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Alice in Mercury-Land

Orlando-Sentinel Article

COMMENTARY

Alice in Mercury-Land
By Dick Batchelor and Daniel Swartz
Special to the Sentinel

February 24, 2004

Maybe Florida needs a new theme park -- Alice in Mercury-Land. There certainly has been more than a touch of Lewis Carroll lately to the way the administrations of both President Bush and Gov. Jeb Bush have dealt with mercury in particular and the environment more generally.

The connection between Alice's adventures and mercury goes way back -- acute mercury poisoning in adults has long been known as "Mad Hatter's Syndrome," due to the mercury fumes that hatters inhaled as they processed fur into felt, and their resulting tremors and psychiatric disorders. But our current ventures into Wonderland began in earnest a few weeks ago when, over the course of three days, the Food and Drug Administration declared mercury to be more of a danger at the same time that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was downgrading it. Then a study from Florida illustrated how targeted regulations can reduce mercury "hot spots" -- areas where local pollution sources have created special dangers -- at the same time Washington was denying that mercury hot spots were even a problem at all.

The part of Alice that recent environmental decisions most strikingly recall, however, is a brief conversation from Through the Looking Glass, when Alice has the audacity to question Humpty Dumpty's defining "glory" as "a nice knock-down argument": " 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things."The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.' "

Both the EPA and Florida's Department of Environmental Protection have been trying to play Humpty's game with the environment. Rather than protecting people -- especially the fetus and young children who are most vulnerable to toxins such as mercury -- the DEP and the EPA have tried to define problems out of existence.

For example, the EPA wants to move the regulation of mercury from Section 112 of the Clean Air Act to Section 111. At first, this might not sound as outrageous as Humpty's redefinitions -- what's a one-section difference between friends, after all -- but there is a world of difference between those two adjacent sections. Section 112 regulates substances that are toxic even in small amounts and that have "hot spots." Mercury fits this definition as well as any air pollutant -- and Florida has had some of the hottest hot spots around. Once it is put in 111, however, it magically becomes less toxic, and hot spots are no longer a concern. And suddenly, the EPA can promulgate less stringent regulations, to the benefit of those who put mercury into the environment -- especially power plants -- and to the detriment of our children.

This move is without any scientific basis. If anything, evidence of mercury's harmful effects grows with each passing year, as the FDA's own report noted. Rather, the EPA is showing what is "master" -- not the protection of children, but the power of the power industry. And people who don't listen to that master face trials as absurd as the court of the Queen of Hearts -- as when President Bush's Office of Management and Budget delayed the publication of an EPA report on children's health that mentioned potential dangers from mercury exposure for a year, until an article in the Wall Street Journal forced its release.

Humpty Dumpty has also been visiting Florida. Why else would Gov. Bush describe as notable "pollution reduction achievements" the decisions that the Department of Justice noted do not "appear to safeguard public health." Or why would outgoing DEP Administrator David Struhs declare a victory over water pollution because he defined away the problem, striking waterways off the state's official "impaired" list.

This could have been a heroic rather than an absurdist tale. After all, the president has declared himself a champion of children and protector of the fetus, while Laura Bush has focused on early childhood learning and literacy, precisely the sorts of things that mercury poisoning can disrupt, delay or destroy. Jeb Bush has recently dubbed Struhs an "environmental champion." The Bush brothers could have taken actions that would have improved the health and safety of children in Florida and around the United States. With these recent actions, however, any promise of championship has faded like the Cheshire Cat, leaving only a vacant grin.

Dick Batchelor is president of Dick Batchelor Management Group, Inc., a local consulting firm. He served as chairman of the Florida Environmental Regulation Commission from 1991-1997 and is board co-chairman of the Children's Environmental Health Network. Rabbi Daniel Swartz is the executive director of the Children's Environmental Health Network, a non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting the fetus and child from environmental health hazards.

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