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Field Highlights: You Gotta Have Standards

After weeks of phone calls, email alerts and social media announcements, the EPA public hearings finally took place.  What was all the fuss about? The mercury and air toxic standards proposed by the EPA in March.

How will these new standards help protect us?  For starters, it will prevent as many as 17,000 premature deaths, 11,000 heart attacks, and 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms each year.

Everyone is effected by contamination caused by coal fired power plants, and after 20 years the EPA proposed standards that will provide clean air and water for us and generations to come. (to read more…)

The hearings that took place in Philadelphia, Chicago and Atlanta were a huge success.  People were bussed in from surrounding cities to show their support for the standards and to tell their story.

Ed Perry, our Pennsylvania outreach coordinator, spoke in front of a packed house during the afternoon press conference in Philadelphia.

“‘Big Coal and its allies in Congress have been fighting against mercury regulations for decades. Now, for the first time, it looks like we may actually be able to get a mercury regulation in place.”

If you didn’t get the chance to attend the hearings, but still want to tell the EPA that you want better standards for mercury contamination take action here!

Hot Off the Press:

“25 percent of the fish tested last year had mercury levels that would put pregnant or nursing women, women who may become pregnant or children under age 7 at risk. The state frequently posts warnings at fishing access sites to our lakes warning folks about the hazard of eating the fish. This same warning list 10 lakes and ponds with such high mercury levels that these same women and children should eat no fish from them.” (read more…)

–This editorial was written by Eric Orff, a consultant for NWF, published in New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor

What You Can Do:

1. TONIGHT, Wednesday June 1st,  protect wildlife from dirty tar sands oil by dialing 877-229-8493 at 8:00pm EST or click here! Learn about what’s at stake for wildlife and local communities along the proposed 2,000-mile route for the oil pipeline, and find out what you can do to stop it now.



2. Take Action Online to keep our fish free from mercury. After you send your message to the EPA, encourage your friends, family, and neighbors to do the same!

3. Request postcards! Would your rather send a postcard to the EPA? Let us know if you want to sign a postcard–and recruit 20 others concerned about mercury in fish to do the same! Contact kordickj@nwf.org