Boy Found Playing With Mercury At Home- estimate that the spill is between 1 & 3 lbs

[The Straight Story]

Boy Found Playing With Mercury At Home
Oct 18 2007 5:37PM

URBANA, Ohio - A home was temporarily condemned on Wednesday after a housekeeper discovered a 15-year-old boy playing with jars of mercury.

The Environmental Protection Agency was called to the Ebert Street home to assist with the cleanup that is expected to take several days, 10TV's Maureen Kocot reported.

Housekeeper Brittany Craig said she saw Cameron Ward playing with the mercury and immediately called for help.

"There were marble-size balls of mercury all over the front porch," Craig said. "It was on the pool table, carpet, everything."
....

The EPA considers a large spill as anything over one pound," said Dale Farmer with the Ohio EPA. "That's about a tablespoon and a half."

In all, investigators estimate that the spill is between one and three pounds, Kocot reported.

http://www.10tv.com/?sec=&story=sites/10tv/content/pool/200710/630505929.html

[ThomCat]

1. How the hell does a kid get that much Mercury

and NOT know how dangerous it is? :shrug:

[depakid]

4. That is an impressive amount of mercury!

and quite an expensive clean-up.

[JDPriestly]

2. Where would he have found such a large quantity of mercury?

This is very strange.

[Der Blaue Engel]

3. I had a friend in jr. high whose father was a dentist

She used to steal mercury from his office. Little tiny vials, but still, we were pretty fucking stupid to be playing with it. We discovered that it made our jewelry really shiny, so we "cleaned" all of our rings with it! :scared:

[mcscajun]

8. Good thing none of your rings were Gold.

Mercury gets a death grip on Gold.

[troubleinwinter]

15. Dad brought me some home from the lab when I was a kid...

it did hit my gold ring and turn it 'silver' color. Dad said "just put it in the oven, it'll vaporize" (!!%&*!#*). It did. We're all still here 50 yrs later.

[StarryNite]

18. His fillings?

:shrug:

:sarcasm:

[Blue_In_AK]

5. That's a lot of mercury.

We used to like to play with small amounts because it was cool the way it would roll around in your hands, but I can't imagine having pounds of it.

[mcscajun]

6. WTF was Grandpa doing with it? How did the Housekeeper recognize it?

Perhaps the jars were labeled? :shrug:

Weird story, in any case.

[Rhythm and Blue]

7. That is...a lot of mercury.

Wow.

[rucky]

9. Urbana?

this shouldn't affect him one bit.

[karlrschneider]

10. A lot of commotion over not much. Anything to generate a panic.

:eyes:

[-..__...]

11. I found about 40 lbs of the stuff a few years ago.

Mercury was used in the counter weights of old clock pendulums.

I was working clearing debris, trash, furniture, etc out of an old building and scored the stuff from the remnants of an old grandfather clock that was left behind.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. That was probably a barometer.

There would be no point in using Hg in a pendulum.

[-..__...]

16. 40lbs in a barometer?

That would have been one MoFo of a barometer!

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=mercury&hl=en&num=100&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=clock+pendulum&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images">Mercury in clock pendulums

I'm guessing it was used in pendulums due to the density.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. How very strange. I can't see how it would be worth it just for weights.

A mercury stick barometer (from that same instrument maker at top of Google search) looks like it would hold about 100ml of mercury, and need another 100-300 for the reservoir. 40 lbs would be about 1300ml, so that's way more than a barometer would call for.

There used to be an amazing amount of Hg sitting around in laboratories (used to fill manometers, diffusion pumps, etc.) -- I remember one lab at Johns Hopkins had a huge GLASS bottle -- either 1000 or 2000 ml -- sitting on a shelf. I used to wonder what a mess it would make if that bottle ever broke.

Worth noting:

On June 5, 2007, a European Union directive was enacted to restrict the sale of mercury, thus effectively ending the production of new mercury barometers in Europe.

[Sugar Smack]

14. It was also used in haberdasheries

to hold the felt of the hats togather. That's why the proprieters were called "mad hatters".

[David Zephyr]

12. My friend and I played with lots of mercury as boys. Now you understand my madness.

We had jars of it from our dads' lab given to us when we requested it. So, I wonder how long I have left to live now.