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RE: Mercury scam?
Ruth Weiner wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM [mailto:RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 9:36 AM
To: John Jacobus; jjcohen; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Mercury scam?
In a message dated 4/6/2004 9:37:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time, John Jacobus <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM> writes:
>Did you calculate the amount of mercury deposited in
>the ocean from the burning of coal and other
>industrial processes? What form is the mercury
>entering the oceans? As an organic form that can be
>absorbed by biota?
>
1. mercury emitted from coal-burning power plants is emitted as mercuric oxide -- pretty insoluble in sea water. 2. Metallic mercury is emitted directly into waterways from chlor-alkali production (there is an EPA limit for this). 3. Metallic mercury apparently can be methylated by marine organisms to form dimethyk mercury.
ruth
--
Ruth F. Weiner
ruthweiner@aol.com
505-856-5011
(o)505-284-8406
=============
Ruth,
I think marine organisms methylate mercury to methyl mercury. Dimethyl mercury is extraordinarily toxic. In August 1996 the Dartmouth chemist Karen Wetterhahn spilled a couple of drops of dimethyl mercury on her latex gloves. In January 1997 she was hospitalized with symptoms of mercury poisoning. She died a couple of months later. She had been following accepted guidelines for handling dimethyl mercury. The incident led to a revision of safety rules here at the laboratory. Methyl mercury is quite toxic, but not in the same ballpark as dimethyl mercury.
Best regards.
Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov
These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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