An April 26, 2007 opinion piece by Charles T. Driscoll Jr. and David C. Evers has challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's (E.P.A.) Clear Air Mercury Rule, which is intended to bring down mercury emissions in the United States by 70 percent over the next 20 years.
In the article titled "The Danger Downwind" Driscoll, PI of Hubbard Brook LTER and professor of environmental systems engineering at Syracuse University, and Evers, the executive director of the BioDiversity Research Institute, cite a 10-year study of birds, fish, and mammals in the northwestern United States that show the existence of dangerous biological mercury "hot spots" where fish and wildlife have extremely high concentrations of mercury. They argue that the new rule could encourage the persistence of these hot spots, with dangerous consequences for the health of people and wildlife. They challenge the agency to consider the real danger of these hots spots and to work to eliminate them by creating a national mercury monitoring network to evaluate the need for steeper and faster reductions in mercury emissions, track how well the emissions limits alleviate hot spots and ultimately protect the environment and human health.
You can read the full article online at the NYT website (might require registration).