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26
year. Rains and wind deposit this back
to the earth in the forro of pollutants.
Considering the high toxicity of mer–
cury, just half a jigger of a mercury
compound dissolved in a tank car of
water would make a concentration of
poison about ec¡ual to the toxic limit of
mercury allowed in food (.5 parts per
million) set by the Food and Drug
Administration. (Half a pound of mer–
cury is able to contaminate
10
million
pounds of fish, according to the more
stringent World Health Organization
standards of
.05
ppm.)
Sdeotists have estimated that the
total amount of mercury released into
the environment during the years from
1945
to
1958
was 24 million pounds,
almost half of the
50
million pounds
prod11ced
during those years. Since
1900,
the United States has produced
and used sorne
160
million pounds.
When released ioto the environment
every ounce of this remains
potmtia/Jy
poisonous, when converted
to
methyl–
mercury by microorganisms.
Sorne of the other meaos whereby
mercury has escaped into the environ–
ment are from discarded electrical
equipment - certain batteries for tran–
sistor radios, electrical switches, mercury
vapor lamps. These and a host of other
electrical gadgets are responsible for
24% of the total mercury use. Othcr
uses are anti-fouling and fungus-resist–
ant paints for ship bottorns and houses
(12%).
The remaining 38% of mer–
cury is used in slime inhibitors used in
manufacture of paper, fillings for den–
tistry, catalysts, agricultura! fungicides
and pesticides and other products.
"Unknown Killer"
But if all this mercury were being
proliferated in new industrial processes
and in products, why didn't the manu–
facturers warn ao unknowing public
about the dangers?
The answer is simple.
No one really knew the end results.
No one knew what would happen to
the mercury once it entered the natural
systems of earth.
After all, mercury has been around
for millennia in the form of cinnabar
aod other compounds - from which
mercury is mined. Mercury found natu–
rally in rocks is constantly being
Tht
PLAIN TRUTH
released, flowing natt1rally throughout
the earth's systems. In fact, mercury is
found naturally in living animals, and
in humaos.
.Bones of ancient Pcruvian Indians
were tested for mercury content, and
found to contain much lower levels
than "average" humans do today, point–
ing to the increased proliferation of
mercury in modero times.
Daoger emerges, however, when man
takes huge quantities of a substance -
in this case, mercury - and concen–
trates it in a specific area by aUowing its
discharge into the natural ecosystem.
Here an unnatural
imbalance
of the
substance becomes highly poisonous to
life forms.
For example, below one chemical
plant which discha rged mercury wastes
11
Methyl mercury ap–
pears to represent one
of the most noxious
mercury compounds
contaminating our en–
vironment.11
Swedish Journa t-Oika s
into the Great Lakes region, concentra–
tions of mercury
560
parts per million
were fouod in mud
125
feet down–
stream from thc discharge point. Four
miles downstream concentrations of 50
ppm were found. This is true, even
though the company had kept its waste
stream mercury content to
.1
ppm -
well under the .5 ppm toxic limit set by
the FDA for food.
"We koew we were losing mercury,"
the company admitted, "but we just
didn't think the concentration was high
enough to be harmful." (How mercury
is changed into methyl-mercury, and
made very harmful, is explained later.)
This belated admission points up a
fundamental Raw in the present tech–
nological process. Products are manu–
factured and used without a thorough
understanding of their effect on our
environment. One of the hidden costs is
that of getting rid of "wastes" from the
manufacturing process
"wastes"
being in reality by-products for which
)une
1971
the manufacturers perhaps could, but
often do not, find a use. The effect and
ultimate costs of these wastes in maoy
cases is much
g,·ealer
tban the direct
cost of the product itself. These "hid–
den" costs must be paid later, and are
now proving disastrously expensive.
A Case in Point
In Lake St. Clair, on the United
States-Canadian bordee in the Great
Lakes region the mercury from indus–
trial wastes has wrecked sport and com–
mercial fishing, and endangered human
health.
Noted biologist Barry Commoner of
Washington University in St. Louis
divulged some statistics at the American
Association for the Advancement of
Sci–
ence ( AAAS) meeting held in Chicago,
December,
1970.
Dr. Commoner esti–
mated that
in
recent years about
100,-
000
pounds of mercury was released
into Lake St. Clair annually. At $5.50
per pound, the current market price for
mercury, the average yearly cost of
"lost" mercury annually dumped ioto
Lake St. Clair would be sorne $550,000.
Yet, due to the contamination effects of
this mercury on fish, Lake St. Clair's
commercial fishing operation valued at
$500,000,000 aonually was closed!
The cost to commercial fishing comes
to nearly $5000 for every pound of
mercury released each year by the chem–
ical industry! In addition, tourism,
sport fishing, aod even land values were
all affected to a great extent.
Carrying this calculation ooe step fur–
ther, the value of goods produced by
the industries which released mercury
into Lake St. Clair is estimated at sorne
$40 to $50 miUion annually, or only
about one tenth of the annual value of
the commercial fishing operation whicb
had to be closed clown.
Truly, a high price to pay, and hardly
an equitable compensation for the
release of mercury into the environment.
Cases such as this cause serious con–
cero over the uncontrolled technology
of highly industrialized societies.
UP the Food Chain
There is a yet more alarming aspect
to mercury - "the unknown killer."
The story is about two separate types