We have started to be proactive to grow larger fish in our lake at home. We have a lot of fish, but too many of the wrong size. We are asking cabin quests to remove certain sizes of bass and all other species they catch. This has one advantage for us. Most do not want to keep the fish, so they give them to us. We clean them and they go into our meals.

Most of the lakes in Texas have high levels of mercury and that gets into the fish. We have a relative new lake, so this is not a problem yet. It is a concern and I was thinking about it as i read the news of the terrible mine explosion in West Virginia. Coal is the cause of mercury pollution.

Texas is the largest producer of coal in the middle of the country and in our area coal is king for power production. We are surrounded by large coal fired generation plants that have pollution controls, but obviously not enough. Some are very bad. Our state government is very lax on really cracking down on pollution. All of the lakes in our area actually have restrictions on the number of fish you can eat from them. The local state park lake is limited to just a few ounces a month.

In my study of this, I found that it takes 714 pounds of coal to power a 100 watt light bulb for a year. The chart below indicates a lot of pollution is created to do this, but is not specific to mercury. Texas gets 49 %of its electricity from natural gas and 37% from coal. Nationwide it is the opposite with coal being 48% and natural gas 21%.

The University of Texas Health Science center in Tyler, Texas has an excellent presentation that should scare anyone that likes to fish and eat what they catch in
Texas. This is a must read article if you are concerned. The amount of fish you eat is the key indicator of what harm mercury can cause to you and your family. In our area, many families get a significant portion of their protein from fish. It is low cost food.

There is not much your or I can do as an individuals to affect this, but collectively our voices can influence the state legislature and regulatory agencies to not allow more coal power plants in our area and to get those here to reduce pollution, especially mercury, to levels that are acceptable. In Texas, big business most always wins unless environmental groups through the courts bring relief. It has never come from the legislature and for sure not from Governor Rick Perry's buddies on the state regulatory commissions.

An article from the Dallas Morning News today indicates how out of touch Texas state government is with the reality of pollution as the state continues to be forced to do what is right for its citizens instead of being proactive and doing it without pressure form the EPA. Why would Texas sue the EPA so it can continue to have an unsafe environment for its citizens?

Pollutant	Total for Power Plant	One Light Bulb-Year's Worth
Sulfur Dioxide - Main cause of acid rain	10,000 Tons	5 pounds
Nitrogen Oxides - Causes smog and acid rain	10,200 Tons	5.1 pounds
Carbon Dioxide - Greenhouse gas suspected of causing global warming	3,700,000 Tons	1852 pounds