EPA failure to reduce mercury from cement kilns puts us at risk and hurts business. But self-proclaimed environmental activists should not delude us that rigid enforcement will do much immediately to protect health.

Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice charge that the nation’s 150 kilns, including two in Maryland, expose us to at least 23,000 pounds of mercury a year. High doses of this heavy element cause a wide array of physical and mental diseases. It accumulates up the food chain, especially in fish. It harms babies in the womb. No one knows the dangers of long-term, low-level human exposure. Odds are, it’s bad.

EPA’s decade of dawdling is inexcusable, but activists’ efforts to push the agency merely shine a light on the universal immensity of the problem. Screeching about saving Earth from mercury is ludicrous. According to the Tennessee Valley Authority, the planet itself accounts for 40 percent of emissions.

Of humanity’s 60 percent contribution, Asia spews out half. The U.S. accounts for only 3 to 5 percent, and the EPA estimates a third of that is from coal power. TVA reported, “Mercury ... can travel great distances in the atmosphere ... a global problem that knows no national or continental boundaries.”

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So, burning coal is overwhelmingly the biggest culprit. Who burns the most coal and makes the most cement? China, says the U.S. Geological Survey. China also emits more mercury due to primitive pollution-control technology.

Even if we could get all our cement kilns to zero, it would not reduce aggregate measurable health risks. It might even push more production to unregulated havens, which would emit even more mercury.

This shows the quandary of regulation. For example, one source of U.S. kiln mercury is disposal of ash scrubbed — due to regulations — from coal power. But the most important thing it shows is the opportunity for another technology developed here due to government regulation to become a huge, value-adding industry. That has been the case for 35 years of U.S. environmental technology leadership, first forced on us by President Richard M. Nixon.

China and other booming nations are learning the hard way that pollution is a deferred cost that accrues and compounds, and eventually must be paid. China’s cement production increased almost 40 percent in the last three years, almost entirely in primitive, dirty plants.

Soon they will realize they have to get the mercury out. Let us ensure when they turn to us, we know how.

That is why delaying environmental regulation that forces advanced technology not only puts world health at risk, it hurts business.

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