Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Officials seek 12 exposed to mercury

Cleanup estimated to cost at least $500,000

Justin Gonzales, left, and Tom Taylor, with Environmental Protection Agency contractor Environmental Restoration, remove their protective gear Monday after working to clean up mercury contamination at a Saylor Way home. Western High School student Michael Coleman, 17, was hospitalized Saturday with acute mercury contamination. Photo by Cariño Casas. Howard Edwards, left and Jake Moerson, contract workers for the Environmental Protection Agency, care for Snowball, the family pet contaminated with mercury at 1400 Saylor Way. Photo by Craig L. Moran.

While Clark County health officials tried to track down 12 people Monday who they believe were exposed to high levels of toxic mercury vapors that made a 17-year-old boy sick, federal authorities said the cost for cleaning up the contamination at a Saylor Way home will be at least $500,000.

The teen, Michael Coleman, a Western High School student, was hospitalized Saturday with acute mercury poisoning. He was undergoing treatment Monday at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, where a chelating agent was being used to flush the metal out of his system, according to his mother, Karen Coleman, and members of an Environmental Protection Agency hazards team.

Harry Allen, the EPA team's on-scene coordinator, said detection equipment initially on Sunday had recorded levels of mercury in the air at the front door to 1400 Saylor Way to be six times higher than background readings. But later readings with less sensitive instruments found the levels to be much higher, up to 150 micrograms per cubic meter of air, or 150 times more than acceptable background levels.

"The hottest spots were in the room where the boy lived. The real sensitive one (instrument) is too sensitive to use in there it's so hot" with contamination, he said.

Liquid mercury vaporizes at just above room temperature and was probably spread throughout the house over a period of three months while the heater was on during cold days, EPA officials said. It is used in the mining industry to extract gold from ore and sometimes in the paper industry to make pulp, they said.

Allen said a dose from breathing air 10 times the highest concentration in the house could be fatal, but authorities believe the contamination is confined to the house and doesn't pose a danger to neighbors, the public or nearby schools.

The clean up will be expensive, he said, because under emergency Superfund requirements, contaminated items must be removed and replaced and the tainted materials properly disposed of in hazardous waste landfills. He said the monthlong cleanup and associated costs will probably come to more than $500,000, but the expense cannot exceed the $2 million emergency Superfund cap.

The team must decontaminate the house. Demolishing the structure is not an option because that could spread the contamination to the outside environment. Whether anyone will be held liable for mishandling toxic mercury remains to be seen, Allen said. The cleanup cost, he said, will be negotiated between EPA attorneys and the owner, who is Karen Coleman's uncle, Dale Lattimer, of Selmar, Calif.

Last year, a mercury contamination cleanup in the Washington, D.C., area that involved a school and eight houses cost the EPA about $14 million.

Family members said Michael Coleman had played with liquid mercury that he found in a partially filled, quart-size jar at the house, located in a neighborhood off Vegas Drive near Jones Boulevard.

The jar was half to two-thirds full of mercury said Michael Coleman's grandmother, Lorraine Estes, who was the only relative who lived at the house full-time with the teen. She said his great uncle, Ed Lattimer, had used mercury when he worked in a gold mine in Southern California and left a jar of it at the Las Vegas house before he moved to Lancaster, Calif., six months ago.

"It was just a jar with a lid on it. ... I seen it in there and I thought it was silver paint," Estes said as EPA specialists clad in white chemical suits and wearing respirators loaded contaminated debris in a bin in the driveway.

She said she put the mercury jar in the trash on the side of the house on Thanksgiving after the boy's stepfather, Stephan Karr, realized the shiny liquid might be dangerous to handle.

Daniel Maxson, a Clark County environmental health supervisor, said all the others who officials believe were exposed to mercury vapors were relatives, except for a high school friend of Coleman's, another 17-year-old boy.

"We're trying to identify everybody who was exposed and get them tested," he said. "We'll be working with Southern California health agencies." Symptoms of mercury poisoning include dizziness, nausea, depression and behavioral problems.

One man who had lived next to the home for 40 years said he wasn't alarmed.

"These things happen, there's nothing you can do about it," said Bee Welch, 89.

The family's fluffy white dog, Snowball, had to be shaved to remove its contaminated fur.

Clark County Health District spokeswoman Jennifer Sizemore said environmental health specialists will visit Western High School and a nearby elementary school today in an effort to inform students about the dangers of mercury.

No monitoring is planned at the schools because authorities don't believe the mercury that Coleman had was ever taken off the Saylor Way property.

Joslin said officials believe the jar of mercury was picked up with residential garbage and hauled to the Apex landfill, north of Las Vegas. The landfill has a plastic liner that is designed to contain toxic liquids such as mercury. Because of the landfill's design, he said officials probably won't attempt to recover the jar.

Maxson said residents who find mercury can take containers of it for proper disposal to Republic Silver State's facility at 333 W. Gowan between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.

In Northern Nevada, a Gardnerville school where a boy brought a quarter-cup of mercury last week will remain closed until at least Wednesday.

A student brought the mercury to Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School Tuesday on a school bus.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.