One news story highlights high levels of mercury in fish from the Great Lakes Basin and the possible health effects on women of child-bearing age and kids.
Another news story, just weeks old, covers a Toledo area plant's appeal of a tight mercury pollution limit set by the State of Ohio. But the state itself rushed the permit through to support the handful of jobs created by the company at this coke plant. Like other Great Lakes states, Ohio has signed numerous agreements to reduce toxic pollution -- but throws them out when a few jobs are purportedly at stake. And Ohio already has the second highest mercury emissions in the nation.
What's wrong with this picture?
From the July 15 Toledo Blade:
"U.S. Coking Group, which is trying to build the plant, says the mercury emission threshold of 36 pounds per year listed in the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency construction permit is too low to be achieved and would set a precedent.
The company wants more than the 36 pounds, but something less than the 680 pounds per year that would be produced if no emission controls were used at the plant, said John Hull, president of Hull & Associates, an environmental consulting firm working for U.S. Coking."