Mercury Bill to Go to Senate Floor THIS THURSDAY!

Urge State Senators to Strengthen HB 1673 to Clean Up NH’s Polluting Power Plants

Dear Power Plant Mercury Activists,

Please Take Action Today! The Senate Energy and Economic Development Committee voted 4-1 to send HB 1673 to Senate floor without any improvements, with floor action this Thursday, 4/20.

This could be our last chance to have input on efforts to clean up our state's dirty power plants this decade - we need your help now!

Please call or write this weekend, or call early next week to:

1) Your State Senator (contact list attached). To identify/contact your senators, go to the state website: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ie/whosmyleg/

2) Senate President Ted Gatsas
582 Chestnut Street
Manchester, NH 03104-6052
(H) (603)668-1233
With his wariness of PSNH, Senator Gatsas could hold the key to strengthening the mercury bill, so emphasize to him what a "sweetheart" deal this bill as written is for the utility.

3) Governor Lynch, Statehouse, Concord, NH 03301; phone: 271-2121. Urge him be a leader for strong mercury clean up - New Hampshire deserves better that what has been proposed in HB 1673.

Ask them to support legislation to require NH’s coal power plants to achieve maximum clean up in a timely manner. The House moved to replace SB 128 with a weaker bill, including numerous loopholes to benefit PSNH while leaving New Hampshire's environment with more mercury - now it's up to the Senate to fix these loopholes and better protect us and our environment from mercury, and protect ratepayers from unnecessary costs from clean up delays.

The goal is to give them this message: AMEND HB 1673 to require 90 percent cleanup by 2010, no pollutant exchanges and no loopholes for PSNH to avoid really cleaning up their plants. Cleaning up sooner will save tens of millions of dollars for ratepayers as well as preventing needless deaths from particulate pollution.

Sample Letter/Phone call:

Dear Senator ______________

Please support amendments to HB1673, to better protect NH’s children, wildlife, and outdoor economy from power plant mercury pollution:

* Require 90 percent control of mercury emissions, as neighboring states have done.
* Require the plants to clean up as much and as soon as possible but fully by 2010 - four years (from 2006 enactment) is plenty enough time to install available pollution cleanup technology.
* Do not allow an “interpollutant” mercury credits exchange that would result in more acid rain and deadly soot emissions in exchange for further mercury reductions.

Please protect our children, public health and wildlife by strengthening HB 1673, to require strict clean up of mercury from New Hampshire's coal power plants in a timely manner.

Sincerely,

Phone calls: Say the town that you are from and speak with courtesy. Most legislators are best to reach at their home numbers evenings and weekends, and they expect to get calls there.
Letters: The more original the better. Add a couple sentences expressing why cleaning up the power plants is important to you. Print your name and address and ask for a reply. If you can, send us a copy or note that you sent one, to portcwa@cleanwater.org.

Legislative Update:
Despite numerous statements at the public hearing in Representatives Hall earlier this month on the weakness of the new Committee bill, the House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee voted 13-2 to send their new PSNH-sponsored bill to the House floor. The full House voted for the bill by voice vote on March 9th. Despite numerous pleas for better protection from mercury, the Senate Energy Committee voted Tuesday to send the bill to the floor, without making any changes.

HB 1673 has a lower cleanup goal (allowing fully TWICE as much mercury into our environment as a 90% control goal would), no required interim reduction goal (the senate bill set about a 63 percent control level by 2009) and sets up a mercury credits trading scheme that would provide an non-binding "incentive" (maybe) for PSNH to reduce mercury sooner than eight years from now, while weakening the existing reduction requirements for sulfur dioxide from PSNH's plants. In other words, they might give us a bit less mercury in 2008 in exchange for spewing more mercury and/or other life-threathening pollutants than is acceptable in 2014, all to perhaps save us a few nickels on our monthly electric bills - we say they can do better than that, and do it with minimum impact to average ratepayers while providing maximum benefit to our environment and public health.

I have attached a one-page Myths/Facts sheet on HB 1673, produced by the NH Clean Power Coalition, to help explain what's wrong (and what's misleading!) with the bill as written.

The decision makers hear just one side of the argument if you and other citizens do not speak up. We need to show NH state elected officials that the Granite State cares about REDUCING mercury emissions in NH as much and as soon as possible!

Thank you for whatever help you can provide at this critical time for power plant cleanup!

Doug Bogen
Clean Water Action

Further Background:
Mercury is a toxin that accumulates in fish and has been proven to cause harm to fetuses and small children such as attention deficit disorders and symptoms of Autism. Mercury interferes with children's ability to talk, write, learn, and move, and can harm memory and cause heart problems in adults. Mercury also causes developmental and reproductive harm to wildlife in New Hampshire, threatening a broad range of species including loons, mink, otter, and a variety of aquatic bird and fish species.

* According to BioDiversity Research Institute, southeastern NH has become a mercury biological hotspot. In fact, the Common loon eggs in this region have the highest mercury levels in northeastern North America. See http://www.briloon.org/ for more information.
* The NH way of life is being threatened: the EPA determined that 75% of fish in NH's waters have unsafe mercury levels and there is a statewide fish consumption advisory in effect for over a decade now for all NH waters.
* According to the EPA, 1 in 6 women in the US has a mercury level high enough to be harmful to her children.
* State environmental officials estimate that it will cost just an additional 41 cents to 81 cents on the average monthly residential electric bill at most to clean up NH’s coal power plants.
* We know from scientific studies that mercury levels in fish and wildlife drop significantly when local mercury emissions are significantly reduced. Every pound of mercury matters, and has a devastating effect on NH's ecosystems. NH will not see relief from high mercury levels in our fish and wildlife until all sources of mercury pollution are required to clean up as much as possible, as quickly as possible.
* Many other states have acted far more responsibly in addressing mercury pollution (requiring near term, major reductions in mercury emissions from their coal plants) - including MA, CT, & NJ. Many states are in the process of establishing strong policies requiring reductions from their coal plants, such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Maryland. Even Illinois, a major coal-burning state, announced recently that it will require 90% control of mercury from coal by 2009. NH will be lagging behind - and setting a bad example with inter-pollutant trading - if it does not strengthen the current bill.

Currently, mercury levels in Granite State lakes and ponds are high enough that fishing licenses come with a warning for children, women of childbearing age, and pregnant women about dangers of eating mercury-contaminated freshwater fish. Mercury threatens New Hampshire's recreational fishing industry, which generates $316 million in economic output and sustains over 3,100 jobs in the state each year. In fact, some of the most contaminated lakes in the state are directly downwind of New Hampshire's largest power plant.

For more information, http://www.cleanwateraction.org/nh

Materials and More Links:
* For the language of SB128, go to
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ie/billstatus/quickbill.html
* For EPA's mercury information, go to http://www.epa.gov/mercury
* Clean Water Action's Zero Mercury Campaign: http://cleanwateraction.org/mercury/index.html
* National Wildlife Federation:
(scroll to fact
sheets)
* For NH Sierra Club's mercury information, go to http://www.nhsierraclub.org/
and click "Issues" and then "Clean Air"
* The Mercury Policy Project:
http://www.mercurypolicy.org/emissions/index.shtml
* Natural Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdc.org/
* Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/