Monday, July 28, 2008

Boise Mercury Spill...


In case you haven"t heard, we've had a Mercury spill in Boise. At first, they thought it was about 2 ounces but now think it may have been as much as 16. I think I could be in real trouble...

Ival and I had a discussion about this yesterday. We used to PLAY with Mercury! I don't know where it came from, or what it was for, but I remember having baby food jars of Mercury in our garage at Garden Valley. We used to go out there and pour some in our hands and roll it back and forth watching in fascination as it rolled so smoothly from one hand to the other. Occasionally, it would drop to the floor and break into hundreds of tiny silver balls. We'd try to pick them up and put them back into the jar but it was impossible.

They've been working on this spill for almost a week now, two families have been evacuated from their homes, they've torn up the street down about 2 feet, and the children found playing with it have been scrubbed with a steel brush, dipped in oxi clean, and hung out to dry.

I think I'm feeling sick...

8 comments:

kate said...

I hadn't heard about that! Mom never tells me anything....

That's funny about you playing with Mercury!! OH MY GOD, can you imagine that now?

That reminds me of story I read where the author talked about how, when they were little, she and all the neighborhood kids would have "slow races" behind the truck that would come through the neighborhood spraying DEET! They'd all get behind the truck on their bikes and ride, squinting their eyes AGAINST THE MIST COMING OFF THE TRUCK, to see who could go the slowest in order to get the most saturated with the stuff!

Oh well, I guess we're all gonna die someday....

;)

Dee said...

I heard on the news this morning that so far they have removed 3, count 'em, 3 ! dump truck loads of contaminated soil ! Those people won't have any yards left, and they won't even admit to what they have done inside the houses. The kids touched all kinds of things in their homes !
And I can't even begin to imagine why we had mercury in baby food jars in the garage !!!!!!!!

Linda said...

I remember playing with it in Garden Valley too. Dad used it for something. I know it used to be used for separating gold dust from dirt and sand. Maybe that's what he had it for.

I had friends that used to eat raw hamburger, and we used to swim in the polluted ponds down off Park Center. And most of us grew up around lead paint.

Kids used to do all sorts of things that are thought to be TERRIBLE now. But we survived. I think people now guard their kids from stuff SO MUCH that their little immune systems don't ever strenthen. We were tough! Immune systems of steel.

Dee said...

That's very true about kids being safe-guarded TOO much , washing with antseptic soap all the time and then they are getting---ear infections, all kinds of colds frequently, etc etc. You kids were so healthy----and didn't really have any serious, life threatening injuries. Now I find everything you did was supposed to be deadly.

kate said...

Oh yeah, mom, remember the bleach bottle that had "Lala's juice" written on it?!

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