Coal Ash and Mercury: why coal is a health hazard

By David Shearman and Mariann Lloyd-Smith

Updated Wed 22 Dec 2010, 8:01am

With 15 new power stations planned or approved for Australia, the Prime Minister has assured us that we will ''never
again have a dirty power station built''.

In using the word dirty, she was referring to power stations that do not store carbon dioxide. Does she not see that dirty
applies also to the air pollution that contributes to four of the leading causes of ill health; heart disease, cancer, stroke,
and chronic respiratory disease? And what of the contamination of the environment with toxic substances like mercury?

These pollutants will continue to accumulate and to cause ill health throughout the world for as long as coal is burned. On
so many levels, the costs of these coal pollutants to society are immense and must be added to those of climate change
and its many impacts on health.

Coal ash is the product left after coal is combusted or burned. It is a dangerous mix of arsenic, lead, mercury and other
poisons. A new report Coal Ash, the toxic threat to our health and environment has been published by Physicians for
Social Responsibility (PSR) in the USA. It is an analysis of the health hazards of the legacy of coal combustion, the coal
ash dumps that epitomise power generation landscapes.

In 2008, coal ash came under focus in the USA when a disposal pond burst in Tennessee contaminating nearby rivers.
Water samples showed arsenic levels at 149 times the concentration regarded as safe for drinking. The water also
contained elevated levels of other toxic metals; lead, thallium, barium, cadmium, chromium, and mercury.

These toxic metals are slowly released from disposal sites. According to the US Environmental Protection Authority, there
is leaching into waterways and ground water, streams, rivers and aquifers and the health of communities has been
affected. In the US, the EPA and non-government organisations have documented 140 cases of contamination of
drinking water. Coal ash is being recycled into paved roads, paths and land-ll where it continues to be a toxic hazard
through both leaching and spread in dust.

In Australia, the work of the CRC for Coal in Sustainable Development has been mainly to develop economic uses for
coal ash because The content of potentially toxic trace elements in Australian coal ash is low by world standards and, of
these elements, only a small proportion - about 20 per cent or less - is actually mobilised.

Even if this were so, it fails to recognise that toxic metals like mercury are accumulating in the world and any release
whatsoever is adding to the human health burden. In Australia, generating electricity from coal is responsible for the vast
majority of mercury air emissions and mercury waste reported to the National Pollutant Inventory.

Mercury is now recognised by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Environmental Program as a global
threat to human health and the environment. When mercury is released into the environment, it evaporates, travels on air
currents, and then falls back to earth. People can be poisoned by inhaling mercury vapours, of which approximately 80
per cent is absorbed by the body. Mercury is toxic to the nervous system and to the immune, reproductive and
cardiovascular systems.

When mercury enters the aquatic environment, it can be transformed by micro-organisms into the much more toxic form,
methyl mercury. This accumulates in sh and people who eat the sh. A mother passes on the mercury that has
accumulated in her body to the developing foetus, which is the most sensitive to the toxic effects of mercury. It affects the
development of their central nervous system, robbing our children of their full potential.

Based on a growing body of scientic knowledge about the harms caused by mercury exposure, governments around the
world have decided that international action to control mercury pollution is needed. They agreed in 2009 to prepare a
global, legally binding mercury control treaty and to start intergovernmental treaty negotiations. These negotiations are to
conclude with nal treaty text ready for adoption by 2013.

The toxicity of coal cannot be avoided, whether delivered via air pollution or in the form of coal ash dumps. The US study
leads us to ask about the scale of monitoring and surveillance of coal ash in Australia where there are no national
standards. The mercury levels of populations in the Upper Hunter and other coal regions are unknown. We urgently need
an independent comprehensive health study of all coal communities in NSW and nationally, and transparent and ongoing
monitoring of air, soil and water pollutants.

PSR indicates that corporations that burn coal and generate coal ash must not be free of responsibility for the
consequences they unleash on human and environmental health. It is our contention that when all health and
environmental consequences of the burning of coal are tallied, coal is possibly the most expensive form of energy. It is
madness to approve more power stations, particularly when carbon capture and storage is no more than speculative.

Mariann Lloyd-Smith PhD is the CoChair of the International POPs Elimination Network and a Senior Advisor to the
Australian based National Toxic Network.

David Shearman is emeritus professor of medicine, a medical doctor and honorary secretary of Doctors for the
Environment Australia.

Topics: business-economics-and-nance, industry, coal, environment, pollution, air-pollution, land-pollution, water-pollution, health, environmental-health

First posted Wed 22 Dec 2010, 8:01am