2)=A0 On the other hand, spills of more than one pound (two tablespoons) require notification of the National Response Center (although it appears the intent here is release to the environment, not necessarily a spill in a room that is then immediately contained, recovered and cleaned up.

It should also be pointed out (in fairness) that the EPAR 17;s focus is, by definition, the impact on the environment, not necessarily the impact on those that deal with the ‘spill’.=A0 However, PPE is specified in the clean-up directions, so they’re not completely ignor ing that aspect.

The asterisk here is that, given the information in the arti cle that generated this whole discussion, we still do not know how much merc ury was spilled.

So, if this was a small amount of mercury (less than 2 tablespoons) I will reiterate my contention that the entire incident was bl own entirely out of proportion.=A0 In this event, my main ‘beef’ is with whoever the hazmat ‘professional’ was that was first contacted. =A0 The correct response was “Yes, you can clean this up yourself without requiring a full-blown hazmat response.”

If it was more than 2 tablespoons, hazmat had to get involve d, but sending people to the hospital was still way over the top and unnecessa rily worried a lot of folks IMO.

I’m not sorry I got this thread started; I think there has been a lot of good discussion generated by it.=A0 I hope that no one feels that I objected to the inclusion of the newsbrief in the digest, because I did not .=A0 Again, the problem, as I see it, was the response to the situation.

Brad

Dr. Bradley K. Norwood

Laboratory Director

Arista Laboratories

1941 Reymet Road

Richmond, VA=A0 23237

(804) 271-5572 ext. 307

(804) 641-4641 (cell)

brad.norwood**At_Symbol_Here**aristalabs.com

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Thank you for the EHP reference.  I noticed that in additi on to discussing large spills, it had a couple of paragraphs concerning small metallic mercury spills (p. 149).  In this section, thermometer-sized spills did not seem to result in very high mercury concentrations in the ai r.

Let’s face it.  Mercury is not to be ignored.  There is no question that it is hazardous.  Nonetheless, it does not s eem (to me) that small amounts, barring unusual circumstances, are cause for pa nic.

Thank you,

Ben