Got merc?

While it's trained congressman has been making a fool out of himself on a regional and even national stage, corporate mining has been busy right here in Nevada, muscling through some mighty industry-friendly regulations designed to let some of the state's biggest corporate players keep spewing mercury pollution into the air just like they always have (Scandalmonger has been all over the mercury issue, btw).

As the Nevada Department of Industrial, er, Environmental Protection holds hearings on the new rules, several groups are calling on NDIP, er, NDEP, to rewrite them. Among the problems with the proposed rules, according to a statement issued by Great Basin Mine Watch, current operators would be grandfathered in and not have to meet more stringent monitoring and reporting requirements. And proposed new monitoring and reporting requirements are inadequate in any case.

Also, "As currently drafted, the rules could be weakened if the cost of implementation is considered too great," adds GBMW. "Yet the draft language does not allow for the rules to be strengthened based on public health or environmental concerns."

Well, we wouldn't want the Nevada Department of Industrial, er, Environmental Protection imposing an undue economic burden on such good corporate neighbors, would we? Besides, how much mercury are we talking about here?

According to GBMW, four gold mines in Nevada produce as much mercury pollution as 25 coal-fired power plants. And mercury is a nasty, nasty public health threat...

...particularly to children. Scientists and health professionals have made sobering connections between mercury and neurological conditions that affect children and unborn babies. According to a 2005 study by the National Institute of Health, up to 637,000 of the 4 million children born in the U.S. each year have been exposed to mercury above the EPA’s safety level. Results include delayed onset of walking and talking, and deficits in learning ability. Scientists have also linked mercury to autism....

"If we feel the level of pollution we have now is acceptable, this program, essentially a rubber-stamp, will seem just fine," said Elyssa Rosen with Great Basin Mine Watch.

Like every other corporation operating in Nevada, the transnational mining conglomerates pay no state income tax. Unlike their mineral industry brethren in coal, oil and natural gas, Nevada's mining giants don't pay any federal mineral royalties. Back when the industry was relevant, which is to say when it played a hell of a lot larger role in the state's economy than it does now, it used its political clout to enshrine its minimal state tax burden not in statutes, but in the Nevada Constitution. All of which is to say that these conglomerates headquartered out of state or out of the country are getting off pretty light 'round here, and can easily afford the cost of an adequate mercury emissions control program.

Or, as Jan Gilbert with the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada put it, "Adequate air monitoring is something that is inexpensive and feasible. What does it say about our state leadership if we are more concerned with the costs incurred by one of the wealthiest industries in the world than we are with the risks to our families?"

It says, Jan, that we are more concerned with the costs incurred by one of the wealthiest industries in the world than we are with the risks to our families. Next?

"How is it that we remove our kids from school when there's mercury in the classroom, yet we allow big corporations to pollute the air, which we all breathe, at such a level?" asked Tina Nappe of the Sierra Club.

Damned if we know, Tina.

We suspect, however, that if all that mercury wafted its way down to the Las Vegas Strip and sickened a bunch of arms merchants, drug dealers and other high rollers to the point that they were scared of coming here anymore, the state wouldn't hesitate to get mercury emissions control. Lickety-split.