NRDC`s EARTH ACTION: The Bulletin for Environmental Activists

In This Issue:

1. Tell the chlorine industry to stop using toxic mercury
2. Tell Congress to keep pollution out of our rivers and streams
Plus: Get ready for Earth Day!

Action Alerts

1. Tell the chlorine industry to stop using toxic mercury

Although coal-fired power plants are the most notorious source of toxic mercury pollution to our lakes, streams and oceans, the chemical industry is just as bad. Even though non-mercury technology is widely available, a handful of chemical companies in the United States still use an outdated mercury process to make chlorine gas and lye, which are then used to make paper products, detergents, soaps and plastics.

NRDC has tested the air around some of these plants and found very high levels of mercury pollution. Much of this toxic substance winds up in our air and water and, eventually, in the fish that ends up on our dinner tables or in our tuna sandwiches. Once it`s in our bodies, mercury can limit normal brain activity and nervous system functions. It is especially dangerous for developing infants and small children and can cause decreased motor skills and learning disabilities at even low levels of exposure.

What to do

Send a message urging the chlorine industry to completely eliminate mercury from its manufacturing process.

Contact information

If you`d like do even more to help drive home the point that Americans want mercury out of our tuna and other fish that we eat, please send a can or pouch of tuna to the president of the Chlorine Institute at the address below. Please include a brief handwritten note (example: "Help get mercury out of my tuna fish by getting mercury out of your chlorine plants!").

Sample letter

Subject: Eliminate mercury from all U.S. chlorine plants

Dear Mr. Dungan,

The Chlorine Institute, a 210-member trade association, has allowed rampant mercury pollution by six U.S. member companies that insist on relying on dirty and dangerous mercury technology even though mercury-free technology is available and used widely here in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

Chlorine plants that use mercury are among the world`s largest sources of mercury contamination. Air quality tests around these plants show extremely high mercury levels at most of them.

It`s time for the entire chlorine industry to enter the 21st century and eliminate mercury from the chlorine manufacturing process. I urge you to deny Chlorine Institute membership to any company that will not commit to conversion away from mercury.

Sincerely,
[Your name and address]

2. Tell Congress to keep pollution out of our rivers and streams

Even though it is one of our nation`s most successful laws, the Clean Water Act is under assault. Polluters are arguing that the law does not apply to many types of waters that are not suitable for navigation, even though the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 110 million Americans get their drinking water from rivers and streams that are not navigable. At least 20 million acres of the nation`s remaining wetlands, which filter polluted water and provide flood storage, migratory bird habitat and fish and shellfish beds, are also in jeopardy of losing Clean Water Act protections.

If these waters are excluded from the Clean Water Act, we would have no nationwide law preventing mining companies, the oil and gas industry and other big corporate interests from dumping raw sewage, industrial chemicals and other poisons into a host of our waterways. And if headwater streams and wetlands become dumping grounds, it won`t be long until the larger lakes and rivers downstream will become polluted, too.

Polluters will continue to ask the courts to chop away at the Clean Water Act`s protections until Congress reaffirms the original intent of the Clean Water Act -- "to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation`s waters" -- by specifying that the waters in question are in fact covered. The Clean Water Authority Restoration Act would do that.

What to do

Send a message urging your senators and representative to co-sponsor and support the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act (H.R. 1356/S. 912).

Contact information

Get ready for Earth Day!

About NRDC

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a nonprofit environmental organization with 1.2 million members and online activists, and a staff of scientists, attorneys and environmental experts. Our mission is to protect the planet`s wildlife and wild places and ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.

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