Moose,

I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you regaridng your theory on dilution. Bottom line, it is an archaic concept to think that dilution is the solution to pollution as a whole, especially when you talk about mercury. Pollutants like mercury do not break down in the environment so even if you release small concentrations over time, it all ends up in the same place...river and lake substrates and eventually into the tissues of humans and animals. It is just not an ecologically sustainable concept.

I'm not an air person but I work in the environmental field as a stormwater quality manager. Take your dilution is the solution theory to a group of environmental professionals and they'll laugh you right out of the room. Perhaps when you took your hard core science classes that was the philosophy, but things have changed. The push is for removing pollutants from the waste stream through education (change in habits) and new technologies (physical and biological). For example, check out the studies going on using mercury resistant bacteria to treat waste mercury.

The solution/remedy to mercury pollution is an alternative energy source. You are right, it isn't economically feasible today, but it is the solution versus a band-aid approach to the problem. As long as we continue to burn more and more coal, the problem will exist. In fact, the problem will exist forever unless we can develop technologies to remove the mercury from the water column. Until then, we are just adding to the problem.