Chlorine Makers Spewing Mercury

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Chlorine makers spewing mercury

9 factories may rival coal-fired plants in amount of pollution they emit, study finds.

By Marla Cone
Los Angeles Times
January 30, 2005

A new report has found that nine chlorine factories are among the largest U.S. sources of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that spreads globally and has rendered some seafood unsafe to eat.

The report, written by the environmental group Oceana, documents what it calls a long-overlooked source of mercury polluting the air and is based on a review of toxic inventories filed by the chemical companies.

The chlorine industry and Environmental Protection Agency acknowledge the chemical plants have been a sizable source of mercury pollution. But they say the companies have substantially reduced emissions in recent years.

Most efforts to control mercury in the United States have focused on coal-fired power plants, which are facing controversial and costly new efforts to regulate emissions. But the report concludes nine chlorine plants, all in the Midwest and Southeast (none in Indiana), could be releasing as much, or more, mercury as the power companies.

"The nine mercury-based chlorine plants in the U.S. may rival the entire power industry as the nation's largest industrial mercury polluter," the report said. Oceana is launching a campaign to cut mercury and educate the public about its dangers.

Mercury is considered one of the most hazardous and ubiquitous contaminants. Emissions travel thousands of miles in the air and drop into oceans and lakes, building up in the tissues of animals and people.

The mercury-cell chlorine factories reported emitting an average of 1,097 pounds of mercury each in 2002, five times more than the average power plant, according to Oceana's analysis of reports that companies file annually with the EPA. Eight of the nine plants rank among the top 25 U.S. companies in reported mercury emissions, the report says.

But their actual emissions could be much higher. How much mercury they release into the environment is largely unknown because many tons are "missing" at the chlorine plants every year -- unaccounted for in the companies' annual inventories, according to a 2004 industry report.

Chlorine is used for manufacturing vinyl, disinfecting drinking water, producing medicines and making cleaning solvents as well as various other products. Most chlorine is produced using new mercury-free technologies, but nine factories use a process that pumps a saltwater solution through a vat of mercury to set off a chemical reaction.

In 2000, 11 chlorine plants reported releasing 14 tons of mercury into the air through smokestacks and unmonitored, or "fugitive," emissions. But according to the EPA, an additional 65 tons of mercury at those plants were used and unaccounted for.

EPA officials, in a 2003 report, said "the fate of all the mercury consumed" at the plants "remains somewhat of an enigma."

If even half of that "lost" mercury was released into the air, Oceana's pollution campaign director, Jackie Savitz, said the plants would have polluted the air with nearly the same volumes as the 49 tons released by the nation's 497 mercury-releasing power plants that year.

By 2002, two of the 11 plants had closed, and the reported mercury emissions dropped almost in half, to a total of 7.6 tons. The plants, however, had 28 tons of mercury unaccounted for, which amounted to about 1 percent of their total mercury used and stored, according to a 2004 Chlorine Institute report to the EPA. The missing mercury amounted to 30 tons in 2003.

Tracy Cullen, director of communications at the Chlorine Institute, an industry group, said the industry was trying to develop more accurate methods to measure fugitive emissions and account for all mercury. While emissions from smokestacks and vents are measured with precision, fugitive emissions from mercury vats are much harder to quantify.