Removing mercury from a river?

March 22, 2005 | self / vanity

[The Other Harry]

A few years ago, I moved to a small town in west central Virginia. Waynesboro. Our main employer for many years has been a DuPont plant (now no longer owned by DuPont) which produced much of the company's Spandex.

In the course of doing this, they pumped a lot of mercury into the local river. So much so that the city now recommends that no one eat fish they catch from there.

It would be nice to remove it. The apparent problem is that mercury settles to the bottom and attempts to remove it simply stir it up and send it further downstream, making the problem even worse.

Question is:

Does anyone out there know anything about how mercury can be removed from a river?

Better yet, does anyone know anyone else who might know how to remove it?

The city is claiming they have looked into this and it can't be done. I have my doubts. I think the city may well be complicit and therefore would be liable for a substantial portion of the costs. I think they coughed and looked the other way while collecting tax revenues.

Any suggestions?

[cripplecreek]

We have a heavy metals problem here on the rasin river in Michigan as well. A few years back there was some consideration about dredging as a means of getting rid of the weeds. The DEQ informed us that we couldn't do it due to the pollution of the sediments in the bottom of the lake.

Instead we opted for spraying to kill the weeds. The thing is we've noticed that without the weeds the flow of water has increased and is naturally dredging the lake anyway.

[tacticalogic]

Drill some boreholes in the riverbed, drop in some capped liners, stir up the sediment upstream just enough the get the mercury moving, wait for it to settle in the holes, pull up the liners, collect the mercury, lather, rinse, repeat?

[Servant of the 9]

Ignore it.
You swallow more mercury getting one silver amalgam tooth filling than you could get by eating fish from that river every meal for the rest of your life.

Mercury toxicity is exclusively from inhaling mercury vapor, not from touching or eating it.

So9

[grizzly84]

Sadly that's 1/3 the rivers and lakes in the US today, unsafe fish or eating limit. I guess only time will fix the problem, I hope it does.

[x1stcav]

Are you giving money-back garuntees?

Liquid mercury, ingested, wouldn't kill you?

Not being a wise a$$, just curious.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Jimmy Carter signed CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, otherwise knows as Superfund) into law to deal with such situations. You might want to contact your state environmental agency's contaminated site division to see if they're aware of the situation. On the other hand, you may not want to (CERCLA is often jokingly referred to as the Comprehensive Employment for Regulators, Consultants and Lawyers Act). It might be more rewarding to practice catch and release fishing and to buy your fish for eating in a grocery store.

[Servant of the 9]

Are you giving money-back garuntees?

Liquid mercury, ingested, wouldn't kill you?

Not being a wise a$$, just curious.

A 'silver' filling is a physical mix (amalgam) of pure silver and pure mercury made up in the dentists office just before it is packed in the tooth (that's the whacka whacka whacka machine you hear behind you when you are in the chair). All the excess material they scrape and grind away to finish the filling, and that trickles down your throat, is a mixture of pure mercury and pure silver.

There are no guarantees in life, but ingested mercury is pretty near inert.

So9

[JerseyHighlander]

Check out "Kodak EPA Hudson River" as keywords on a google search. It really can't be done, especially now with Bush's changes to EPA site management funding directives.

[The Other Harry]

Drill some boreholes in the riverbed, drop in some capped liners, stir up the sediment upstream just enough the get the mercury moving, wait for it to settle in the holes, pull up the liners, collect the mercury, lather, rinse, repeat

Do you know what you are talking about, or are you guessing?

I am very gullible.

[tacticalogic]

Do you know what you are talking about, or are you guessing?

Yes.

I am very gullible.

Same here.

[SaltyJoe]

Mercury isn't ferromagnetic; however, mercury is diamagnetic on a scale of -2.9.

Would it be possible to use an electronic magnet to manipulate mercury? The magnet may need a synthetic sheath of some sort that could allow the mercury to easily slide off (like bacon and eggs off a non-stick frying pan). If it's possible, an electronic magnet might be used if the water doesn't short it. Would it be possible to sheath an electronic magnet with insulation to guard it from water shock?

I don't know enough, so I could be WAY off on this.

Furthermore, how difficult would it be to hydrographically survey a river? If it isn't navigable by boat, can it be done by aircraft. The reason for the survey is to find the lowest depths and most likely locations of mercury.

If a survey can be done, can a signal return indicate the types of bottom and if mercury or other hardened targets visible (sunken boats, cars, last year's Christmas tree)?

[John Will]

Could Mercury's affinity for sulfur be useful, create a Mercury sulfide from nmercury then remove the reaction product.

[x1stcav]

I'll be damned.

You've just ended a 15 year personal moratorium on the predating of striped bass in the Sacramento River estuary. I stopped catching and eating them back in '87 because of concerns over mercury poisoning.

[x1stcav]

Damn! Reacted too fast.

Now I've been informed, via Freepmail, that if a naturally occurring form becomes mentholated, it becomes toxic, and this is apparently what is happening with fish.

There is no hope. We're all going to die.