She speaks about mercury contamination in fish in an ad calling for tougher EPA regulations.
By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Published June 30, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - A Sierra Club national ad campaign criticizing Bush administration environmental policies features a St. Petersburg woman who says she is afraid to feed fish to her children because of mercury contamination.
The ads, which appear on Univision, the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the United States, target Hispanic viewers with complaints about health problems arising from pollution.
One testimonial is from St. Petersburg resident Zeida Santana, a biologist at All Children's Hospital. Santana said she is afraid to feed fish to her two sons, ages 2 and 3, because of the risk of mercury poisoning that originates with coal-fired power plants.
"I did this ad because I wanted to help the Hispanic community. I wanted to help other families like me," Santana said Tuesday at a news conference.
In March, the Environmental Protection Agency issued advisories warning that young children, pregnant women, and women of child-bearing age should not eat certain kinds of fish because of the risk of mercury contamination.
Tuesday was the last day in the agency's public comment period for its plan to limit mercury emissions from power plants.
The proposal aims to reduce the 48 tons of mercury released each year by 29 percent by 2010 and by 70 percent by 2018.
More than 500,000 comments have been filed in response to the plan in the past six months.
Last week, 180 members of the House of Representatives signed a letter urging the EPA to scrap that proposal and come up with a more aggressive plan to control mercury emissions. Six Florida representatives signed the letter, including Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, Jim Davis, D-Tampa, Peter Deutsch, D-Hollywood, Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, and Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar.
