Ohio River Foundation

Mercury Pollution of Ohio River Continues

(UPDATE - In October 2006 ORSANCO relaxed the mercury standards. PPG subsequently applied for a permit under the relaxed rules that was granted. PPG now discharges pollution at the excessive levels detailed in the article below.)

High Mercury Levels on Ohio River May Fall With Appeal

(The following is excerpted from U.S. Newswire and The Charleston Gazette – Ken Ward, Jr. staff writer)

---October 2006---

The number one source of mercury pollution in the nation's waters -- a PPG Industries chemical plant near Natrium, W.Va. -- received a temporary reprieve to an order that it cut its pollution of the Ohio River. Kanawha Circuit Judge Irene Berger suspended the order while she considers an appeal filed by PPG Industries. Every year, the PPG plant pumps more than 1,200 pounds of mercury into the air. The plant, north of New Martinsville, also leads the state in mercury discharged into streams. PPG lawyers are fighting a state Environmental Quality Board ruling that would force the company to dramatically reduce mercury discharges to the Ohio River from its plant at Natrium, Marshall County.

In 2005, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) issued a permit to PPG to discharge wastewater from its Natrium plant into the Ohio River. The permit gave the plant a two-year "grace period" to avoid meeting the required limit for mercury discharges. During this grace period, the permit allowed the plant to discharge 76 times more mercury than the legal limit. The permit also allowed PPG to use a laboratory method that could only detect mercury when it was 16 times the legal limit.

West Virginia's Environmental Quality Board imposed tighter clean water standards in response to a legal challenge to the plant's discharge permit brought by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ) and the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment (Appalachian Center) on behalf of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition (WVRC). The new limits are 76 times lower than the amount of mercury allowed under the challenged permit. WVRC's attorneys argued that the method under the permit was useless in measuring compliance with the legal limit of mercury pollution.

On July 24, 2006, the Board issued a final order requiring PPG to meet the lawful limit immediately, and use the more sensitive laboratory method that can detect whether the plant is in compliance. The appeal of this ruling is now pending.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory, PPG's Natrium chemical plant discharged 32 pounds of mercury into surface waters in 2004 -- more than a quarter of all the mercury released into surface waters by the top 100 mercury polluters in the country. Mercury is a highly toxic metal that accumulates in the bodies of fish, making them unsafe to eat. Mercury has been shown to damage the human nervous system and is especially harmful to children. Of particular concern is the fact that mercury becomes more concentrated as it passes from a mother to her fetus. Children are at risk of having to struggle to keep up in school or needing remedial classes or special education. Thus, due to mercury contamination, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky have each advised that people should limit their consumption of fish caught in their respective states.

PPG's Natrium chemical plant makes chlorine by pumping salty water through vats of pure mercury. It is one of only eight remaining U.S. plants that still use this old technology, which dates from the late 1800s. Two chlor-alkali plants in the U.S. have announced plans to eliminate their use of mercury in favor of a cleaner process. One of those is PPG’s facility in Lake Charles, La., which plans to end mercury used by mid-2007.

"For decades, PPG's outdated plant has pumped toxic mercury into the Ohio River, which our families use for fishing and water sports," said Liz Garland, WVRC's executive director. "It's about time the state forced PPG to clean up its act."

“If PPG can do it in Lake Charles, La., then they should be able to do it at all their plants,” said Rich Cogen, ORF Executive Director. “They should be using best available technology, not that of the 1800’s.” ORF will continue to work with WVRC and its other watershed partners to force PPG to update its operations to the same modern standards as other industrial businesses.

The West Virginia Environmental Quality Board's final order in West Virginia Rivers Coalition v. McClung is available online at http://www.tlpj.org.

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