Mercury! Danger?

Neither the FDA nor the EPA has determined threshold levels for environmental mercury levels. Certainly, it is well established that mercury (Hg) becomes very toxic at certain levels and that the toxic effects of mercury can cause a variety of serious health conditions. In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act, which requires EPA to determine safe levels of chemicals in drinking water that do or may cause health problems. These non-enforceable levels are based solely on possible health risks and exposure and are called Maximum Contaminant Level Goals (MCLG). The MCLG for mercury has been set at 2 parts per billion (ppb) because EPA believes this level of protection would not cause any of the potential health risk.

The EPA Limit for mercury in bottle water is set at 2 ppb or about 0.000002 grams of mercury per liter of water (g/L) in bottled drinking water (2,000 ng/L).

The problem with quantities references in extremely small numbers, such as part per billion is that it is very difficult for average people to imagine what the numbers really mean in terms of everyday life. The following list should help place these values in perspective by comparing the EPA value to mothers breast milk, bottled water, canned tuna fish and amalgam dental fillings.

Note that the values have been standardized to nanograms (ng) (1 ng = .000000001 gram) of mercury per liter and compared to drops (.25g) per gallon of water. 1 ng of mercury is about equivalent to 1 drop per 66,000,000 gallons of water.

Amount of Mercury in:	Hg per Litter	Equivalent Volume Drops of Hg / Gallon H2O
Mothers Breast Milk	575 ng/L	1 / 115,500 gallons
Human Blood (for people not exposed to mercury)	830 ng/L 80,000ng/L	1 / 82,000 gallons 1 / 825 gallons
Bottled Water (limit)	2,000 ng/L	1 / 33,000 gallons
Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL)	5,000 ng/L	1 / 13,200 gallon
Typical Watch Battery	25,000 ng/L	1 / 2,640 gallon
Canned Tuna Fish (1 can)	46,600 ng/L	1 / 1,400 gallon
Dental Amalgam (1 filling)	200,000,000 ng/L	3 / 1 gallon

Until 1999, the Food and Drug Administration had approved Thimerosal (a vaccine preservative containing ethyl-mercury) for use with infant vaccination. This vaccination regularly injected 63,000 nanograms of ethyl-mercury directly into the bloodstream of infants.

A study of mercury contamination levels of the acid mine drainage from adit 10 and the San Carlos stream at Idria revealed the following mercury levels:

Amount of Mercury in:	Measured Hg/Litter H2O	Equivalent Volume Drops of Hg / Gallon H2O
San Carlos Reservoir	13 ng/L	1 / 5,082,000 Gallons
Adit 10	40 ng/L	1 / 1,650,000 Gallons
Settling Pond	400 ng/L	1 / 650,000 Gallons
1 mile downstream	12,000 ng/L	1 / 5,500 Gallons

The average natural level of mercury in freshwater lakes is about 30 ng/L. The average natural level of mercury in ocean water is about 30 to 5,000 ng/L

From the prospective of mercury contamination, the Acid Mine Drainage at Idria is safer and contains less mercury than mother's breast milk, human blood, or bottled drinking water, and is well below the EPA limit of 2,000 ng/L for safe drinking water. Of course, the evidence does shows that the mercury contamination levels increase sharply one mile down stream (12,000 ng/L), near the Woods' Whimsy Mining Company property. However, even that water contains 4 times less mercury than found in a single can of tuna fish (47,000 ng).

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