Tests conducted by doctors with an environmental group are showing toxic levels of mercury in New Jersey residents, according to the Sierra Club.
In a recent nationwide mercury hair-testing program headed by the Sierra Club, results found that New Jersey residents have high levels of mercury, Sierra Club members announced Thursday, alongside some of the people tested in the study.
Thirty-four people in all were tested in New Jersey, and of those, eight had toxic levels of mercury in their bodies.
According to the Sierra Club, mercury contamination is a problem across the nation, with at least one in 12, and as many as one in six, women of childbearing age having mercury levels in her blood that put her baby at risk.
The purpose of the 25-city hair-testing program, which was conducted in March and April this year, was to alert the Environmental Protection Agency that stronger safeguards are needed for mercury and other air toxins.
Coal plants are the biggest producer of toxic mercury pollution in the air, according to the Sierra Club.
