and instructions. Mr. Gulka stated that he thought the program was off to a good start, but could not identify a percentage of participants until he receives field verification from the contractor.
This legislation was introduced to change the effective date of the labeling requirement to a manufactured date from the 2005 legislation. Changing the effective date from a sold by date to a manufactured after date would make it more difficult for the Agency to implement any enforcement for unlabeled products. Electronics manufacturers are the only industry that is asking for this change because they have not yet come into compliance. Karen talked about the 1998 legislation and how there was controversy in the law as to the requirements for electronics manufactures from their viewpoint. In 2005, there was a request for a declaratory ruling by the electronics manufacturers and that ruling ultimately stated that manufacturers of LCD products must label the product. The Agency allowed the electronic manufacturers to comply by following the specific requirements in the 2005 legislation rather than comply with current law and then change requirements in July 2007. The Agency was willing to move the date forward but was not in agreement with changing the date in the law to a manufactured after date. There are ongoing discussions to try to resolve issues.
An overview of the fish monitoring financial needs was presented in previous ACMP reports to the legislature. This issue has not been addressed by the legislature. Suggestion that Neil present at the House committee again regarding the monitoring needs. Neil stated that the state ad-hoc Fish Contaminant Committee discussed implementation of fish mercury monitoring and what data was going to be used by VDH to set the advisory. Fundamental decisions were made regarding the fish advisory. Fish database goes back to 1980 and up untill now the advisory was based on the entire body of data. A decision was made to trim down the data and utilize the last ten years of data which was enough data specific to advisories by water body. The advisory should be complete around the end of April. There is still a need for technical support to implement the monitoring project and neither Fish and Wildlife nor DEC can fund the project. There have been some steps taken to assess inland water bodies and this year there were a fairly good number of fish collected to be used for viral disease analysis by the Fish and Wildlife fish biologists, and these will be sacrificed to do a health and disease assessment on 100-200 analytical fish analysis from that committee. Neil advised that there are not enough resources to implement a six-year or random sampling program. Fish health sampling can move us along to refreshing the data base. Neil advised the committee that there was really a deficit on the data available on river fish. Question if there would be any value to have the Secretary and Commissioners strategize on how to facilitate the monitoring. Question as to whether it would be helpful to have ACMP write a letter. Eric Palmer stated that the Fish and Wildlife staff have been working to collect fish as a part of ongoing efforts, and it would be difficult to implement a new method to truly have it random. Eric feels that fish sampling over time really needs to target the age of the fish which takes a significant amount of time. He suggested that the most practical approach would be to hire outside staff and utilize the Fish and Wildlife equipment. Short of that, any other approaches would pull staff away from existing projects. Question as to the funding needs for the monitoring project. Neil Kamman stated that about $30,000 would allow for the hire of a couple of seasonal staff to collect samples. A suggestion was made to consider 15 Mile Fall funding to assist in the implementation of this study.
Agenda Item 3 Develop work plan for 2007 The Committee discussed a potential work plan for 2007.
Agenda Item 4 Discuss protocol for future meetings & chair rotation
Agenda Item 4 Set date and agenda for next meeting Draft agenda will be e-mailed out for the next meeting. Chair rotation will be addressed at the next meeting. Potential dates will be confirmed via e-mail with the rest of the members. |