Monday, January 12, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
POISONOUS VAPORS: EPA cleaning up mercury spill
Levels of mercury inside house six times greater than what is considered safe
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Howard Edwards, left, an Environmental Protection Agency contractor, comforts Snowball on Sunday as agency staff member Jake Moersen trims mercury-contaminated fur from the family pet. The agency worked on Sunday to decontaminate the house at 1400 Saylor Way after a liquid mercury spill.
Photo by Craig L. Moran.
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An Environmental Protection Agency emergency response team began cleaning up a liquid mercury spill Sunday at a house on Saylor Way where a 17-year-old boy inhaled the poisonous vapors.
The boy was taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, where he was in stable condition, agency officials said.
EPA officials said the other residents in the house, the boy's stepmother and his
grandmother, were taken to a local hotel and given clothes to wear through the help of the Red Cross.
"The public is not in danger," said Harry Allen, the EPA's coordinator at the scene. "It's a residential exposure situation,"
The response team from the agency's San Francisco regional office cordoned off the house and part of the street at 1400 Saylor Way, southeast of Vegas Drive and Jones Boulevard, where Allen said levels of mercury in the air inside the house were six times greater than what is considered safe to breathe.
"He's stable with high levels of mercury in his blood," Allen said about the condition of the teen, identified by another official as Michael Coleman.
Symptoms of acute mercury poisoning include dizziness, nausea, depression and behavioral problems.
Allen said the boy had brought a quart of mercury to the house. The teenager had had the mercury since September and had played with it frequently on the back deck of the home, EPA spokesman Mark Merchant said.
"He, like, so many teenagers, thought it was cool stuff to play with," Merchant said.
How and from where the youth obtained the mercury was unclear, but Allen said the possibilities include an abandoned mining operation or a storage facility.
EPA officials spent Sunday trying to save the family's dog, Snowball, who was seriously sickened by the mercury exposure.
Officials bathed and shaved the dog but were desperate to find a veterinarian who would treat the pet, Merchant said. Merchant said the EPA has a veterinarian, but the pet doctor is based in New Jersey.
"We're really hoping that a vet would volunteer some time and come out and look at Snowball," Merchant said. "They're not going to get contaminated by coming and examining the dog."
Merchant said the EPA would reimburse any veterinarian who offered help.
Allen said that liquid mercury vaporizes at just above room temperature, which is why levels of it in the air inside the house had become so high.
As temperatures drop, the mercury in the air condenses and then forms dropletlike deposits.
The house and its contents including drapes, carpets, clothes and belongings had become contaminated as well as the fur of the shaggy white dog that responders sheared.
Allen said the team of about a dozen responders was cleaning up the contamination with vacuum devices and might use sulfur to form a compound with airborne mercury to aid in collecting the substance.
EPA officials plan to contact the Metropolitan Police Department to determine whether any laws were violated and whether criminal charges might be merited, Merchant said. Possession of mercury is legal, but some forms of handling it are against the law, he said.
