The Demo Site

The apparent demise of the Taylor Energy Center, whose critical feature was a dinosaur of coal-fired technology that it nevertheless planned to build, is a relief on many levels.

Not the least of which are concerns about the present and future health of people, and especially pregnant moms and small children, who would have been affected by the coal plant's inevitable release of mercury into our environment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that coal-fired power and cement plants are two of the largest sources of mercury, a neurotoxin that can harm the growing brain.

I am not saying my brain is still growing. I think it's peaked. It's spending most of its time these days sorting through that prickly time consumer, e-mail, or trying to retrieve particles of information that it, my brain, has stored over the decades in no apparent order.

Here and in Gainesville, however, in an effort to learn more about their own level of mercury neurotoxins, a number of community-minded good sports have been having snippets of their hair tested by the Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina in Asheville. I volunteered a few inches of my locks.

Our hair samples are also being used in a mercury-testing project headed up by Tallahassee allergy and asthma specialist Ronald Saff, one of the activists objecting to the low-tech coal plant's construction near Perry. But just because it appears that specific plant may not be constructed doesn't mean mercury toxicity isn't of ongoing concern, worldwide and here at home.

The results of having my hair tested were a little disappointing, and somewhat surprising. My numbers revealed a "mildly elevated," level of mercury, Saff told me. My 1.66 ug/g - a microgram-per-gram measurement - compares negatively with a sample of hair with no apparent trace of mercury, which would measure at a minimum of 0.10 ug/g.

I mentioned to Saff that I'd grown up in a farmhouse where we had our own little coal-fired power plant in the basement - the furnace that also burned firewood. Was that heating system at fault?

But Saff said no, that we get elevated degrees of mercury through our diet. And fish is, regrettably, the major culprit of mercury toxicity.

"The measures represent short-term exposure, not a lifetime," he added. So it's the mercury level in fish that I, and others in the test, have eaten in the last several months that is showing up now. Of seven people tested locally so far, Saff said only one of us did ot show a somewhat elevated mercury level.

I have always thought one of the advantages of living in Florida is the abundance of fresh seafood, and I still do.

Between eating fresh seafood fairly often and my favorite energy-giving lunch, canned tuna, probably once a week, I have gained a few nutritional advantages - but lost others.

As healthful as seafood is for us, these days it is advisable to eat it in modest quantities because of the mercury that becomes stored in seafood, enters the food chain and finds its way to human beings.

"Eat Sparingly" or "Avoid" advisories exist principally for women of childbearing age (25 to 45) and small children who could experience development disabilities from mercury. These advisories are constantly being evaluated as new evidence of contamination of fish species or products emerges.

Greenpeace, for example, notes that a growing number of consumer and health experts now recommend avoiding all tuna, including the canned light tuna formerly considered a low-mercury fish. Even our North Florida favorite, shrimp, may be of concern, but depending upon the condition of the fishery from which it's taken.

What's safe to eat that we see a lot of around here? Catfish, clams, crawfish, oysters, scallops, trout and crab. Also low in mercury are the goodies we see regularly on menus: calamari, lobster, mussels, wild Alaskan salmon and, yes, even caviar.

Sardines are good if you can work up an interest in them. And you can enjoy up to six servings a month that include crab, mahi-mahi, snapper and tilapia.

On the do-not-eat list for those high-risk pregnant moms and kids are, in addition to tuna, Chilean sea bass, grouper, king mackerel, orange roughy, shark, swordfish and shrimp - if the fisheries are of an environmental concern.

You can determine if your fish intake presents a risk, given your weight and other physical conditions, by going to "Got Mercury?" - a Web site (www.gotmercury.org) that provides a calculator to help you consider what you can or should do personally to protect yourself from too much mercury.

Even though the old-fashioned coal plant appears to be on its way out locally, mercury pollution continues, often unregulated and unabated, around the world.

Until seafood packaging carries more explicit information about mercury content, we are, most of us, on our own to eat with care.

By: Mary Ann Lindley - Tallahassee.com