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    <title>Harvey Swept Hazardous Mercury Ashore. The Mystery: Its Source. - The New York Times</title>
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<p class="byline-dateline"><span class="byline" itemprop="author creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"  itemid="https://www.nytimes.com/by/jack-healy">By <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/jack-healy" title="More Articles by JACK HEALY"><span class="byline-author" data-byline-name="JACK HEALY" itemprop="name" data-twitter-handle="jackhealynyt">JACK HEALY</span></a> and </span><span class="byline" itemprop="author creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"  itemid="https://www.nytimes.com/by/sheila-kaplan"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/sheila-kaplan" title="More Articles by SHEILA KAPLAN"><span class="byline-author" data-byline-name="SHEILA KAPLAN" itemprop="name">SHEILA KAPLAN</span></a></span><time class="dateline" datetime="2017-09-09T05:21:49-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" content="2017-09-09T05:21:49-04:00">SEPT. 6, 2017</time>
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="204" data-total-count="204">CHANNELVIEW, Texas — Public health officials are investigating a case of dangerous liquid mercury that appears to have washed or blown ashore here, east of Houston, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="247" data-total-count="451">Bobby Griffin found the clusters of shiny silver mercury globules scattered across his San Jacinto riverfront property on Tuesday, a few hundred yards from the San Jacinto Waste Pits, a Superfund site that was inundated during last week’s storm.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="247" data-total-count="698">Harvey cut a path through industrial corridors, raising concerns about pollution and runoff. Public health officials are especially concerned about flooding at highly contaminated Superfund sites, designated by the federal government for clean up.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="270" data-total-count="968">Lisa Montemayor, an environmental investigator for Houston’s health department, said that officials would be dispatched to Mr. Griffin’s property as soon as possible, but she could not yet say where the mercury had come from, or how widespread the contamination was.</p><div id="story-ad-1" class="story-ad ad ad-placeholder nocontent robots-nocontent ">
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="206" data-total-count="1174" id="story-continues-1">Elemental mercury, a liquid metal that breaks into tiny droplets, is a neurotoxin poisonous to the brain and the nervous system. It is not well-absorbed through the skin, but its vapors can enter the lungs.</p>        <a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="#story-continues-2">Continue reading the main story</a>
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        <p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="269" data-total-count="1443" id="story-continues-3">The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences says that mercury is extremely dangerous, “with a few drops generating enough fumes to contaminate the air in a room.” It is less dangerous outside, but it poses a hazard if people pick it up or stand near it.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="197" data-total-count="1640">Mr. Griffin, who earned a living renting out mobile homes on his land until the storm wrecked them all, first noticed a spray of silvery dots in the wet sand that clung to his bare toes on Tuesday.</p><figure id="media-100000005412799" class="media photo embedded layout-large-horizontal media-100000005412799 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/09/07/science/07MERCURY4/07MERCURY4-master675.jpg" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" aria-label="media" role="group">
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="154" data-total-count="1794">He called out for a New York Times reporter who happened to be on his property, looking for toxic contamination left behind after the storm, to come over.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="159" data-total-count="1953">Mr. Griffin, 57, picked up one cluster with his knife, tipped it into the palm of his left hand and watched it dance, split into pieces and come back together.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="140" data-total-count="2093">“It’s all over here,” Mr. Griffin said, pointing to cluster after cluster. He said he had not seen the material before the storm came.</p><div class="newsletter-signup hidden auto-newsletter variant-1-hidden " id="newsletter-promo" data-newsletter-productCode="" data-newsletter-productTitle="" aria-labeledby="newsletter-promo-heading">
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="186" data-total-count="2279">He said he knew little about mercury’s health hazards. Qilin Li, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, subsequently identified the material as mercury.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="341" data-total-count="2620">Mercury has been used in older thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs and some electrical switches. It can also transform into methylmercury and enter the water supply. Fish contaminated with mercury have been a major source of exposure for people in the United States. Mercury has been a major air pollutant and a byproduct of manufacturing.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="352" data-total-count="2972">Stan Meiburg, who left his position as the Acting Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year and is now a professor at Wake Forest University, said in an interview that the mercury could have been carried from a contaminated Superfund site, or, more likely, was in a container nearby that broke open during the flood.</p><div id="story-ad-2" class="story-ad ad ad-placeholder nocontent robots-nocontent ">
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<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="126" data-total-count="3098" id="story-continues-4">Mr. Meiberg said the risk is greater if mercury is found inside a home or building. “Nobody should pick this up,” he said.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="120" data-total-count="3218">Jackie Young, executive director of the Texas Health and Environment Alliance, said she was concerned about the mercury.</p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="235" data-total-count="3453">“We need our agencies to act immediately on this finding,” she said. “We have no idea where these floodwaters could have carried these contaminants from and I fear that more residents could come in contact with it unknowingly.”</p><div id="addenda" class="addenda">
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        An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect name for an air pollutant and byproduct of manufacturing. It is mercury, not methylmercury.    </div>
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