Pollution makes fishy finals week food

Editor:

I am writing in response to your article “Useful tips and tricks to eating healthy during finals” (March 8). One particular food that is popular during this finals period is fish, which is high in protein and low in fat and typically considered “brain food.” Fish is especially popular during winter finals because Lent is upon us, a season when many Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays and instead eat fish. Unfortunately, due to toxic mercury levels, federal and state health officials have issued warnings for people to limit or avoid many types of fish. No one should ever have to worry for their health as a result of practicing their religion, but because of mercury pollution from power plants, that’s precisely what many Catholics will do this Lent.

For years, the largest unregulated source of mercury has been coal-fired power plants. Now, the Bush administration has proposed a plan that would allow six to seven times more mercury than would be allowed under the Clean Air Act. Despite the severe neurological and developmental delays that mercury causes for young children and fetuses, the Bush administration is failing to ensure that these plants use the best available pollution controls, which the Environmental Protection Agency has said would result in a 90-percent reduction from current pollution levels. Obviously these children won’t be doing too well on their finals in the future, despite the smart foods they are eating now.

The Bush administration should protect the health of our children by dropping its proposal to increase limits on mercury pollution from power plants and instead enforce the Clean Air Act’s requirement that power plants install the best mercury pollution controls currently available.

— Kelly Baker

Thurgood Marshall College junior