A Texas Fish Story
In Texas the principal system for environmental protection is one in which we ask polluters to please not pollute so much. But, notwithstanding the genius of the system and the fact that we have said “please,” we still lead the country in power plant mercury emissions. The result so far is that possession of any fish or crabs from the Upper Lavaca Bay is illegal. Advisories are up for some or all of the fish in the Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend Reservoirs, Lakes Caddo, Daingerfield, Kimball, Pruitt, Ratcliff, and Steinhagen, and Big Cypress Creek. There’s an advisory for king mackerel for the entire Gulf of Mexico. And, only a third of the state’s lakes have been tested for this. Mercury pollution of air and water has serious effects on the health of fish, other wildlife, and human beings.
Coal-burning power plants are the state’s largest industrial source of this contamination. In July we joined with the SEED Coalition and other organizations from around the state in asking the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission to require power plants to reduce their mercury pollution. They probably won’t do it. It would go against the system.
