Advisory Committee on Mercury Pollution
Meeting #56: Friday, November 12, 2004
Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Location: IBM, Burlington, Visitors Lobby
MINUTES
Members Present:
Michael Bender, Abenaki Self-Help Association, Inc.
Neil Kamman, Agency of Natural Resources, Water Quality Division
Ruma Kohli, chemical Management Program Manager, IBM, Burlington
Senator Virginia Lyons, Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee
Rich Phillips, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Environmental Assistance
Guests Present:
Gary Gulka, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Environmental Assistance
Jennifer Holliday, Chittenden Solid Waste Management District
IBM Environmental Management Staff:
Janet Doyle, Solid and Hazardous Waste Program Manager
Tim Baechle, Manager, Environmental Programs and Wastewater Treatment
Dan Forcier, Environmental Engineer
The Committee members and interested parties gathered in the Conference Room at IBM Burlington. Rich Phillips called the meeting to order.
Agenda Item 1-
Report by Ruma Kohli regarding voluntary strategies to reduce mercury in industry.
Mercury Use and Reduction at IBM
IBM environmental program staff gave a presentation to the Advisory Committee on mercury use at the IBM Essex Junction facility and their programs
to evaluate and reduce the use of mercury. Mercury use at IBM is for the following applications: fluorescent lamps, photolithography lamps, ultraviolet
lamps, batteries, laboratory chemicals, switches, thermostats and thermometers. IBM discussed its practices to identify minimize mercury use by
working with product vendors and to evaluate the environmental aspects of new products and processes before they are purchased or put into place.
IBM discussed a recent project to find a mercury-free ball float switches located in their air scrubber system. IBM was successful in finding a
mercury-free substitute, and will be replacing these switches with proximity switches.
IBM officials were asked whether other IBM plants were also doing similar work related to mercury reduction. IBM indicated that it is corporate
policy to seek out and evaluate less toxic alternatives in processes and equipment.
Mercury Reduction by EIA and Its Members
Jason Linnell of EIA provided an overview (via telephone) of progress by the electronics industry in reducing mercury use. Major use of mercury
is in backlighting for LCD color displays. Other products include scanner lamps and switches/relays in legacy telecommunications equipment. The
majority of uses are in components that contain less than 5 milligrams of mercury. Mercury use reported by member companies in the year 2000 was
262 pounds of mercury. Mercury use in fluorescent lighting has decreased from 23.6 tons in 1990 to 7 tons in 2003 as reported by NEMA. The industry
is working to phase out mercury use and has been successful in some products with switches and relays, such as VHS duplicators. There is ongoing
research by the lighting industry to find alternatives to mercury.
Agenda Item 2-
Update by Neil Kamman regarding environmental monitoring for annual report.
Neil Kamman provided an overview of recent mercury monitoring studies and other updates regarding mercury in the environment. He also provided
his recommendations on monitoring and research needs.
Mercury Emissions Inventory
The VT Department of Environmental Conservation has recently completed revisions to the statewide mercury emissions inventory. These revisions include
estimates of mobile sources (e.g. automobiles, trucks), a previously unquantified emissions source, and revisions to the estimated mercury emissions
from residential heating. Vermont's mercury emissions from quantifiable sources remain the lowest of all New England states. In addition to the
Vermont emissions inventory updates, a revised New England-wide mercury emissions inventory has recently been released. This new inventory shows
significant declines in mercury emissions, largely attributable to controls placed on municipal and medial waste combustors during the period 1998-2002.
Lake Champlain
The Lake Champlain mercury modeling team (St. Lawrence University, USGS, VTDEC, Univ of Michigan) are publishing an initial version of an operational
model describing mercury transport to and through Lake Champlain. In addition, the project team has secured new funding through the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration to augment the existing model by incorporating biotic measurements as model predictive endpoints. Preliminary field
work was undertaken in fall of 2004, and a full field program is scheduled to begin in June of 2005. The model derived from this project will permit
stakeholders to determine the influence of changes in atmospheric deposition rates and wastewater discharges on the concentrations of mercury in
the lake's waters and biota.
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey continues to actively monitor mercury in selected Vermont watersheds. The newest research findings corroborate
that upland areas of small streams are important areas for the methylation (toxification) of mercury. During 2004, USGS will continue it's monitoring
activities and continue participating in the Lake Champlain project.
Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences
VINS continues to build on their database of mercury in the blood of the threatened Bicknell's thrush and other insectivorous woodland birds. Results
of this work build on prior year's findings: mercury in these birds is elevated in some Vermont sites (particularly on Stratton Mountain); and,
the birds blood continues to increase in mercury as the birds age. The purpose of this work is to establish an upland biological indicator of mercury
contamination that can serve as a sentinel of changes in mercury impacts to high elevation sites over time.
Underhill Monitoring Station
Information and data are once again flowing from the Underhill mercury monitoring station. Vermont will benefit from the continued participation
of Dr. Jerry Keeler from University of Michigan in operation of the site. Dr. Eric Miller also began working with the Vermont Monitoring Cooperative
in mid-2004 to implement new monitoring approaches at Underhill. Underhill is currently Vermont's only air monitoring site. As has previously been
recommended, a second mercury deposition monitoring site should be established in southern Vermont.
Northeast States Research Consortium
The NSRC mercury workgroup is finishing a three-year assessment of Hg contamination across northeastern North America. The goal of that effort has
been to catalogue as much existing mercury monitoring data as practical, from projects across northeast North America. These data have been synthesized
to create a comprehensive picture of mercury contamination for the study region, and the results of these analyses comprise 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts
that are "in press" in the journal Ecotoxicology as of this writing. Selected investigators who coordinated and participated in this project
have planned a February, 2005 briefing for congressional members and staff, federal agency science advisors, and the environmental advocacy community
in Washington D.C.
The NSRC mercury group also completed the first year of a three-year project designed to answer the question "what is the increase in fish
mercury levels attributable to water level management in reservoirs with fluctuating water levels?" Findings from this study will be directly
relevant to current relicensing discussions at the Waterbury Dam hydroelectric project. Findings from this project will also yield important information
to assist in minimizing the environmental impact of operations attributable to any hydroelectric facilities that should become in-part owned by
the State of Vermont.
METALICUS
The Mercury Experiment to Assess Loadings in Canada and the US Project is a very high profile international experiment. A lake in the "Experimental
Lakes Area" of Manitoba was chosen and dosed with known stable isotopes of mercury - one Hg isotope for each of three distinct sections of
the lake watershed (terrestrial, wetland, lake surface). Isotopes act as tracers of mercury, and researchers are tracking the movement of mercury
from the parts of the system where the mercury is dosed to it's ultimate repository in water, sediment, or biota. The Project has concluded that
newly deposited mercury is what is most readily methylated and therefore most readily available to biota. This is a very important finding that
directly relates to the arguments surrounding mercury emission controls (see below).
New Rules on Mercury Emissions from Coal Fired Power Plants (update from 2003)
The comment period for the EPA "MACT" emissions control regulations closed mid-2004, and final rules are due to be promulgated March of
2005. EPA received over 680,000 individual comments on the proposed regulation. The majority of these are apparently against the proposed use of
pollution trading to control Hg. Many of the comments also indicate that the regulations do not go far enough in controlling mercury from coal-fired
utility boilers. Two sets of comments were filed that are significant from Vermont's perspective. First, Vermont's Attorney General filed joint
legally-based comments with several other state attorneys general challenging the legality of pollution trading to control mercury, which legally
defined as a "hazardous air pollutant." Second, the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation filed a science-based comment paper representing
the joint views of over 30 of the top mercury scientists in the US. More information is available regarding this important topic in the minutes
of ACMP's 54th meeting. Relatedly, late in 2004 the State of New Jersey released new mercury emissions limits on the 10 coal-fired power plants
in that jurisdiction. These New Jersey power facilities will be required to meet a 90% reduction in mercury emissions by 2007.
Water Quality Criterion for Fish Tissue Mercury (also reported in 2003)
In 2001, EPA promulgated a new fish tissue criterion under §304(a) of the Clean Water Act. States are required by this section of the Act to
either adopt the EPA recommended criteria, or to propose criteria that are more stringent, to be adopted into the state's Water Quality Standards.
There has been no further action on this in Vermont. Revision and new promulgations to the Vermont Water Quality Standards are now the purview of
the Natural Resources Board.
Wildlife Criterion Value for Mercury (also reported in 2003)
The State of Maine is actively developing a wildlife criterion value (WCV) to protect wildlife from mercury they consume through the food web. A
WCV is essentially a water-column mercury concentration above which fish are expected to bioaccumulate mercury to levels above those considered
safe for humans and wildlife that consume the fish. Maine's WCV, to be formally promulgated in March of 2004, is expected to be approximately one-tenth
Vermont's current most conservative criterion. Vermont should keep apprised of the work being done in Maine, as it may provide a suitable and simple
approach to managing mercury in Vermont waters.
During 2003, USEPA initiated a project with several partners to develop a comprehensive model predicting mercury reductions based on emission reduction
strategies. This effort is still in its early stages, but should provide useful estimates of watershed recovery given a range of mercury emission
control scenarios. As part of this effort, a comprehensive New England emissions inventory is being derived. Information is now emerging from this
effort on new mercury sources. The most important of these appears to be steel manufacturing, a previsouly un-accounted source of mercury. This
emissions inventory and modeling initiative will provide critical information for deriving mercury control plans that are required by § 303(d)
of the Clean Water Act.
Monitoring and Research Needs
There is a short but important list of tasks that should be performed to better characterize Hg contamination in Vermont, thereby protecting Vermont's
citizens and wildlife:
- Recent short-term fish tissue monitoring projects have suggested a need to develop a longer-term fish tissue-monitoring program, to serve as
an indicator of changes in environmental mercury contamination. This need was first elaborated in the 2003 ACMP report, and remains a high priority.
Resources are needed to assist the Department of Fish and Wildlife in acquiring and processing tissue samples, for the Department of Environmental
Conservation to analyze the tissue samples and evaluate the data, and for the Department of Health to perform risk assessment calculations on
new data. Such an effort is vital to refining our present fish consumption advisories, and especially to identifying lakes where fish tissue mercury
may be low enough to favor consumption of fish above rates established by the present consumption advisory.
- In conjunction with #1, establish collect and analyze data necessary to derive a Vermont-specific WCV. This would require minimal additional
resources, and yield a large additional benefit.
- Establish a new air mercury monitoring site in southern VT, under the Federal Mercury Deposition Network monitoring program.
Agenda Item 3-
Discuss topics and recommendations for annual report.
An outline for the content of the ACMP annual report was presented. Members agreed that the most important issue to address in this year's report
is recommendations on legislation, including research and monitoring needs. The Committee agreed to meet promptly to follow up on this and will
review Senate Bill S. 111 as introduced and S. 111 as passed, as well as recent legislation by other states.
Committee members discussed the need to complete the dairy manometer replacement project. Senator Lyons indicated that this could be in the a comprehensive
mercury bill or a separate bill just addressing manometer replacement and funding. The Committee also discussed a letter to the Governor's Office,
accompanying the Committee's report, which stresses the need to fund the completion of this project.
Agenda Item 4-
Set date for next meeting.
A meeting was scheduled for Thursday, November 18, 2004 beginning at 8:30 am at the Chittenden Solid Waste Management District (CSWD)offices on
Redmond Road in Williston. Jennifer Holliday agreed to circulate directions to the CSWD offices.
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