Fort Wayne area suffering from mercury contamination

FORT WAYNE -- A nearly 500 square-mile area near Fort Wayne has been labeled by an environmental group as the country's most mercury-contaminated location.\nThe report by Environmental Defense said it used information compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to estimate the amount of mercury pollution throughout the country.\nThe report used 1998 data and a computer model that analyzed weather patterns, mercury emissions from area coal-fired power plants and other information, said Michael Shore, a senior policy analyst for Environmental Defense.\nIt does not give a source for the contamination, nor does it specifically define the hot-spot area.\nInstead, the report released last month used mapping done by the EPA that divided the country into 22-mile-by-22-mile square grids. The location with the most mercury deposits was a square ambiguously described as being north of Fort Wayne, Shore said.\n"It's not a precise spot," he told The Journal Gazette for a story Sunday. "When you look at the specific sites, when you look at the states in the Midwest and the East, there are hot spots all over ... The places where mercury deposition is highest, local sources dominate."\nShore blamed the coal-burning power plants in Indiana, as well as plants in northeastern Illinois and western Ohio, for the contamination. The report also found high mercury levels in Michigan, Maryland, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania.\nThe Indiana Department of Environmental Management is aware of the problem of mercury pollution, which it considers a national problem, agency spokeswoman Laura Pippenger said.\nThe agency is working with the EPA to find out how it gathered and interpreted the data that indicated the northeastern Indiana hot spot.\n"This sort of modeling can have discrepancies that can indicate a hot spot like this," Pippenger said.\nMercury is a persistent substance that affects the nervous system and is especially dangerous for pregnant women and children. Indiana is one of at least 43 states to issue fish consumption advisories because of high mercury concentrations found in fish.\nAmerican Electric Power Co. releases 10 percent of all power plant mercury emissions, making it the country's largest contributor, according to a report by a coalition called Clear the Air.\n"We're probably a large emitter of mercury because we're the largest generator of electricity in the country, and a lot of our electricity comes from coal," AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said.\nShe said, however, that mercury pollution was a global issue and that mercury levels in the United States were significantly affected by global emissions. And whatever emissions American industry does cut, "it's not going to have a huge impact," McHenry said.