The Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act, a bill heavily influenced by the Coastal and Marine Mercury Ecosystem Research Collaborative, was introduced to the Senate floor for the fourth time on Sept. 19.
C-MERC, an initiative led by Dartmouth scientists, researchers and postdoctoral and graduate students, investigates the ways in which arsenic and mercury affect human health and ecosystems. Its recent projects on mercury influenced policymakers to expand the bill's scope during its planning stages to include marine ecosystems as well as freshwater ecosystems.
Proposed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the bill would build on existing environmental monitoring efforts and create a comprehensive system to track mercury levels in ecosystems. It would establish a scientific advisory group to help decide the specifics of the measuring, and its national scope would bring together scientists and policymakers to track ecosystem mercury levels, C-MERC member Celia Chen '78 said. The initial meeting about forming a mercury monitoring network began in 2003. Previous versions of the bill were drafted in 2007, 2009 and 2011, but all previous iterations failed to pass.
Collaborations between policymakers and scientists at Dartmouth and elsewhere culminated in this new monitoring program in recent years. Chen said a new monitoring system is required to track existing mercury adjustments made by scientists in critical ecosystems. As a result of Chen's research, policymakers included provisions that would establish a system to monitor acid rain levels.
C-MERC project consultant Kathleen Lambert '90 echoed Chen's support for mercury tracking.
"We have a lot of monitoring programs in place for many other pollutants, but not for mercury," Lambert said. "Given the potential harm to people, we have to know how much pollution there is and how effective we are in controlling it."
Robert Mason, who coleads a mercury research project in the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program, underlined the importance of adding marine ecosystems to the Act. Too much research has focused on freshwater ecosystems, though humans primarily depend on fish from estuaries and marine ecosystems, said Mason, also a marine science professor at the University of Connecticut.
"We especially need to get not just a baseline of what's out there now, but a monitoring program that will allow us to measure things through time," Chen said.
The introduction of the bill is particularly timely in light of President Barack Obama's recent call for national mercury controls. In October, the United Nations plans to sign and adopt the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global treaty for controlling mercury sources.
Chen, a principal investigator in the Dartmouth toxic metals program, has been researching mercury in aquatic systems for 18 years. Along with former interim president Carol Folt, she investigated the effects of mercury on freshwater systems and the sources of mercury pollution in lakes and fish. She has been a leading voice against mercury pollution in the scientific community, conducting research in many of the mercury hotspots throughout the Northeast, Lambert said. Scientists like Chen have consolidated their research into synthesis projects that highlight the important findings relevant to policy. These projects have been used by the Environmental Protection Agency in past reports, helping policymakers realize how extensive the mercury problem was in the early 2000s.
"In a time where a lot of the focus has shifted to climate change, she has really helped maintain a constant drumbeat around the science of mercury," Lambert said.
Chen emphasized that her research relied on the work of many people.
"A lot of the research that we've done over time in mercury has involved a lot of Dartmouth students," Chen said. "We've all been part of the effort."
