The Y Files

The local media has reported that it came from an old farm, but I'm wondering how mercury would be used in an agriculture setting. Any ideas, CR4ers?

How about an old public school lab or a miner shack like you find old unstable dynamite in. Hospitals use it babies eyes, Dentist to fill teeth, Aluminum and mercury are used as preservatives in vaccinations. In an old farm? Nothing I can think of unless he was prospecting.

Brad

How about old thermostats I collected several ounces of mercury that way when I was experimenting with it as a teen ager. In fact I picked up three a month ago just to get the mercury.

Last summer I attended Gold Rush days in a northern town and a prospector told me he buys it by the pound. No problems. He was displaying a mercury still for sale as part of his gold prospecting equipment on the flea market table. Now that one I might be a bit leery of since it would involve vaporizing the mercury.

As an electronics tech in my twenties we used a lot of mercury wetted relays for RF switching not to mention arc quenching in power circuits. A famous brand of autopilots used a couple of ounces of mercury in their power relays.

Somebody might have stored some old equipment in the barn. Gee I better not say how much of the stuff I have stored. They might call out the national guard.

Somebody probably collected it in smaller amounts from various sources. It was used in pressure indicating equipment in the past such as U tube manometers, barometers and sphygmomanometers. Lab thermometers still use it as far as I know. It was used in some pressure regulators (gas) that the utility companies had in the past. Let us not forget the old residential thermostats that had the Hg filled glass tilt switch. I remember in the late 60's and early 70's the scrap metal recyclers (we called them junk yards then) would buy it - it had some value. It was listed on the commodity exchanges and sold in units called "pigs" - if I recall correctly. It was used in industry in electrolytic cells for producing chlorine gas. Most of us collected small amounts in those days. We coated copper pennies with it. Now it is just another toxic disposal nightmare - and rightly so considering what we have learned about it's effects on people. Ed

I am CoronaCameraMan, Seasons Greetings to All -

An old farm ...

Many water wells have a pump system which also had good old reliable mercury wetted contact pressure switches to start and stop the well pump. There were also vacuum pumps and water pumps used in the milk house with mercury switches.

When I was stock clerk at a heating contractor the old guy -Bert- who had the job from the end of WWII (said if I played my cards right and kept my nose clean I too could retire from that job) to his retirement in 1975. Well Bert had a pint jar that we kept mercury from all of the used boiler switches in. I didn't get as many switches so a baby food jar worked, when filled or heavy the jar was taken to the local scrap yard and sold with other scrap metal for funding the Friday nite beer, burgers and brats party for the steam and sprinky fitters. We didn't eat mercury but we did eat good from mercury.

Happy Holiday

I'm surprised the coverage hasn't gone here yet. Another one is here. Newton/mercury poisoning is a bit more speculative.

Hi Kris,

When I posted Aluminum and mercury are used as preservatives in vaccinations

Thiomersal (C₉H₉HgNaO₂S), or sodium ethylmercurithiosalicylate was the mercury used in preserving vaccinations. Granted I was a bit indirect.

Brad

Oops ! Sorry, Brad, I was skimming thru a bit too fast.

No apology needed I enjoy being obtuse at times Makes others think without thinking

Brad

Hi,

Some simple rules:

1. Localise the spill and estimate how much has been spilled. Look if any of the tiny droplets are still visible.

Get zinc-dust (readily available) and dust any possible place where metallic mercury may be. The zinc will with mercury react to the solid Zn-Hg alloy (amalgam) that is much more stable and will "not" evaporate with time. Remove any zinc dust you can detect with a strong vacuum cleaner.

Stray some zinc powder - enough to bind the remaining mercury - into inaccessible parts of the room, let the zinc remain there.

Secure good ventilation and/or low temperature during this operation.

2. Measure if still dangerous:

Let the windows closed, heat to maximum summer-temperature and test for poisonous concentration of Hg with Draeger-tubes (link below.)

http://www.draeger.com/ST/internet/US/en/Products/Detection/Drager-Tubes/draeger_tubes.jsp

3. If still dangerous:

localised cheap treatment: spill some fine ground iodine, less radical is sulphur (very finely dispersed).

This will start some severe corrosion on many metallic parts. But as iodine is evaporating this will react with the remaining droplets of mercury to HgJ.

With sulfur the Hg is reacting to cinnabar: harmless if not reconverted to mercury (by heat).

This is much less dangerous than metallic mercury.

generalised expensive treatment: remove any floor cover: wood, carpets, plastics as scratches and voids are likely traps for residual mercury. Measure again and seal before laying a new floor. Be careful to clean any edges.

4. Safe for future use:

measure in 3 months intervals for some time if residuals are requiring good ventilation. (Not likely but good to know).

5. Most important - do not contaminate Soil and water:

bacterial life in soil or water will convert the Hg to many different organo-metallic-Hg-compounds. These are 1000fold (!?) more poisonous than metallic Hg.

Plants, algae will take this up and concentrate, will be eaten by ...

Any step up-concentrating roughly a factor of 10 until very dangerous for us!.

Know the basics and avoid the risks that are worth while to avoid.

RHABE

Hi Moose -

I betcha Dr. David Carpenter would know where a 14-year old could find that amount of mercury. Not sure if he's involved with this unfolding controversy yet, but he'd sure make a good expert witness, in this blogger's opinion. He's a medical doctor specializing in the neurological effects of mercury poisoning, as many of the CR4 folks may already know.

And as for Mr. Jammallo's comments, well, he should be aware that in 2008 some of us bloggers here in CR4 (not to mention those folks likely working for the on-line edition of his home-town Massachusetts newspaper) do this as part of making a living, and have kids who might potentially be exposed to mercury while they're at school.

Many of the folks I interact with personally in CR4 (from around the planet) have impressive technical and academic credentials, so he'd be smart to take the "blog-o-sphere" a little more seriously, and maybe even use it as a tool to improve his consulting firm.

I personally have a bachelor's in mechanical engineering (yea, a BSME is not much these days, but it's worked for me over my engineering career - I'm 42), and to get that, many hard-earned semester hours of chemistry and physics were requirements for obtaining my degree.

- Larry

Hi Moose, I have a couple pounds of it. Want to borrow it?

I have used it for defouling gun barrels, pulling gold out of ore and to make switches for booby trap prototypes back when that was socially acceptable for a precocious kid to do. ("Oh that milo! He rigged up something (not sure what) and the (fill in Exciting thing happens here) only had the chief of police stop by once or twice.

As long as people in power have facts but no judgement, they will continue to over react.

My 24 plus hours of college chemistry must qualify me as uneducated. Or was that my phD professsors who had me sniffing carcinogens inorder to identify them by smell for my organic II lab practical. (PS, anybody can id cinnamaldehyde...)

milo "Its almost always about the dose"

Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass, Milo!

And thanks to all who have commented on this thread and the others in this series.

- Moose

Well, just let me know.

milo

Blimey a half dollar sized blob of mercury wow...
Stupid boy...he should have taken in an automatic assault rifle, then there would have been far less fuss.

The world is going to hell in a hand cart...jeez he's a kid...give him a break, with a sceintific, enquiring mischeivious attitude like his he'll proabably end up as a far more usefull member of society than the endless bloody administrators that are castigating him.

Del ...<slaps furry head with paw>

Del,

In my case it would be < slaps bald head with furry paw >

You got it Del,

If Mercury is so toxic, how come the American Dental Association has a Tobbacco Company type attitude to defending its use (dentists here aren't much better). If breathing is the main point of entry then we'd all better stop breathing, the stuff sublimates 24 / 7 from our fillings (54% Mercury).

Sounds like Mr Cleanup and the coppers were more like Mr Beatup.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/us-issues-health-warning-over-mercury-fillings-856582.html

It's hard to tell what they know/think, but they like to have it both ways - on the one hand they would never admit liability for exposing people to risk (), on the other they can make money replacing peoples amalgam fillings (). I guess the test is to see how many dentists have amalgam in their own mouths.

Thanks for the link.

The changes would appear to be consumer driven with the dentist themselves dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. QLD is the last state in OZ to get fluoride due to a campaign from a loud minority. The Govt has finally legistated and it goes in progressively over the next year or so (QLD is a big place). QLD citizens have the worst teeth in OZ therefore must have the most Mercury polution in the country. I suppose it is one poison for another.