In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Hi there,

I am desperate for a tuna melt with some chips on the side, but am living in fear for my insides with the possibility of mercury in the fish.  I see "tongol" tuna in cans at my local high-end market and at the local co-op, so I'd like to make the assumption that this is somehow better for me, but I know that you will enlighten me and all of those others missing the foods of our youth...

Missing the Fish


Dear Missing the Fish (and all of you who are missing the foods of your youth),

It’s definitely a big bummer when you realize that your childhood comfort foods are not only potentially hazardous to your health, but also environmentally dicey. In tuna’s case, it contains mercury and it’s also sometimes fished in unsustainable ways. Um, dolphin-killing ways.

But don’t fret. It’s my job to rebuild your favorite meals by making them better for your “insides,” and for the outside (that is, the planet). Oh, and delicious too. Excuse me for a moment while I get my magic pixie wand.

While I look for it, here’s the canned tuna backstory:

• Mercury isn’t just a possibility in canned tuna; it’s a reality in every bite. Industrial polluters such as coal-fired plants pump methylmercury into our air. This stuff then falls from the sky and makes its way into our waterways, where it accumulates in fish that we eat. Big, longer-living fish and fish at the top of the food chain, such as tuna, accumulate more methylmermercury.

• While the fact that methylmercury is bad for us isn’t disputed, no one really knows how much of the stuff it takes to harm any given person. “There has never been a blinded, placebo, controlled study giving humans methylmercury to discern its effects over any length of time,” explained Jane M. Hightower, M.D., by email. “I doubt an institutional review board would consider such an experiment as ethical, yet you can buy all you want at your local grocery store without informed consent.” Hightower, who is widely acknowledged as the first American physician to recognize low-level mercury poisoning in patients who regularly consume certain types of fish, wrote the recently released book Diagnosis: Mercury.

• Not surprisingly, the FDA consumption guidelines for limiting methylmercury from canned tuna seem like a bit of a crapshoot. "Moms and Moms to Be" are told that canned light tuna is a low-mercury fish, but to limit it to 12 ounces per week whilst feeding kids "smaller portions," which seems outrageously vague given that methylmercury can harm kids' brains. They also advise limiting albacore tuna to six ounces per week. Is this stringent enough? There's confusion, even among our governmental agencies. "The FDA is in charge of commercial fish, but has not completely adopted the EPA’s determination that individuals keep mercury consumption to less than 0.1 microgram per kilogram of body weight per day, " according to Hightower.

• Meanwhile, who the heck knows how much mercury you are actually getting in any can of tuna. Defenders of Wildlife tested cans of imported tuna and found that one in 20 cans were unfit for human consumption, according to the FDA's standards.

• As I mentioned, tuna has problems beyond mercury. If you don’t see information about fishing methods on the can or package, assume that deadly-to-wildlife methods, such as purse seining or, worse yet, long-lining, were used. To read more about fishing methods go here.

• Dolphins are still dying for our tuna salad. Although the rate of dolphin slaughter slowed significantly because of the fishing industry’s response to public outrage, dolphin populations are not recovering well (in the immortal words of Doug Adams, “So long and thanks for all the fish!”). For dolphin-safe tuna, look for this official Earth Island Institute Dolphin Safe logo. Other so-called “dolphin-safe” labels lack their rigor. Sadly, no label can guarantee that dolphins are truly safe when it comes to fishing for tuna. 

Okay. I found the pixie wand. Let’s see if it can revive your appetite with two options.

Option #1: Use minimal-mercury, sustainably caught tuna. This tuna typically comes from younger tuna that hasn’t had time to accumulate lots of methylmercury. (This is why canned white albacore tuna, which comes from bigger, older albacore, is higher in mercury than light canned tuna, which tends to come from younger, smaller skipjack.) Wild Planet, Eco Fish, and Vital Choice are a few brands to try. Sustainably caught tuna is pole, troll, “hand” or line-caught. Also be sure to use your hard-earned dollars to reward companies that conduct independent testing for mercury and PCBs, and that use BPA-free cans. This stuff will be more costly than your average can of tuna, but the alternative is brainkill-noodle casserole.

Option #2: Ditch the tuna altogether and use sardines, which may be making a culinary comeback. The biggest taste problem with tuna is that it tends to be dry. (Remember the tongol you mentioned? It’s a species of tuna that tends to be moister and therefore popular. The Monterey Bay Aquarium ranks most tongol as a fish to "avoid" because of high levels of bycatch and poor enforcement of fisheries regulations.) But dryness isn’t a problem for sardines, which are not only oilier, but also lower on the food chain, low in contaminants such as mercury, and high in the always-popular omega-3 fatty acids. According to Hightower, “If one consumed a low-mercury fish such as sardines or salmon, only two ounces would be needed to give adequate omega-3 intake for a day. If you consumed four ounces of it, you would take in on average, 3 mcg of mercury for that meal, and still have room for another equally low mercury meal for that week."

But will you like the taste?

In the name of science, I made two batches of melts using this classic diner recipe for my tuna-loving friend, Kim. One batch contained tuna; the other skinless, boneless sardines packed in water. While Kim admitted that the sardine melt was fishier tasting, she said it was close enough to tuna to convince her to make the switch. More incentive: With this mercury calculator, I used Kim’s weight to calculate that if she ate a six-ounce can of albacore tuna, she had consumed 140 percent of the EPA’s suggested safe mercury consumption, whereas the same amount of sardines put her at a mere 10 percent.

The catch (pardon my pun)?

Kim didn’t think her kids would go for the sardines.

It’s time to enlist my savvy, tireless readers, or Jessica Seinfeld, to post some deceptively delicious sardine recipes. In the meantime, to go with your melt, check out which sustainable chips Grist found most delicious.

Until then, for the love of God, please don’t ask me about meatloaf,

Lou 

PS: For more information about the different species of tuna, consult a seafood watch list. You can also get text information on your cell—handy when you’re pondering a restaurant menu or grocery store cold-case—by using the FishPhone. 

Related Links:

Monterey Bay Sustainable Seafood Card—Not Worth the Paper It’s Printed On?

More NYC farmers markets accept food stamps and sales soar

So long and thanks for all the fish

The following is an interview with Jason Burnett, who worked in the EPA under President GW Bush. In it, we discuss efforts by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Burnett quit the EPA in protest in June 2008, alleging interference from the Office of the Vice President.

The interview is meant as a supplement to the story, "Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask."

What was your job at EPA?

I was brought in to lead the response to the Mass v. EPA Supreme Court case, and to develop the first federal GHG regulations.

Did you work on both the endangerment finding and the rules?

Traditionally, EPA has collapsed both of those into one rulemaking -- they have, in the preamble to the rule, the discussion about endangerment. That's the sequencing we were planning to have. We were, at least initially, on a very fast clock. There was political desire to get everything done by the end of the administration's time [in office].

So you felt like you could get the rules out the door fairly quickly?

There was a pretty large, impressive team put on this, up to 100 people.

There's no question there was a change of course -- for an understandable, if not justifiable, reason: Congress was in the process of passing the Energy Independence & Security Act (EISA), which did much of what we were planning on doing through regulations.

There was never a strong desire -- I daresay, in many quarters outside of EPA, any desire -- to move on to the stationary sources, but the way the CAA works, after you touch the mobile sources you automatically and immediately have to deal with stationary sources. From the political perspective at the White House, it was an unfortunate side effect -- worth doing only because it advanced the goal of increasing fuel economy of cars and trucks and creating more volume for renewable and alternative fuels. After passage of the EISA, there was another way of accomplishing those same goals, and they didn't then need to deal with the stationary source ramifications, -- namely, the PSD/NSR challenge.

Did the Bush administration ever really think they could get out of it, or were they just kicking the can down the road?

There were some people who thought they could make an argument, which ultimately would lose. And other people who said, "we don't want to make superfluous legal arguments, we'll just figure some other way of delaying." Fortunately for the integrity of our court system, they did the latter, basically by saying, "this is really complicated and interconnected, and would benefit from public input, and therefore we're going to go out and talk about all the complications and interconnections."

How do you think the Obama EPA's rules will differ from what your team came up with?

I think they'll be different in two fundamental ways. One is, they're going to be more aggressive. Two, they're going to deal with the California waiver, because the Obama admin has now granted it, whereas the Bush administration denied it. Whether the California program is in force will affect how you design the federal program. So EPA need to make at least those two adjustments.

I'm not surprised we still haven't seen the proposed rule. They probably could have pushed it a little faster, but they probably wanted to give Congress time to work through legislation. Virtually everyone believes that legislation will be better.

I keep hearing that. Is it true?

It entirely depends on how good the legislation is. It would be very easy to improve upon what the CAA would do. I have at times pushed for very narrow CAA fix. You could address the most problematic or challenging parts of the CAA in a very surgical way. At the other extreme is to pass the comprehensive, 1000-plus page bill.

How could the CAA be made more suited to the challenge of regulating CO2?

EPA certainly has discretion, and I'm confident it's being quite aggressive in pursuing ways of making GHGs fit within the CAA. But that will be challenged in court. Pretty much regardless of what they propose, there will be legal vulnerabilities. Trying to make GHGs fit within the CAA, you're going to have to be fairly creative in how you interpret certain terms and how you sequence the program.

Can lawsuits stop the regulations?

They may not delay the effectiveness of the regulations but they may make it pretty messy. Parts of the regulations may be passed back to EPA -- either left in force and passed back to EPA to rectify legal deficiencies, or taken off the books and passed back to EPA.

Exhibit A in the challenges of the CAA is the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) / New Source Review (NSR) program. EPA has a proposed rule over at OMB for review on how to work through PSD -- I haven't seen it. I'm sure EPA's trying to deal with the volume thresholds in the CAA, which say that a "significant" source of pollution emits either 100 tons or 250 tons, depending on the type of source.

The Supreme Court gave the definition of pollutant such broad range, but the volume thresholds are weirdly specific. How could Congress know how many tons of some future pollutant would be significant?

The original ICTA petition and later the Commonwealth of Mass were smart to focus on Section 202 of the CAA, which works quite well for regulating GHGs. In fact most of Title II, the mobile sources title, works quite well. There wasn't much attention paid in that case to the other dominoes that would fall upon issuing a S202 regulation. Also, there was the view that if this is what a plain reading indicates, what Congress had in mind -- you're going to regulate sources that emit 100 tons -- then you've got to find a way to make it work. And if GHGs meet the definition of air pollutants, they meet the definition of air pollutants, no matter how inconvenient that may be for the regulators and the regulated community.

Conservative advocacy group CEI says that EPA either obeys the thresholds and destroys the economy or, unilaterally and illegally, changes them.

That is something we foresaw years ago. It's a legal question.

There is a huge advantage to Congress raising that threshold. It would be a one-sentence amendment: For the purposes of greenhouse gases, the CAA threshold shall be 25,000 tons. That would solve a large fraction of the challenges.

I wouldn't be surprised if the court put EPA on some kind of schedule, where they are allowed to start out with a higher threshold, but over time that threshold had to move down to 250 or 100 tons. I hope EPA is successful in defending its proposal to lower the thresholds There are very good policy reasons not to try to apply PSD to the very smallest sources.

CEI is wants to turn this into a regulatory nightmare, so they can then stand back and say, I told you so, EPA ruins everything they touch.

Explain PSD. Why is it such a problem?

PSD applies to either new or major modifications -- it requires any new or modified facility to install Best Available Control Technology (BACT). For other pollutants, there's a long history of determining what BACT is. So we understand for a petroleum refinery, BACT today is a low-NOX burner, for instance. But right now we don't have any precedent for what constitutes BACT for greenhouse gases. So that's one problem, but it's one we can get around. EPA can start establishing this precedent.

The NSR program has been hugely contentious as it applies to regular pollutants, because there's this question as to what constitutes a major modification. That issue would come back with a vengeance when greenhouse gases come into play. A very small modification can increase GHG emissions by 100 tons. Take a coal-fired power plant that is emitting several million tons of CO2 a year -- if they increase their operations by, say, 20 minutes over the coarse of a year, that emits a huge amount of CO2, more than 100 tons, certainly. If you do something that increases your emissions a fraction of 1%, that arguably could trigger PSD and require you to install BACT. The scare story is that that will cause facility managers for any large source of pollution to really just freeze up and not make any modifications at all.

What kind of modification would entail 25,000 tons?

It's in the eye of the beholder whether it's big or small. If you think of something emitting 2.5 million tons a year, then 25,000 tons is 1%. Doesn't seem all that large. On the other hand, from the perspective of the environment, 25,000 is in and of itself a large source. The challenge we're dealing with is, these large emitters just emit so, so much CO2.

There have been pollution control exemptions. So if you're going in and making a modification for the purposes of pollution control, that in itself doesn't trigger NSR for all the other pollutants. It's a mechanism to reduce that perverse incentive -- the incentive to do nothing at all.

There's no question that will be litigated.

Say more about the BACT problem. Could IGCC be BACT for a new coal-fired plant?

The question will be, what constitutes BACT for a new coal-fired power plant? Is it carbon capture and storage (CCS) or something else?

In fact, environmental groups have petitioned EPA to find that IGCC is BACT. One of the counter-arguments will be, the baseline analysis of BACT does not include modifying the source. So if you if you propose a coal-fired power plant, BACT can't tell you to build a gas-fired plant. The argument that industry will likely make is, if I'm coming in proposing a pulverized coal plant, BACT shouldn't switch types of sources over to IGCC.

The whole issue of what constitutes BACT will itself be litigated. There will be people arguing that CCS is not commercially available and therefore can't constitute BACT. Others will argue that IGCC is modifying the source and therefore can't be considered BACT. We've yet to really even start that debate in earnest -- it will be an ongoing area of employment for lawyers.

Also, BACT is supposed to be a case-by-case review, where you're looking at the best technology at that point in time. Even if we decide today that something doesn't yet meet the threshold, someone will argue tomorrow, well, now we do.

Can a cap-and-trade system for GHGs be set up under the CAA?

I may have as much experience as anybody in that question: My first assignment when I came to EPA was to develop a cap-and-trade system under Section 111 and 111d of the CAA.

Sec. 111 is new source performance standards (NSPS), but 111d applies to existing sources. I've been of the view that if you are going to move forward with the CAA, the way to do it is to cover stationary sources -- as much as you decide, largely as a policy matter, you want to -- under 111 and 111d. Whether or not you put in place a cap-and-trade system depends on how much legal risk you want to take.

When I was at EPA we developed a cap-and-trade system under 111d. It was the mercury emissions rule, much-maligned by environmentalists because they were worried about hotspots. But no one's concerned about hotspots for CO2.

You dust off the legal argument EPA made for using 111d for a cap-and-trade system, and you search and replace mercury with CO2. You'd put both environmental groups and industry in an awkward position. Environmental groups would want to support the rule, presumably. Industry would not want to but they're already on record saying EPA has authority to issue a cap-and-trade system under 111 -- they wanted to have that for mercury.

It would be, in some ways, a more cumbersome cap-and-trade system than what Congress, at least in theory, could do. 111d is fundamentally a partnership between EPA and the states; EPA can't set a national program, period, whether it's cap-and-trade or some other program. Rather, EPA sets out the overall goals and tells the states to figure out how to regulate to meet those goals. The way it would presumably work is, EPA would strongly encourage states to opt in to the national cap-and-trade system -- or whatever it develops. But there's no requirement for states to do that.

Would the US regional cap-and-trade systems qualify under that kind of program?

I think that's exactly what would happen. EPA would set emission reduction criteria for existing sources and states would be in charge of designing programs to meet those, and the states that already have cap-and-trade programs, like the RGGI states or the Western states, would either be able to argue that their program already meets the EPA requirement, or would have to modify their program in some relatively minor ways to fit the EPA program. But what it would do is force all the other states to develop something, or essentially opt in to the federal program.

The threat of EPA regs was supposed to drive conservatives and business to the table. It doesn't really seem to be happening.

Not to the degree I might have expected. Part of the issue is that groups like the Chamber of Commerce are positioning themselves as, Just Say No. They're going to Just Say No up to the bitter end. Then they're going to complain about the regulations EPA moves forward with, even though any rational person looking forward can see that this is a natural outgrowth of their strategy.

The US Chamber is doing a disservice to their own members, for two reasons: one, many of their members stand to do quite well in a carbon-constrained world; two, they are pretending they can say no to both, when in fact the choice is one or the other.

Is there anything conservatives or business could do to stop the EPA going forward, or put roadblocks in the way?

I don't think so, because there was a lot of work in the previous administration to figure out what that road block could be, and they didn't come up with it. And that was when they had a receptive administration.

This is after we had completed our work and then it was rejected. Then, all attention was paid to, how do we relieve EPA of its obligation to respond to this? CEI and the Chamber were putting a huge amount of effort into figuring out legal theories, because if they'd come up with a plausible legal theory, it would have been forced on EPA. No theory came forward that was even plausible, and I heard a lot of theories. None passed the laugh test. If there is one out there I think it would have been discovered during that process.

More and more you're going to see the Chamber and EEI and CEI trying to figure out either how to make this a real big mess that will then cause political backlash, or at least dragging in smaller businesses that realize their industry is going to be regulated and just want others to be in the boat with them.

Do you think EPA can do it?

What EPA will face is a very large challenge and some inefficiencies, but they'll make it work. It won't be what anyone would design if starting with a blank sheet of paper, but it won't cause the US economy to come to a grinding halt.

There will be cases where there's clearly unnecessary regulatory red tape, and those will be well-publicized by the Chamber and their allies, but by and large EPA has a lot of tools it can use and a lot of creative people that can come up with systems for getting around the big problems.

One of the problems people have been talking about is, this is going to require a mom-and-pop business to get a PSD permit. Well, one, EPA may successfully raise the threshold to 25K tons. Two, even if the program is applied to sources that emit 250 tons, EPA may be able to figure out a very simple way for people to comply -- for example, instead of needing a formal permit application, you send in a post card that says, for instance, if you're building a new building, you've used an Energy Star label HVAC. Some people would complain because they didn't want to use an Energy Star system -- but that's hardly regulatory red tape, it's just a regulatory burden some businesses don't want to face. It may make good policy sense to move small businesses toward using more Energy Star equipment.

What do you think of the progressive push to preserve EPA authority in the climate bill.?

It's my general understanding that EPA authority is preserved in certain areas, modified in others, eliminated in others. It's preserved by and large in the mobile source sections and eliminated in the case of the PSD nightmare scenario. Those are reasonable decisions.

Environmental groups need to be careful what they ask for. You have to make sure you're not going to create the sorts of problems that the US Chamber and CEI are looking for. You don't want to play into their hands. You don't want to create a political backlash 5, 10, 20 years from now. Presumably you want this legislation to be in force for a long, long time rather than only being in force when you have the votes on Capitol Hill.

Related Links:

Prologue to Copenhagen

Science historian Weart on global warming

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

When I was growing up, my family lived in New Orleans for several years, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. One of my father's friends had a boat, and he liked to take it out shrimping. My dad and I would often join him and his son.

I loved those early morning boat trips (except for the time that I got very seasick -- probably my fault for snacking on Fritos -- and the trip that I'm about to tell you about). The lake was so big that you could barely see the shoreline.

On one occasion, our nets were coming up empty, so my dad's friend steered the boat toward the mouth of the lake where it meets the Gulf of Mexico and ventured into a cove where he hoped to find some shrimp. Soon, the boat started dragging. We feared that the net had gotten snagged on the bottom of the lake. But when they winched it in, the cause turned out to be quite a bit scarier for my 10-year-old self.

The boat had gone right over a school of stingrays, which had probably ventured into the lake from the Gulf, and our net was full of them. As the net came up, it looked like they were going to spill into the boat. My dad and his friend struggled to release them without damaging the boat or the fishing equipment, but eventually they had no choice but to cut the net away.

I watched from the prow as those ghostly stingrays spread out beneath us, silently gliding away from the hapless weekend fishermen who had inadvertently disturbed them.

Drawing food from the sea is one of the most fundamental interactions that we can have with the our oceans, and I'm glad that I have those early experiences in New Orleans to draw upon. The stingray incident taught me a respect for the ocean and its creatures -- and a concern for how we interact with them -- that sticks with me today.

The fish we choose to eat -- and the way we fish for them -- can have a tremendous impact on our oceans. As part of a personal goal to eat healthier, I'm trying to increase the amount of fish in my diet. It's a lean protein with great health benefits. But there are risks, as well: Some types of fish can be contaminated with mercury and PCBs, and sometimes seafood is harvested in a way that's bad for the oceans.

A new Sustainable Seafood Guide from the Natural Resources Defense Council can help me -- and you -- make better choices about what we eat. It provides seven basic guidelines to follow when shopping for seafood or ordering at a restaurant, as well as specific advice about America's five favorite types of seafood, from shrimp to tuna to fish sticks.

I was a little disheartened to see that many of my favorite varieties of fish -- grouper, halibut, orange roughy, cod -- had landed on the recommended "avoid" list. (Pacific cod and halibut are OK, but the Atlantic varieties are badly depleted.) I was aware of the overfishing problems that many species face, but this put it in pretty stark terms.

Today is the first-ever World Oceans Day, designated by the United Nations as an occasion to celebrate and protect the world's oceans. And there are certainly a lot of problems facing our seas -- overfishing, habitat destruction, acidification, water pollution, giant trash vortexes in the Pacific ... the list goes on.

We might not be able to tackle all of those big problems all at once. But as NRDC's Laura Pagano suggests, one way that each of us can make a difference right now is to make smarter choices about the seafood we eat and understand its impact on the oceans.

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

More NYC farmers markets accept food stamps and sales soar

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Great news – we’re one giant step closer to ending needless mercury pollution from chlorine plants in the United States.

On Wednesday, the Mercury Pollution Reduction Act (HR 2190) passed a subcommittee vote that allows it to now be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce committee. The majority of bills die, unsung, in subcommittees. Now the act, which would phase out mercury pollution from chlorine plants within two years of its passage, has a very good fighting chance at becoming law.

In the process, two amendments that would have seriously crippled this important bill were defeated. Olin Corporation, which owns two mercury-polluting plants, fought to have the deadline for mercury phaseout pushed back to 2020. Another amendment would have allowed companies to continue exporting mercury until 2013, when a ban goes into effect, essentially creating a “fire sale” on mercury.

The bill’s progress represents an important milestone in the fight against mercury pollution, which eventually seeps into our seafood at levels dangerous to women of childbearing age and children.

In 2005 nine chlorine plants in the U.S. still used outdated technology that resulted in mercury emitted into our atmosphere and waterways. Five have switched to cleaner technology or shut down, and we’re working hard on the final “Foul Four.”

And there’s no time to waste. In March, a new federal report found that mercury levels in the Pacific had increased in the past 20 years due to human activity, and levels are expected to double by the middle of this century unless we can control mercury emissions. And just last month, Oceana reported that the public health costs of mercury poisoning have cost the U.S. $24 million in lost economic productivity.

I can sense that the tide is turning against needless mercury pollution. As a senator, President Obama was an early supporter of ending these toxic emissions, and he has already signaled that he’s ready to tackle mercury on an international level.

Related Links:

Washington Times: “Obama digs in on global warming”

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

Chart by Neil Banas. Here's a PDF version.

Not long ago, I arrived at a fishmonger (Carrboro, N.C.'s Tom's Seafood) just before closing time looking for a main course -- preferably one that didn't wouldn't contribute to stripping the oceans bare or addle my tired brain with lashings of mercury (courtesy of coal-fired power plants). The workers were breaking down the counter and trying to get out of there -- but indicated they'd be happy to serve me.

"What's fresh and from around the North Carolina coast?" I asked the woman behind the counter. She didn't hesitate. "This tilefish is great," she said, pointing to a pile of fleshy, good-looking filets sitting on ice. She said it with an air of, "and please tell me how much you want right now, so i can get the hell out of here." There wasn't much else remaining in the bin -- some salmon, which couldn't be from around here, and some Spanish mackerel, which I knew to contain significant levels of mercury.

Somewhat sheepishly, I whipped out my "smart phone" and consulted its "Seafood Watch" app from Monterey Bay Aquarium, to see how tilefish does in terms of sustainability. I navigated to the Southeast section, and found that "tilefish, golden" from the U.S. South Atlantic is on the "avoid" list, while from the Mid-Atlantic, it's a "good alternative." Hmmm. The North Carolina coast is right on the cusp -- just below Mid-Atlantic, and on the northern fringe of South Atlantic. As for mercury levels, I didn't have a handy tool for that.

I looked back at the remaining options, and glanced back at the counter woman. Her hands were on her hips. She was ready to finish breaking down the bin. "Is the tilefish from a small boat?" I asked. At Tom's Seafood, they don't know much about the Monterey overfished list, or about mercury levels, but they are blunt about where their fish comes from. She replied that it did come from one of the boats that her boss Tom deals with frequently. For me, that means something -- small-scale fishermen are less likely to destroy the ecosystems that sustain them than highly mobile industrial fleets.

Decision time. I bought -- even though it might have been an overfished species, even though I had no idea whether tilefish has enough mercury to turn me into a human thermometer. (H/t, David Mamet.)

Not so triumphantly, I returned to the car. "Tilefish," I reported to my girlfriend. "What?" she replied, not happy. She'd been reading Recipe for America, the new book by blogger Jill Richardson. Jill cites tilefish as a particularly bad accumulator of mercury. Ouch.

We ate it anyway -- it was delicious in a Thai red curry. But we didn't feel great about it.

All of this is to say: Let us all thank Neil Banas for combining sustainability info and toxin info on one easy-to-read chart (above; PDF here). And let's urge him to roll out an iPhone app!

Related Links:

Monterey Bay Sustainable Seafood Card—Not Worth the Paper It’s Printed On?

So long and thanks for all the fish

Where the Sahara meets the Atlantic

What does a Wyoming rancher, a Navajo elder, a Southern community organizer, a Latino immigrant organizer from Chicago, a young indigenous Ottawa woman from Michigan, and an Appalachian coal miner's widow have in common? All of their neighborhoods are under deadly assault from King Coal. And all of these six American heroes have journeyed to Washington, DC this week, on their own dime--unlike the paid hacks from King Coal's payrolls--as part of the First 100 Days of the Power Past Coal movement to testify to representatives from Congress, the EPA and the Council on Environmental Quality about their outrageous living conditions under government regulated coal mining operations and coal-fired plants. In Mr. King Coal's neighborhood, these are their daily burdens: Mercury poisoning, gall bladder disease, black lung disease, devastated and impoverished strip-mined communities, depleted and contaminated watersheds, and toxic-draped and ailing neighborhoods. If Washington, DC doesn't have time to journey to the coalfield neighborhoods and toxic corridors of coal-fired plants, then the coalfield neighbors and coal-fired plant residents have journeyed to Washington, DC to bring a bit of truth and clarity to the clean energy debate. In truth, it's time for top level public servants--like Nancy Sutley, Lisa Jackson and Ken Salazar--who are slowly determining the fate of our nation's oldest and most diverse mountain range and its abuse by one of the most scandalous human rights and environmental violations, to actually see firsthand the horrific impact of mountaintop removal on our nation's citizens in Appalachia, and stripmining operations and coal-fired plants in other parts of the country. It's easier to compromise with King Coal representatives inside the comfort zone of the Beltway, than in one coal-slurry contaminated area around Prenter, West Virginia, for example, where 98 percent of the residents have had their gall bladder removed. In the meantime, these are some of the stories Washington, DC representatives heard yesterday: L.J. Turner is a rancher and member of the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC), a network for grassroots organizations from seven states that include 10,000 members and 45 local community chapters. L.J. runs the ranch his family homesteaded in 1918, in Campbell County, Wyoming. Strip mines encroach on one edge of his ranch, while oil and coalbed methane development deplete and pollute the water resources vital to his operation. Aquifers have been destroyed and stock water wells impacted. The loss of water threatens the ranch's viability. L.J.'s story is far from unique in the west, as irresponsible energy development scars private and public lands in rural communities. Strip mine pits have displaced grazing cattle and shattered the western landscape's iconic imagery. L.J. is working to be part of the energy solution and is negotiating to develop a utility scale wind farm on his ranch. He is one of many cowboys who have been fighting to keep their way of life for over 30 years. For a virtual visit to LJ Turner's neighborhood, see: www.worc.org Marie Gladue Dine comes from the Black Mesa region of northeastern Arizona, where she works with the Black Mesa Water Coalition to fight Peabody Energy's controversial Black Mesa coal mine and to promote green jobs and clean energy among the Hopi and Navajo communities. Peabody 's coal mining operations on Black Mesa have for more than 35 years been dependent on a sole source of drinking water for Navajo and Hopi communities. Between 1969 and 2005, Peabody pumped an average of 4,600 acre-feet of water annually from the Navajo Aquifer, resulting in significant damage to community water supplies. According to Gladue, the coal mining operations have taken sacred lands. Her Indigenous community recognizes Black Mesa as a female mountain, water as her lifeblood, and the coal as her liver. Respect for Mother Earth would mean leaving the coal in the ground. For a virtual visit to Marie Gladue's neighborhood, see: www.blackmesawatercoalition.org Mike Cherin, a resident of Rutherford County, N.C., lives 16 miles from the Cliffside Coal Plant, the site of an 800-megawatt coal-fired facility currently under construction by Duke Energy. The plant, if allowed online, would emit 6 million tons of additional carbon dioxide annually, threatening the health of nearby residents, and causing significant environmental concern, including global warming and mercury contamination. Cherin and many of his neighbors are diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and oppose the Cliffside Coal Plant for its threat to public health. Cherin and his wife, an R.N. at the local hospital, are community organizers with the Canary Coalition, a clean air advocacy group in western N.C. which recently helped rally several hundred community members in opposition to the Cliffside Coal Plant, resulting in the highest number of arrests in protest of coal in American history. Recognizing that his region has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, Cherin is an outspoken advocate for green collar jobs to build solar panels and wind turbines, which could fill the region's empty factories. For a virtual visit to Mike Cherin's neighborhood, see: www.canarycoalition.org Towana Yepa is 22 and a member of the Indigenous communities of Jemez Pueblo and The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. She is fluent in the Towa language and knows the traditional life ways of the Desert Peoples cultures and the Great Lakes cultures. Her tribes' lands are on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, where the deposition of mercury from coal-fired power plants across the lake has ruined the tribes' water supplies and rendered the water unusable for drinking or fishing. The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians fought off a proposed coal plant four years ago in Filer Township, MI. Now, the Indigenous Tribes in Michigan are facing eight more proposed coal plants. Lorelei Scarbro is a community organizer at Coal River Mountain Watch. Lorelei is the granddaughter, daughter, and widow of West Virginia coal miners. The home in which she lives was built by her late husband, who passed away due to black lung. He was an underground coal miner for 35 years. He is buried in the family cemetery which is adjacent to their home. Lorelei's land, home, the family cemetery, and surrounding environment are now faced with the threat of mountaintop removal coal mining on Coal River Mountain. There is a 6,600 acre mountaintop removal site proposed above her home - but she is joining with local residents to promote a 328 MW wind farm instead. More than 15,000 acres in Lorelei's community have already been destroyed by mountaintop removal - Coal River Mountain is the last remaining mountain with wind potential in that area. The Coal River Wind project would preserve her family's land and history for generations to come, as well as prevent further destruction in her community. For a virtual visit to Lorelei Scarbro's neighborhood, see: www.crmw.net, and www.coalriverwind.org Samuel Villaseñor is the Clean Power organizer with the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), in the southwest side of Chicago. Samuel arrived to Little Village from Huerta Vieja, Iguala, Guerrero in Mexico, when he was two years old. Little Village, Chicago is the second largest Latino community in the nation outside of East L.A., with a population of 100,000 within a 5 mile radius. In Little Village alone, 40 deaths, 2800 asthma attacks and 500 emergency room visits annually are attributed to the two coal-fired power plants situated near the residential area. To bring attention to the health problems associated with coal burning, Villaseñor has helped to organize the Coal-Olympics, a creative community event that pressures the Mayor to invest in long term green jobs, public transit, and housing, instead of Chicago's Olympic bid. Villaseñor's campaign also trains young people in the community on weatherization and retrofitting, to help older residents make their homes energy efficient. The multi-generational activity promotes alternatives to coal and job creation in the city. LVEJO saw a major victory last year when the Chicago Mayor publicly recognized Little Village's two coal plants as responsible for half of the city's pollution. For a virtual visit to Samuel Villaseñor's community, see: www.lvejo.org

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NAIROBI—More than 140 countries agreed Friday to launch negotiations establishing a treaty on mercury to limit pollution affecting millions of people across the world, the UN environment body said.

They also agreed an interim plan to curb pollution while awaiting the treaty because “the risk to human health was so significant that accelerated action ... is needed,” the United Nations Environment Programme said in a statement.

“Today we are united on the need for a legally binding instrument and immediate action towards a transition to a low-mercury world,” UNEP chief Achim Steiner said at the end of the body’s governing council meeting in Nairobi.

He added that world ministers who attended the week-long meeting “decided the time for talking was over. The time for action on this pollution is now.”

The interim plan includes boosting countries’ efforts on safe stockpiling of mercury, reducing supply and use among artisanal miners as well as reducing mercury in products such as thermometers.

Mercury is a heavy metal whose highly toxic compounds—propagated notably by the production of coal, certain kinds of plastics and improper disposal of fluorescent light bulbs—poison millions of people worldwide.

Fish-eating is the prime source of exposure among humans. The effects of mercury ingestion include damage to the brain, kidney and lungs.

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Dear Umbra,

What is the most eco-friendly driveway material?

Jean K.
Newington, Conn.

Dearest Jean,

Other than "no driveway because no car," dunno. I can tell you all the characteristics possessed by a good eco-friendly driveway material, but no single material pulled ahead of the rest and parked itself in first place. Since I don't know what type of drive you have -- a long and winding road? A mere blip? -- a face-saving answer would be "it depends." But I get a little tired of writing "it depends" all the time. Better to admit out-and-out ignorance sometimes, don't you think?

Not just for cars.

Still and all, I have a few concrete suggestions, and some non-cement ones, too. The constructed driveway protects our land from the depredations of our car(s). When we don't have a designated path -- one that stands up well under duress -- the weight and scouring tires of our giant vehicles wear down the landscape and reduce it to a mud trench. Asphalt-y driveways are certainly durable, fighting off rain and oozing car fluids year after year. The trouble is, in wet weather, the fluids run off the driveway (an impermeable surface), and on sunny days the asphalt becomes incredibly hot (a "heat island"). The runoff damages the land and presents a water management problem in both urban and rural settings. The heat island effect, multiplied by the countless paved surfaces around us, raises local and regional temperatures and creates air pollution and health problems; it also bumps up greenhouse-gas emissions, particularly in urban areas (heat archipelagos, as it were), where soaring temps create soaring energy consumption for air conditioning.

A good driveway material, then, is permeable and not a heat sink. Grass, other tough plants, or dirt are obvious candidates, but they don't meet the durability requirement, so most green driveways combine natural elements with a hard material. A traditional and effective option is gravel, particularly the angular-cut variety, which will hold on to its pebbly neighbor while leaving plenty of space for water to burble through it and into the ground.

At this point, I'm sure some readers are thinking, "There's no way I could have a gravel driveway!" Don't despair: There's more than one route to an earth-friendlier driveway. The Environmental Protection Agency and municipalities in Vancouver, B.C. offer tidy roundups of green pavement options -- some of which end up looking like lawns. These include lattice-like concrete pavers and plastic honeycomb-shaped grid systems, which are laid on a sturdy base such as gravel or crushed stone. Openings in the pavers are filled with soil or sand, and planted with grass. The plastic grid systems [PDF] I came across are made of recycled high density polyethylene.

Some folks are achieving a similar grassy effect with traditional brick or stone, leaving sand-filled gaps between each piece and allowing plants to grow (or not) as they wish. Other options include permeable paving stones and bricks, made from special concrete mixes that allow water to pass through. (Note, however, that cement is an ingredient in concrete, and since cement is made in giant kilns that emit toxic mercury, avoiding concrete when possible is always a good idea.)

Every new driveway material, not surprisingly, brings new ecological considerations. Is the material reclaimed or recycled, and will you be able to reclaim it, in turn, when it needs replacement? What maintenance is required? Is the supplier giving any manufacturing information to help you measure the product's impacts? When it comes to "cool pavement" options or things like pervious concrete, what are the manufacturers claiming in terms of reduced greenhouse emissions? Sadly, I think some of these questions are outside the scope and space I have here. The best choice for you depends on your climate, the size and slope of your driveway, and also (likely) your budget. (Gravel is cheap; permeable paving stones are not.) Go forth and find an expert, and pave your own way in this exciting new field of green.

Punnily,
Umbra

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Hold on to your thermometers: The European Union will ban exports of mercury as of March 2011. The 27-nation bloc stopped mining mercury in 2001, but its exports of the metal account for up to a quarter of global supply. The export ban will require mercury that's no longer of service to be put into storage instead of sent abroad. "Mercury poses a threat to human health and the environment in the European Union and globally," says E.U. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. "Let us hope that other countries will follow our example and support our goal of cutting the global supply of this dangerous substance." Mercury has been linked to icky effects on the nervous, cardiovascular, immune, and reproductive systems.

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Under strong pressure from Big Canned Tuna, the Food and Drug Administration is crazily lax in regulating mercury in tuna. Among many examples: In 2000, a draft advisory to pregnant women listed canned tuna as a product highly contaminated with mercury; after FDA officials met with the three largest tuna companies, the final advisory left tuna off the list. When the FDA's fish mercury guidelines were revised in 2003, canned light tuna was put in the low-mercury group -- mainly, according to an FDA official, "in order to keep the market share at a reasonable level." The FDA doesn't require warnings in stores or on tuna cans, issuing advisories mainly through doctor's-office brochures. However, a recent appeals-court decision could open the door to allowing states to mandate warning labels on tuna -- a prospect opposed by both the tuna industry and, sadly, the agency tasked with regulating Americans' food and drugs.

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Dear Umbra,

I saw an infomercial late at night about these foot pads that you wear to sleep and they will "remove toxins from your body." I didn't know who else to ask, so you win that lottery. Do we actually have that many toxins in our body? And does wearing silly pads on our feet really pull them out so we can easily throw these toxins in the trash? I think you should do an experiment and let me know if I'm missing the boat by not ordering right away -- or if I should save energy that will be used by ordering, shipping, and discarding used foot pads.

Elizabeth
Washington, D.C.

Dearest Elizabeth,

Anything you see for sale on late-night TV is guaranteed to be useful. Worth every penny. I asked our comptroller for a credit card so that I could do your suggested experiment. He said no. I'm not a responsible late night shopper (after the Ginsu knife incident), and Grist is all wrapped up in testing nail polish, toothpaste, and organic beer. No time for toxin-sucking foot pads.

Soothe your sole, au naturale.

Photo: sarahfelicity

Let's see what the internet tells us about foot pad-related toxins in our body. Looks like we have metabolic wastes, parasites, chemicals, mucus (!), cellulite (?!?), "toxins" -- and eww, there's a "before" and "after" photo of the footpatch! Bleagh. It's a convincing photo, but I wouldn't undertake such an operation without consulting a professional.

What are toxins, and do we indeed have them inside us? Toxins are traditionally defined as poisons derived from living organisms (e.g., tetanus). Today the term is widely used to mean anything known to be poisonous or suspected to cause ill health. Inquiring into toxins can lead to the dubious world of New Age cure-alls, perhaps including these foot pads. But there's no disputing the sad fact that humans have introduced harmful poisons into the general environment, and many of these very same poisons may be found in our bodies. Our "body burden" includes chemical pollutants from pesticides, flame retardants, treated wood, lead paint, animal fats, cosmetics, and more. Some of these wafted through the air to our lungs; others we ate. Various studies have tested human blood, hair, and urine for chemicals, and delivered bad news. In just a few examples: breast milk contains persistent bioaccumulative toxics (PBTs) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as dioxins, furans, and PCBs. Bill Moyers had 87 out of 214 tested substances, including lead and methylmercury, in his body; some of his fellow Human Toxome Project subjects had more than 100. Ten Washingtonians who were tested for toxic chemicals all had phthalates, PCBs, and mercury in their samples. Many of these chemicals are known or suspected to damage us in some way, be it in our endocrine system, our brain, or our reproductive organs.

Our existing body burden diminishes as water-soluble pollutants exit in our sweat, urine, and other watery outputs; mercury also exits through our hair and nails. Fat-soluble chemicals, however, will only leave us if we lose the fat in which they are stored. Taking those factors into account, we can help cleanse ourselves by losing weight, reducing our exposure to harmful chemicals, and letting our body burden decline via the natural excretion process.

Personal steps to reduce chemical exposure include eating lower on the food chain and eating low-mercury fish, using furniture free of PBDE flame retardants, and avoiding pesticides, solvents, and smoking ... stuff we've oft discussed in this space. Find more information on what to avoid from the Environmental Working Group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pollution in People, or the Grist archives (search for "body burden" or "environmental health," and voila). We each have a major role to play in reducing community exposure to these chemicals. Our consumption habits have the potential to contribute to chemical pollution (vinyl production emits dioxin, to mention one favorite dead horse), or to promote a cleaner way of life (emitting less car exhaust via driving fewer miles per week, to mention another dead horse).

Which brings us back to whether or not one should buy a product of dubious value advertised on late-night television. Eschewing late-night shopping is excellent personal environmental policy, and the omnipresence of chemicals in the manufacture of stuff is one additional reason. Buying less stuff is an important toe on our eco-footprint. If anyone has news about toxin-removing foot pads, or how cellulite and mucus count as toxins, please write in. Until then, let us refrain from any unnecessary shopping, and simply wrap moist toilet paper about our feet. See where that gets us.

Gamely,
Umbra

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Dear Umbra,

I noticed that several of the presidential primary debates were sponsored by clean coal. This was announced during breaks and several commercials aired. I have since seen several more commercials and online advertisements. Is clean coal an oxymoron? Is this a PR stunt or are there any real environmental benefits to clean coal that rival solar and wind? See www.americaspower.org.

Andrew S.
Brookline, Mass.

Dearest Andrew,

The link you sent to America's Power is a divine example of clean, selective fact presentation: "Sometimes, we tend to forget about the role electricity has on our lives [sic]. Did you know that half of the electricity that heats our homes, lights our schools, and powers our businesses comes from coal?" What about sports events? Is coal involved in sports events? Because I feel a cheer coming on.

It's time to turn the page on coal.

I think these penetrating insights are meant to sway us over to the coal. I do forget the role electricity has on my life, and I do forget that half of the United States' electricity supply comes from coal. These coal people know me so well. They seem so nice. Too bad I want them all out of business.

Why? Because coal is affiliated with our most famous environmental problems here in the U.S.: Almost all acid rain is coal-derived; coal is the leading source of mercury emissions; mountaintop removal mining has destroyed ecosystems in the Southeast; and now, it is one of two fuel sources most closely affiliated with global climate change.

It is this last infamy that so concerns not only coal executives but anyone with half an ear tuned to the dire radio station of the future. Coal is a currently cheap, plentiful domestic fuel; it is also plentiful in other electricity-hungry nations such as India and China. In the U.S., electricity from coal already produces more carbon dioxide emissions than the entire transportation sector.

So clean coal is both an oxymoronic PR stunt and a general term for efforts toward better coal-derived power. The Clean Coal Technology Program of the Department of Energy started back in 1985, so in a way clean coal refers to any of the cleaning techniques (scrubbers, washing) that can make coal more palatable and less deadly to our health and planet. Coal plants have, in fact, made improvements over the past few decades in response to acid rain-related governmental regulations regarding sulfur, particulates, and nitrogen oxides.

These days, clean coal mostly seems to refer to reducing CO2 emissions. The issue of coal and global warming is simple: Coal is a horridly dirty fuel that contributes frightening amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, and we can't afford to increase the amounts of CO2 we add to the atmosphere. Newer ideas behind the "clean coal" phrase are gasification -- a thermo-chemical, non-burning way to get energy from coal -- and carbon capture and storage/sequestration (CCS). Remember the great idea of sending nuclear waste into space? CCS is the carbon counterpart: Take our world-destroying gas and pump it into underground holes or deep ocean caverns.

Herein lies the dilemma: Should we spend money and time researching and developing technology to make coal less awful? Or is this a stupid misdirection of human capital, better spent on solar, wind, hydro, ocean power, and conservation? Within these basic choices lie multitudes of questions about global responsibility, costs per kilowatt, the potential of technology, the role of corporate money in government policy, and the will of the people.

Does coal have environmental benefits to rival solar and wind? No. But it's easy to burn and there is tons of it. That bounty and our hunger for electricity complicate things. And boy, is it complicated.

Of course, this summary of the issues is necessarily and shockingly brief. But if you wish to learn more, you're in luck: You can find a lot of satisfyingly dense information about the clean coal debate on our very own Gristmill blog.

Loyally,
Umbra

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Home Depot announced Tuesday that it will collect compact fluorescent light bulbs and send them off to be recycled. The home-improvement behemoth hopes the new program will keep the bulbs, which contain a small amount of mercury, out of household trash and recycling bins. IKEA also collects CFLs for recycling but doesn't have the market saturation of Home Depot; more than three-quarters of U.S. households are estimated to be within 10 miles of a Home Depot store. The company's 1,973 U.S. stores will also switch to CFLs in light-fixture showrooms by the fall, a move expected to save it $16 million annually in energy costs.

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The Sierra Club is planning lawsuits to halt construction of coal plants in seven states, arguing that the mercury-spewing plants violate the Clean Air Act. Noting that a federal appeals court ruled in February that the Bush administration's mercury regulations were too lax, the green group seeks to require the coal plants to get new state permits meeting tougher emissions standards. "We want to give moms across the country some peace of mind this Mother's Day," says Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club. "That's why we're taking action ... to ensure that these coal plants make every effort to keep their toxic mercury pollution out of our communities."

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