I love it when they go on about mecury levels in lakes in California only to find out it has come from natural sources. Same with oil leaks off the coast.
Recently, some group went after pharmacuetical companies for having mecury in vaccines. Seemingly, a very small amount of mercury in a vaccine allows certain vaccines to go unrefrigerated. This is extremely important when vaccinated people in Africa, central America, etc. It is hard enough to get vaccines to these places without lugging a fridge along.
I find it hard to believe that were every thermostat in the US to be mishandled that it would cause serious health or environmental impacts.
Same thing with the plastics in canned goods. The plastic lining alledgedly is a carcinogen, but the real numbers show far more would die from botulistic canned goods than would ever die from cancer laced cans.
The largest mercury mine in the world in the mid-1800s was a few miles from downtown San Jose, California. It was started to extract mercury for gold extraction in Chile and later supplied much of the mercury for gold extraction in the Sierras. The New Idria mercury mine in San Benito County also provided much of the mercury for the Sierra gold rush. Recovery of mercury was not very efficient and much of it washed downstream and into our streams, rivers and ultimately to the SF Bay. The tailings piles at New Idria are still a huge mess and cause a lot of acid runoff. Mercury production at the New Almaden mine in San Jose ended only in 1976. About 110,000 TONS of elemental mercury were produced in the Coast Range from the 1840s to the 1970s. Much of that found it’s way into the environment. It really isn’t a pretty picture.