EPA plan to cut mercury levels in fish

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a plan to reduce mercury levels in fish throughout New England and New York.

The EPA said the plan calls for a 98 percent reduction from 1998 levels of mercury from atmospheric sources. The goal is make mercury levels in fish low enough for the states to lift fish consumption advisories.

The plan was created through a "high level of collaboration with the Northeast states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, and the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission," the agency said Thursday in a release.

To establish the mercury reduction targets each state analyzed fish tissue, evaluated information on atmospheric sources of mercury and estimated the level of reduction needed to meet the target levels in fish, the EPA said.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International