Beyond Voluntary Programs for Mercury

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has implemented many successful voluntary mercury reduction programs. It has broad education programs in place for hospitals, manufacturers, and consumers. Through billboards, posters, radio ads, targeted industry mailing and special events, IDEM has made it clear to Hoosiers that there are safer substitutes for mercury-containing devices and that mercury poses a serious threat to public health and the environment.

In cooperation with local solid waste management districts, IDEM helped build an infrastructure to efficiently collect and recycle mercury. In 1998, more than 2,200 pounds of mercury was collected from Hoosiers. And more than 15% of heating contractors have pledged to avoid installing more mercury thermostats.

IDEM should be proud of these successes!

But the problem with mercury remains. Almost all fish tested in Indiana have detectable levels of mercury. The levels are high enough to warrant fish consumption advisories for many streams.

Mercury continues to show up in unexpected places. Recently, high school students horseplaying with mercury in Johnson County and in Lake County spilled the mercury, resulting in costly cleanups - $60,000 at one school.

Many healthcare facilities extensively use mercury-containing devices and few are certain where the devices end up. How many of these devices accidentally make it into the “burn bag” for medical and biohazard waste? Enough so that the medical waste standards require mercury controls on incinerators and set mercury emission limits! And consumers continue to purchase mercury thermometers and thermostats.

IKE believes it is time for IDEM to go beyond voluntary educational programs. IDEM needs to adopt reasonable regulations limiting mercury releases and to aggressively enforce mercury regulations that are on the books.

In the past few months, IDEM has taken some steps in the right direction. Water quality standards proposed in February would establish a statewide variance for mercury that municipalities would need to follow to avoid violating mercury standards in the wastewater discharge. While the language is short on specifics, it provides a framework for success.

In October, IDEM issued permits to Odgen Martin to burn medical waste in the Indianapolis municipal waste incinerator. While the permits fell short of IKE’s expectations, IDEM requires that Odgen Martin include in its contracts with medical waste generators a description of potential mercury-containing devices in healthcare facilities as well as a statement that mercury-containing waste is prohibited from getting into the medical waste.

In a letter on Oct. 21, 1999, to Commissioner Kaplan, IKE called on IDEM to do the following.

• Require an annual affirmation from medical waste generators that they have effective procedures in place to keep mercury out of the medical waste. Affirmations are simple tools to ensure that management has a handle on a problem.
• Begin hazardous waste inspections of healthcare facilities to ensure that mercury is not being mixed in with medical and solid waste rendering the facility a large quantity generator. Just a little bit of mercury can turn a load of solid waste into hazardous waste.
• Ensure facilities comply with the air permitting requirements for mercury. New or modified operations since the 1980s must undergo special evaluation whenever a facility’s potential-to-emit exceeds 200 pounds of mercury. Many facilities are over this limit.
• Improve the statewide mercury variance so that it requires aggressive actions by municipalities to keep mercury from devices out of the sewer system through monitoring, inventory tracking, point of purchase limits, and other means.