Up To 11% Of US Mercury Emissions Drift From Nevada Mines Into Utah

[hatrack]

"Poison is blowing eastward from Nevada, and Utah is in its path. Mercury is floating out of smokestacks into the atmosphere from a cluster of gold mines near Elko that account for as much as 11 percent of the nation's total mercury emissions. Utah's mountain high country, its urban heart and the irreplaceable ecology of the Great Salt Lake are directly downwind.

EDIT

Federal researchers estimate that more than 300,000 newborns each year may have an increased risk of learning disabilities associated with prenatal exposure to organic mercury that their mothers ingest from fish and shellfish. University of Texas epidemiologists have linked increasing incidences of childhood autism to mercury. It is considered such a threat to human health that Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to make rules to cut mercury coming from coal-fired power plants, the main source of global atmospheric mercury. Yet the Nevada mines are under no such state or federal regulations.

Rather, the four largest mining companies have entered into a voluntary mercury emissions reduction program crafted with EPA's Region 9 office in San Francisco. The program's results have been mixed. "This voluntary program has resulted in some emissions reductions. But they could stop complying anytime they want," said Idaho Conservation League spokesman Justin Hayes. "Mercury is such a powerful neurotoxin, you want this stuff controlled to the maximal point possible, not to the levels the gold mining industry wants to."

The Conservation League is ready to sue the EPA to force it to impose emissions reductions rules on the Nevada mines. In an Oct. 21 letter to then-EPA Administrator and former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, the Conversation League charged that prevailing winds and atmospheric circulation patterns send huge plumes of mercury into southern Idaho, possibly contributing to mercury-related fish consumption advisories. And what goes for Idaho ought to go for Utah, Hayes said. "It's probably time for the state of Utah to pull its head out of the sand," he said. "There's no safe level of mercury in your environment."

EDIT

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2700092

[expatriot]

1. If this much mercury's in the air, how much is in the water?

via both run-off and "acid rain (if it is in the atomosphere, it seems logical it would get in the precipitation, somehow but I am not a science guy).


I live in Yuma Arizona, along the Colorado River just north of the Mexican border... no one drinks the water here except the transients. Even the poorest farm laborer loads up on a large jugs of bottled water..... believe me, if it can get in the water supply, our water supply has it. between the desert agricultural run-off to the military pollution to the mining, it's in there.

[whistle]

2. According to this article almost 120,000 lbs of mercury or....

...60 tons are released into the atmosphere and fall down upon rivers, lakes and the ground to become lethal toxic pollution to wildlife, fish, food chain and humans. At several parts per trillion being lethal, it doesn't take much to poison human beings. And with that much mercury being dumped into the atmosphere and accumulating every year, the amount in the environment by now must be frightening. Bush and the republicans have further eased emission controls and standards.

[Massacure]

3. Mercury isn't lethal at several parts per trillion.

Canada says the safe limit is .5 parts per million. That is 500 parts per billion or 500,000 parts per trillion. And Canada isn't run by a bunch of dumbasses.

[whistle]

4. So, if your body contains a trillion brain and nerve cells and....

...there are 500,000 molecules of mercury lodged somewhere in your sympatic system or digestive system, that would not hurt you? You may wish to read this:

http://www.medical-library.net/sites/framer.html?/sites/_dental_amalgam_mercury_poisoning.html

[Massacure]

6. I don't see a safe limit on that site.

[bloom]

5. It doesn't have to be lethal to be bad.

This is about Canada/Greenland. And the US supposedly gets a lot of mercury coming over from Asia.

-----------------------------------------

Dozens of Words for Snow, None for Pollution


...Despite living amid pristine ice and glacier-carved bedrock, people like Mamarut, Tukummeq, and Gedion are more vulnerable to pollution than anyone else on earth. Mercury concentrations in Qaanaaq mothers are the highest ever recorded, 12 times greater than the level that poses neurological risks to fetuses, according to U.S. government standards. A separate study has linked PCBs with slight effects on the intelligence of children in Qaanaaq. Although most of the village's people never leave their hunting grounds, the world travels to them, riding upon wintry winds.

THE ARCTIC has been transformed into the planet's chemical trash can, the final destination for toxic waste that originates thousands of miles away. Atmospheric and oceanic currents conspire to send industrial chemicals, pesticides, and power-plant emissions on a journey to the Far North. Many airborne chemicals tend to migrate to, and precipitate in, cold climates, where they then endure for decades, perhaps centuries, slow to break down in the frigid temperatures and low sunlight. The Arctic Ocean is a deep-freeze archive, holding the memories of the world's past and present mistakes. Its wildlife, too, are archives, as poisonous chemicals accumulate in the fat that Arctic animals need to survive. Polar bears denning in Norway and Russia near the North Pole carry some of the highest levels of toxic compounds ever found in living animals.

<snip>

The first evidence of alarming levels of toxic substances in the bodies of Arctic peoples came from the Canadian Inuit. In 1987, Dr. Eric Dewailly, an epidemiologist at Laval University in Quebec, was surveying contaminants in the breast milk of mothers near the industrialized, heavily polluted Gulf of St. Lawrence, when he met a midwife from Nunavik, the Inuit area of Arctic Quebec. (Across the Hudson Bay, the Inuit also have their own self-governing territory, Nunavut, or "our land.") She asked whether he wanted milk samples from Nunavik women. Dewailly reluctantly agreed, thinking they might be useful as "blanks," samples with nondetectable pollution levels.

A few months later, glass vials holding half a cup of milk from each of 24 Nunavik women arrived. Dewailly soon got a phone call from his lab director. Something was wrong with the Arctic milk. The chemical concentrations were off the charts. The peaks overloaded the lab's equipment, running off the page. The technician thought the samples must have been tainted in transit. <more>

by Marla Cone

http://www.mercuryexposure.org/index.php?article_id=383

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/01/12_402....





 

[Massacure]

7. I'm not saying it doesn't have to be lethal to be bad.

I'm just saying the effects on the parts per trillion level are way overstated.

There is no magic number for when Mercury is bad. But if I'm ingesting mercury at parts per trillion, there are probably more serious things to be worried about.

[bloom]

9. I don't know about the part per trillion business

Usually people refer to micrograms/ kg/ day or something like that.

---------

Guidelines for Safe Exposure to Methylmercury

Guidelines for safe exposure to methylmercury are based on the analysis of unintended environmental exposures resulting in overt toxicity. Such guidelines have been developed by three federal agencies and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 3.3 micrograms of methylmercury/ kilogram of body weight/ week (0.47 micrograms/ kg/ day).

Three U.S. federal agencies have set lower guidelines for methylmercury exposure:

Environmental Protection Agency: 0.1 micrograms/ kg/ day

Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry: 0.3 micrograms/ kg/ day

Food and Drug Administration: 0.4 micrograms/ kg/ day (2)

From www.immunizationinfo.org

--------

EPA recently closed down schools when it was discovered that air mercury levels were at 30mcg/m. (EPA's action level in the air is 1mcg/m) Yet infants injected with multiple mercury containing vaccines in the 1990s received up to 187 mcg the first 6 months of life. A typical dose received by a 2 month old who received 3 mercury vaccines was 125 times EPA's daily allowable exposure levels.

http://www.safeminds.org/mercury/

[bloom]

10. What About.com says

"Because mercury occurs naturally in the environment, everyone is exposed to very low levels of mercury in air, water, and food. Between 10 and 20 nanograms of mercury per cubic meter (ng/m3) of air have been measured in urban outdoor air.

These levels are hundreds of times lower than levels still considered to be "safe" to breathe. Background levels in nonurban settings are even lower, generally about 6 ng/m3 or less. Mercury levels in surface water are generally less than 5 parts of mercury per trillion parts of water (5 ppt, or 5 ng per liter of water), about a thousand times lower than "safe" drinking water standards.

Normal soil levels range from 20 to 625 parts of mercury per billion parts of soil (20–625 ppb; or 20,000–625,000 ng per kilogram of soil). A part per billion is one thousand times bigger than a part per trillion.

A potential source of exposure to metallic mercury for the general population is mercury released from dental amalgam fillings. An amalgam is a mixture of metals. The amalgam used in silver-colored dental fillings contains approximately 50% metallic mercury, 35% silver, 9% tin, 6% copper, and trace amounts of zinc.

Estimates of the amount of mercury released from dental amalgams range from 3 to 17 micrograms per day (µg/day). The mercury from dental amalgam may contribute from 0 to more than 75% of your total daily mercury exposure..."
-----------------

http://allergies.about.com/library/blchem-mercury3.htm

[bloom]

11. "safe" level for humans - is 1.8 parts per trillion - per the EPA

"Buchsbaum said data collected by the University of Michigan Air Quality Laboratory found that rain falling on Chicago’s South Side had mercury levels ranging from 5.4 parts per trillion to 74.5 parts per trillion.


The EPA considers mercury levels in the Great Lakes to be safe for wildlife at 1.3 parts per trillion. For humans, it is 1.8 parts per trillion.


The Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry in the Department of Health and Human Services says that based on the latest studies, people can consume as much as 0.3 micrograms of mercury per kilogram of their body weight without health risks. Its previous standard _ and the standard still used by the EPA _ had been 0.1 microgram.


But the health impact of low levels of mercury contamination has been widely disputed. Congress last year barred further regulation of mercury until the National Academy of Sciences completes an 18-month study of the health effects."

http://healthandenergy.com/coal.htm

[bloom]

12. Mercury Toxicity

Mercury vapor is nonpolar, monatomic gas, and lipid-soluble. For example, let's follow the path of inhaled mercury vapor. From the lungs it dissolves in blood plasma, and from there it has access to diffuse into the cell in the body. Once inside a cell, mercury dissolves in blood plasma, and from there it has access to diffuse into any cell in the body. Once inside a cell, mercury vapor, itself unreactive is oxidized to the highly toxic mercury (+2) ion. This is also known a divalent mercury. This oxidation process is mediated by the enzyme catalase. Catalase normally functions in a two-step process to remove hydrogen peroxide from cells. However, in the second step of this process, mercury vapor can be oxidized to divalent mercury.


There is also oxidized to divalent mercury, this divalent mercury in the brain leads to strange symptoms, includingerethism. Mercury is also found to be the process linking behavioral symptoms and Alzheimer's.


Monomethylmercury (MeHg) is estimated 100 to 1000 times more toxic than elemental mercury in humans. MeHg seems to specifically target the Central Nervous System (CNS). Until recently, this was a mystery, as the CNS enjoys the protection of the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). The BBB consists of tightly packed endothelial cells that line the walls of the blood capillaries in the CNS.


The key to understanding why MeHg is so toxic is to see that structural similarities in biochemical reactions can lead to active transport of toxins. In the case of organisms with a highly advanced CNS, this active transport can lead to accumulation of MeHg in the brain. The pathway of MeHg from the bloodstream to the brain is complicated, to understand the pathway a number of processes are involved:

• MeHg in blood plasma can combine with cysteine, forming a compound that is structurally similar to the amino acid methionine.

• This MeHg-cysteine compound is actively transported into the endothelial cells in the BBB, on the methionine carrier.

• A high level of reduced glutathione is maintained in the endothelial cells, and the MeHg switches from a cystein carrier to a glutathione carrier.

• MeHg-glutathione is actively transported out of the endothelial cells and into the brain.

• In the brain, the hydrolysis of MeHg-glutathione generates MeHg-cysteine.

http://www.mercuryexposure.org/index.php?page_id=32

[bloom]

8. "Utah has no mercury-related ...

... fish consumption advisories. But that's because the state hasn't tested the fish to see whether mercury is accumulating in their flesh."


----

In other words - don't eat their fish.

[phantom power]

13. Where does the other 89% come from?

Is it all from coal, or other activities?

[jpak]

14. ~28% from coal...

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/112nmerc/mercury.html

<snip>


Of the estimated 144 Megagrams (Mg) (158 tons) of mercury emitted annually into the atmosphere by anthropogenic sources in the United States, approximately 87 percent is from combustion point sources, 10 percent is from manufacturing point sources, 2 percent is from area sources, and 1 percent is from miscellaneous sources. Four specific source categories account for approximately 80 percent of the total anthropogenic emissions--coal-fired utility boilers (33 percent), municipal waste combustion (19 percent), commercial/industrial boilers (18 percent), and medical waste incinerators (10 percent). It should be noted that the U.S. EPA has finalized mercury emission limits for municipal waste combustors and medical waste incinerators. When fully implemented, these emission limits will reduce mercury emissions from these sources by an additional 90 percent over 1995 levels.

All four of the most significant sources represent high temperature waste combustion or fossil fuel processes. For each of these operations, the mercury is present as a trace contaminant in the fuel or feedstock. Because of its relatively low boiling point, mercury is volatilized during high temperature operations and discharged to the atmosphere with the exhaust gas.

[phantom power]

15. According to their table, it's ~43% coal, and 28% waste incineration

[jpak]

18. Column one is Mg/yr - not percent of total emissions (column 3)

Hg emissions from coal represent 32.6% of combustion source Hg emissions.

Combustion source Hg emissions are 86.9% of total Hg emissions...

0.326 * 0.869 = 0.283

(28.3%)

That's the way I see it anyway...

:shrug:

[phantom power]

19. The 32.6% is part of the whole enchilada, not a fraction of the 86.9%

[jpak]

20. You're right

The text was a little confusing...

:)

[bloom]

16. "these emission limits will reduce mercury emissions...

from these sources by an additional 90 percent over 1995 levels."


The Clean Air Act would have had them reduced by 90% by 2008. B**h & Co. and his Clear Skies whatever puts it 10 or 20 years later +.

Plus they "de-listed" mercury as a hazard. :crazy:

[bloom]

17. Sources of Mercury contamination.

http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/states.asp

[NVMojo]

21. CLUELESS IN UTAH!! HAHAHA!! Are they not aware that Newmont

Gold Company will be building a huge coal-fired powered plant over by Carlin, Nevada? It will put the discharge from the mines to shame. They required TWO SEPARATE AIR SHED PERMITS to move forward!! Wake up, Utah, pull your head out!!