State officials regularly test fish and water for mercury, but not people

In a small room at a state government lab in Columbia, chemists talk with pride about their state-of-the-art equipment to measure mercury in human blood.

Pointing at a box the size of a microwave, they say they've had this $250,000 blood scanner for three years thanks to a federal anti-terrorism program.

They say the scanner is so advanced it can break blood samples down to the atomic level, just what the state needs to measure mercury levels in people.

So how many tests for the public has the state Department of Health and Environmental Control run through its expensive scanner?

One.

Grace Beahm
The Post and Courier

State tests of water and fish have led to mercury warnings on more than 1,700 miles of rivers and 200,000 acres of lakes in South Carolina.

South Carolina has a serious mercury problem. More than 1,747 miles of river have fish with high levels of mercury. Some fish are so tainted that if they were sold in stores, the Food and Drug Administration could order a national recall.

Not only does mercury build up in fish tissue, it accumulates in the bodies of people who eat these fish, silently destroying cells and causing a host of problems including birth defects and heart problems. When The Post and Courier recently tested 41 people who eat freshwater fish from mercury hot spots, it found that 17 had mercury levels higher than a federal safety benchmark.

But the rarely used blood scanner in DHEC's lab is just one example of the state's anemic efforts to understand mercury's impact on South Carolinians, especially those who depend on fish to supplement their diets. The state also hasn't studied whether mercury levels are rising or falling, or the economic impact of having contaminated fish in nearly every major coastal river and lake, interviews with health officials reveal. And critics question the state's moves to reduce mercury pollution in the first place.

Earlier this year, DHEC could have forced power plants to take more aggressive steps to cut mercury emissions. Instead, the agency launched a new "cap-and-trade" program that allows power companies to make millions of dollars by selling mercury pollution "credits," or use the credits themselves to delay installing cleanup equipment. Utilities say the program gives them more flexibility; conservation groups call the program a government giveaway.

State regulators say that tight budgets and other constraints make studies difficult to do, and that they walk a tough regulatory tightrope balancing the health needs of the public with the needs of industries and people they serve.

But considering mercury's toxicity and potential to harm the public, the state should be doing much more, said Chester Sansbury, retired assistant chief of DHEC's Bureau of Water.

"They can take a more aggressive stance," he said. "The industries will fight them because they want to save money. But industries ought to do more, and DHEC can require them to do more."

Fish get tested

Though DHEC has done little to examine mercury's effects on people, agency employees work hard to measure levels in fish.

Every year, two DHEC biologists, Chad Altman and Will Dillman, travel with their aluminum boat to fishing spots across the state, stunning fish with special electrodes and bringing their catch back to a squat, concrete-block aquatic biology lab next to DHEC's headquarters in Columbia.

There, they fillet the fish and put them in blenders, sometimes running seven blenders at a time. Next they freeze the samples with dry ice and send them to DHEC's chemistry lab several miles away to measure how much mercury is in the fish. Based on these results, DHEC issues advisories warning people not to eat certain species on various rivers, or to eat only so many fish per week or month.

Butch Younginer helped start the program in the early 1970s. He retired last year but came back to work part time. "The three of us standing here, along with some outreach support, make up the entire mercury advisory program," he said. Together, they do about 1,800 tests a year, each test costing about $101 in manpower and materials. They also distribute roughly 50,000 fish advisory booklets across the state.

The program almost went belly-up in the 1980s because of budget cutbacks, Younginer said. Then North Carolina scientists found high levels of mercury in fish in the Waccamaw River, which snakes through both states. Those findings pressured South Carolina officials into resurrecting the fish-testing program, he said.

This happened at a pivotal time. For reasons that scientists still don't understand, mercury levels began to rise in South Carolina and other parts of the country. "We weren't seeing mercury, then suddenly after 1990-91, we started seeing mercury everywhere on the coastal plain," Younginer said.

Since then, Younginer's team has collected an enormous amount of data on mercury pollution and fish. But because of limited time and resources, the agency hasn't taken an in-depth look at whether mercury levels are rising or falling and at which locations, or at whether local industries might be creating mercury hot spots.

Younginer said he has "a gut feeling" that mercury levels have leveled off during the past few years after rising sharply in the 1990s. He said he would like to do more analysis of his team's data, as well as measure other toxins. But even today, his mercury advisory program doesn't have a solid spot in the agency's budget. "We beg, borrow and steal to find the money to do what we can," he said, "and I personally think that we have done an excellent job."

What about people?

Younginer's unit sends the fish samples in small vials to a special room on the third floor of DHEC's chemistry lab in northwest Columbia. There, chemists measure amounts of mercury in parts per million, while taking precautions to make sure they aren't contaminated by the poison.

"But the real story about mercury is on the clinical side," said Beth Baird, a DHEC chemist who works on the first floor in another lab that tests human blood for mercury, lead and other toxic metals.

The agency received its $250,000 blood scanner in 2004 as part of a federal counterterrorism program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's top-of-the-line," Baird said of the new machine. Jim Sexton, another chemist, nodded and said the scanner could be a tremendous tool to monitor mercury levels in residents' blood. Right now, Baird and Sexton said, if someone wants his or her blood tested, a physician has to request it. They said running a test costs less than $20.

So far, the only test they've done on a member of the public was for a doctor on Hilton Head Island who ate a lot of sushi and wanted to know if he had high mercury levels in his blood. They also tested each other out of curiosity.

Though DHEC has barely used this expensive scanner to test for mercury in human blood, it recently acquired a second scanner. During a recent visit, the new machine sat in the hallway, waiting to be set up.

Why has DHEC done so few tests for the public?

The main purpose of the equipment is to help South Carolina prepare for chemical terrorism attacks, said John Reddic of DHEC's Bureau of Laboratories. He said the state is "moving from limitations for use only from chemical terrorism to full use," including tests for the general population. He said the agency is reviewing an official process for doctors interested in submitting samples. He added, "By law, DHEC cannot compete with private, non-governmental labs but can respond upon request of a physician or to any perceived threat to the health of the population or environment."

"That's flabbergasting," said Blan Holman, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center. "If they've got the equipment to test people and made a decision not to use it in any meaningful way, it's borderline scandalous."

A growing list of states and cities have begun testing people for mercury in recent years. In 2005, researchers in Wisconsin measured mercury in more than 2,000 people to better understand exposure levels and fish consumption patterns. Florida, Louisiana and New York City also have done extensive tests. Among other things, these studies found that frequent fish-eaters had the highest levels of mercury in their bodies.

Can the problem be reversed?

Sansbury, the retired DHEC water official, said he had a difficult time persuading his peers and state lawmakers to take a greater interest in mercury.

If he could create a wish list, he would have the state study mercury's effects on people and wildlife, as well as whether mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and industries are landing nearby and creating mercury hot spots.

"Other than fish advisory notices, mercury contamination wasn't getting much attention at all," said Sansbury, who is now state coordinator for Republicans for Environmental Protection.

That's too bad, he said, because scientists recently found that reducing mercury pollution can have relatively dramatic effects.

In south Florida, for instance, tighter regulations on medical and municipal waste incinerators, a major source of mercury emissions, reduced mercury pollution by 93 percent in the 1990s. In that same period, Florida researchers found that mercury levels in largemouth bass decreased by as much as 75 percent.

A more recent study by Canadian and American scientists concluded that if mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and other industries were reduced, mercury levels in fish would drop within a decade and fewer people's health would be at risk.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Back on the first floor of DHEC's lab, the agency's chemists are excited about the possibility of testing people for mercury someday.

"Oh man, I would love it if doctors start calling us," said Baird, one of the chemists. She said she would especially like to see the tests used on children and pregnant women. "We've done the environmental side on mercury and fish. Let's start working on people. That's the real story."

You can reach Tony Bartelme at tbartelme@postandcourier.com or 937-5554 and Doug Pardue at 937-5558 or dpardue@postandcourier.com.