By: Patrice Tomcik, Senior Field Director, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: July 10, 2025
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0794-6978
To: Environmental Protection Agency
My name is Patrice Tomcik, and I am the Senior Field Director for Moms Clean Air Force, an organization of over 1.6 million moms united to protect our children’s health from air pollution and climate change. I live in the town of Gibsonia, located in Southwestern Pennsylvania with my husband and two children.
Moms Clean Air Force has been advocating for strong mercury protections for over a decade, and we strongly oppose EPA’s proposal to repeal recent updates to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards because there is no safe level of mercury.
For communities living near dirty coal-fired power plants, the requirement to continuously monitor emissions is very important because people have a right to know what dangerous pollutants are in the air we breathe. We must keep mercury and other toxics from spewing out of coal-fired power plants and ending up in our air, water, soil, and food.
In Southwestern Pennsylvania, where I live, the last two coal fired power plants are still operating and emitting very large amounts of mercury pollution—the Keystone and Conemaugh power generating stations. Exposure to mercury is a particular concern for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children. I remember my doctor warning me to avoid certain kinds of fish during pregnancy because mercury is a toxic heavy metal that can cause brain damage and impairs learning and growth. Mercury migrates through a pregnant woman’s body and lodges in the fatty tissue of the fetal brain, where it disrupts the brain’s delicate architecture. Mercury is also harmful to the developing brains of infants and children. Along with mercury pollution, power plants emit other harmful pollutants that can cause premature deaths, asthma, chronic bronchitis, heart attacks and cancer.
I have lived my whole life in Southwestern Pennsylvania and grew up living two miles downwind from the coal-fired Cheswick power generating station, which shuttered in 2022. As a child, I watched the plumes from the stacks of the Cheswick plant float over the river toward the playground where I played. I missed a lot of school due to chronic bronchitis and now as an adult I have respiratory problems. It is well known that the Greater Pittsburgh Region has some of the worst air pollution in the nation according to the American Lung Association.
I am concerned about the harmful power plant pollution that can travel long distances and what my children are breathing into their lungs. Children are especially vulnerable to air pollution because their bodies are still developing. My youngest son is a cancer survivor and I know his immune system is compromised which makes him very vulnerable to pollution. This is why I am so passionate about my work for Moms Clean Air Force but recognize that I can’t control the air my son breathes and rely on EPA to do their job and protect him from harmful pollution. MATS provides significant public health protections by reducing mercury and other heavy metals like arsenic that can cause cancer.
In addition, MATS helps to clean up the mercury pollution in our bodies of water. My family really enjoys recreational fishing on the weekends but I won’t let my family eat the fish because there are fish consumption advisories for 101 of the bodies of water in Pennsylvania. I know that mercury and other heavy metals emitted from power plants falls and deposits in our water bodies and eventually gets into fish—and people who ingest these fish.
Moms Clean Air Force strongly opposes EPA’s proposal to weaken the recently updated Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.