EPA air pollution rollbacks can lead to food contamination

Air pollution doesn’t just harm our health when we breathe it in, it ends up in the food we feed our families. The pollution from coal plants includes dangerous toxic chemicals like mercury, which settle in lakes and rivers and end up in the fish we eat. Research has also shown that mercury and other heavy metals can end up in crops such as vegetables and grains. That’s why EPA put strong limits on power plant pollution with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.

Those standards are now in danger. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has proposed dramatically weakening that rule, which would allow more mercury in our air and food. He has also given more than 70 power plants a pass to ignore the current rules. Mercury is a known neurotoxin that harms brain development in children.