By Trevor Graff
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — The Kansas Legislature is considering a bill that would let the Kansas Department of Health and Environment scale back one of its testing programs for mercury pollution by closing two of the state’s six rain monitoring stations.

The Senate Committee on Natural Resources on Friday recommended the bill favorably.

House Bill 2551 removes the requirement for KDHE to maintain the monitoring system that was built to comply with the Mercury Deposition Network, a program coordinated through the National Atmospheric Deposition Program.

KDHE officials said they would continue monitoring with a scaled-back program, if the bill becomes law. But the revision would give them authority to stop doing it completely.

“We do plan on continuing to monitor for mercury in the state of Kansas,” said Tom Gross, air monitoring and planning chief for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. “We are not going to use this statute, if it is repealed, as an opportunity to shut down all of our monitors.”

Gross said the agency wanted to scale back the operations to save money.

Two failed amendments to the bill caused a partisan rift in the committee, which has nine Republicans and two Democrats.

The first would have allowed KDHE to reduce the monitoring to four sites but also require a study of the sources of mercury in Kansas’ atmosphere.

“We heard testimony that said we still have a problem with mercury in fish and mercury seems to be more dependent on the weather and moisture than what we thought before,” said Sen. Tom Hawk, a Manhattan Democrat.
Gross estimated the savings from closing the two sites at between $30,000 and $40,000, but said he wasn’t confident of those numbers. And he said he wasn’t sure the agency could do a good study with that amount of money.

“My concern would be how comprehensive and how good of a study the department can accomplish for $30,000 to $40,000,” Gross said.

The department’s Water Bureau and the EPA already monitor mercury levels in the states fish populations.

Sen. Larry Powell, the Garden City Republican who chairs the committee, said KDHE should have flexibility in making its monitoring decisions.

“In my opinion, we’re trying to repeal some things that we have done,” Powell said. “I think that if we want less government, which I’m in favor of, then we need to give them the flexibility and repeal these things.”

Wolf’s amendment was defeated 6-3, the two Democrats joined by Sen. Carolyn McGinn, a Sedgwick Republican, in supporting it.

Sen. Marci Francisco, a Lawrence Democrat, offered an amendment that would have required a monitoring program but without specifying a number of stations. It also would have required KDHE to annually post information about mercury and various other pollutants and allows for public comment before any changes to its program.

“I think that it is our job to provide a framework for what information we’re interested in and this amendment would keep mercury as part of that framework,” Francisco said.

That amendment also was defeated, 6-3.

Mercury pollution in Kansas is most often caused by electrical generators, cement kilns and mining operations. The Environmental Protection Agency says too much mercury exposure can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and immune system in people of all ages.

Most people come in contact with mercury from eating contaminated fish and wildlife.