Friday, November 16, 2007

Nevada?s uncontrolled pollution is Idaho?s poison


Although Idahoans were "downwinder" victims in the notorious nuclear fallout from Nevada Cold War weapons tests, generations since seem to be indifferent to the airborne emissions of toxic chemicals, a growing threat from industrial and automotive sources.

Proof arrived this week in a chilling report from the U.S. Geological Survey, which found unacceptably high levels of mercury in brown trout taken from the supposedly pristine waters of Silver Creek, the nationally famous catch-and-release fishing preserve of notable beauty and pollution-free waters.

Financed by The Nature Conservancy, tests showed mercury levels in Silver Creek's brown trout at disturbingly high levels.

The suspected culprits? Gold mines in Nevada that spew poisonous dust into the air that is deposited in Idaho. Silver Creek pollution also includes airborne dust from an Oregon cement plant, 100 miles away.

Moreover, alarms are going up about the safety of the consumption of fish from 10 other bodies of water in Idaho.

In addition to the high danger of consumption of too much mercury-contaminated fish—especially by pregnant mothers and children—imagine what human bodies are breathing into their lungs and vascular systems.

People who have moved to Central Idaho expecting a pollution-free lifestyle are trapped and cannot run from what amounts to industrial negligence by operators of the mercury sources and indifference by Oregon and Nevada officials.

Just as Cold War "downwinders" found legal remedies to their illnesses and were awarded recompense by Washington, Idaho's state government has every legal right to demand an end to this pollution.

That action may be too rich for Idaho Gov. Butch Otter's libertarian live-and-let live philosophy. But if he doesn't order Attorney General Lawrence Wasden into federal court to seek an end to the fallout, others may. In the end, court-imposed monetary costs of poisoning fish and people could be a shocker.

The evidence of mercury pollution crossing state lines should be ample warning of the folly of developing coal-fired plants in Idaho where smokestack fallout will spew over nearby counties and states.

Idaho's clean environment and spectacular scenery lure hundreds of thousands of visitors, not to mention new residents, who pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the state's economy.

Mercury pollution puts the state's reputation, its economy and the health of its people at risk. Swift legal action, not dithering and hand wringing, is the solution.




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