OT A tale of two webpages, both from the same city

OT A tale of two webpages, both from Baltimore City

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school staff, students isolated after thermometer break More than a dozen held on concerns of mercury exposure Associated Press 9:47 p.m. EDT, May 28, 2010

A Baltimore fire department spokesman says more than a dozen people at a Baltimore school have been isolated after broken thermometers prompted concerns about the mercury inside.

Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the fire department, said between 12 and 20 students and staff were isolated Friday at Rodman Elementary School in West Baltimore.

Cartwright says there were no signs of significant injuries. The students and staff were to be showered in a decontamination trailer.

Cartwright says students were playing with thermometers, which broke and released mercury.

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|lang_iw|lang_esUniverity of Maryland Medical Center, Hospital for Children Parent Education - Caring for Kids

Mercury Myths And Realities

If a mercury thermometer breaks what should you do? Could your health be at risk? These are two of the most common questions asked of the experts at the Maryland Poison Center at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Below you'll find the answers and more facts about mercury.

  • Mercury is a shiny, odorless, poisonous metal that is a liquid at room temperature. * There are three types of mercury: elemental, organic and inorganic. * Elemental mercury is found in thermometers, barometers, blood-pressure devices, fluorescent lights, batteries and is used in dental offices. * In 2000, 4,186 cases of mercury exposure were reported in the United States. * Most mercury poisoning occurs from breathing contaminated air or from ingesting contaminated water or food. * Long-term exposure to a large amount of mercury could cause neurological problems. * Short-term exposure to a small amount of mercury is not likely to cause health problems. * The amount of mercury in an oral/rectal thermometer is not enough to be toxic. If a child were to ingest mercury from a thermometer, it should not cause any health problems.

So you can even eat the stuff. Admittedly there was more than one thermometer in the first story, but I doubt if they did more than barely touch it. I used to play with liquid mercury when I was 7 to

12 years old, and I'm yako.

  • The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents use a digital thermometer as opposed to a mercury thermometer when taking a child's temperature. * Place a mercury thermometer in a sealable plastic bag when throwing it away. * To clean up a broken thermometer, use two sheets of paper to pick up the beads of mercury. Then place them in a plastic bag before disposing of the material. * Never use a vacuum cleaner to clean up mercury. * For a larger mercury spill, contact the Maryland Department of the Environment 24 hours a day at 410-974-3551. * For questions and poison emergencies, call the Maryland Poison Center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-222-1222.

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mm
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City school staff, students isolated after thermometer break

They will probably monitor their health for the next 20 years now.

At a school not far from here, it was discovered the near 100 year old building had asbestos in the ceilings. So they had an emergency evacuation and closed the school until it was removed months later. Good thing they did not wait another 90 minutes to the end of the school day to send the kids home.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in news:EI2dnT4qAcq7Z53RnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

I was told that common sense was a misnomer. It isn't very common at all. At least not 5 years ago. This was in the VA system, told to me as a revelation by a cleaning person whose deep insight might have been helped by illegal experiences of the chemical kind.

Reply to
Han

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As a retired chemist, wide spread chemo-phobia is one of my pet peeves. Like op said, as school kids, we would play with mercury. Lot of us have silver/mercury fillings in our teeth. Today if you break a mercury thermometer or cfl, they want to call in the EPA.

Same for asbestos. Sure, fibers breathed into your lungs can cause a problem but asbestos is not going to jump off pipes or insulation and attack you.

Reply to
Frank

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Unfortunately this is the kind of shy is falling in stuff that really discredits (and rightly so) these government agencies.

Someone I know is replacing one of their business locations with a new building. One of the procedures for tearing down the old small one story building was to get some sort of hazardous materials permit. Some inspector had to be hired and he found that a 5x5' (yes, 25 sq ft) office had floor tiles that "may contain asbestos". So it cost $3,800 and delayed the project by two weeks until the proper outfit which was rated to handle the highly dangerous non-friable asbestos could be hired.

Reply to
George

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Are you sure? Non-friable asbestos is clearly more dangerous than Plutonium...

Reply to
George

Is there a boomer kid that didn't? It was seasonal, like tetherball, marbles, and yo-yo's. Never knew where it came from , but some kid would inevitably show up with a few ounces and soon every boy on the playground was making pennies and dimes shine like new chrome. Considering the number of years/times I messed with that stuff, I should be drooling in my wheel chair this very instant. Humbug!

nb

Reply to
notbob

An example of government idiocy.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Frank wrote in news:htqvq6$f7l$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

Even worse is the irrational and ignorant popular conception that "chemicals" are bad things; that man-made "chemicals" are necessarily toxic. Try to tell people that EVERYTHING is "chemical", even air and water, and you get skepticism and/or blank stares.

Hearing aid batteries used to contain substantial amounts of mercury. When I was a kid, I'd save up a bunch of batteries (size 675) and my sister and I would smash them flat on the garage floor to release the mercury. With enough batteries, we could get enough for a squished ball about 1/4" in diameter. Lots of fun to play with. We'd keep it in a film canister for storage.

Even back then, we knew mercury wasn't to be eaten, so we were careful with it. I also remember a lurid nursery-rhyme about a boy who died after licking the "mercury" off the back of a mirror. This tale had an effect on our treatment of mercury.

Reply to
Tegger

"Tegger" wrote

Don't ever tell people where you lived. They will close down the neighborhood as a toxic waste site.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Wish I'd known. I've recycled untold hundreds of mercury #13 size hearing aid batteries. I'd have saved them.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I smashed a lot of batteries at

2002 Wheeler St Houston, TX 77004
Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Hmm, I guess I probably shouldn't have just scraped up the old stick- on tiles in my laundry room and put the pieces in a plastic bag then. (yes, I did it wet, made it easier to get them up off the floor.

nate

Reply to
N8N

I think the two parts of the following anecdote connect???? And are somewhat on topic with the foregoing?

My late father born around 1901, grew up in London UK and told me about workers who job it was to paint the luminous paint markings onto WWI aircraft instrument dials, 'luminous' watches etc. It was done by hand; required some artistry and a steady hand. It was the habit of the workers to wet and rotate their brushes between their lips in order to shape the fine pointed ends of their brushes to produce the fine markings. Many years later it was noticed that a significant number of the workers died from various forms of throat, lip and other cancers and it was traced to the small amounts of radioactive luminescent paint that the workers had ingested!

My father, who was of course a child, during that first war died in the late 1960s

A few years ago there was press story about an old building in that same area of London that had had variuos uses (possibly at one point it was tobacco warehouse?) during the last century was being renovated once again. Memory escapes me but it was possibly being upgraded to high end apartments? It was discovered almost accidentally that the floors of the building were highly contaminated with some type of radioactivity. Very expensive to remove and replace apparently. Investigation showed that the building had at one time, back around WWI, been used as a small factory for producing aircraft instruments etc. The radioactive floors were the result of variuos spills/splashes of luminous paint!

So I wonder? In my mind the two separate stories seemed to connect?

I guess that item "Check for radioactivity" is not on most 'Approved for Occupancy Permit check-lists'?

Have fun.

Reply to
terry

Yes; we also used to 'play with' mercury. Broken thermometers, traces from school lab etc. But am now in mid-late 70s and it hasn't got me so far! But wasn't mercury once used as treatment for syphilis? Although mighta been a case of the cure worse than the disease?

Have fun.

Reply to
terry

Holy shit, when I was a kid in the early 60's I had a "mercury collection", yes I used to collect the mercury from old heater thermostat switches, thermometers, wherever. My uncles used to give them to me too because they knew I collected it. Our friends used to play with it, etc., had a mason jar about half filled with mercury. These weenies, I'm perfectly fine, (when I'm not talking to my imaginary friends :).

Reply to
RickH

School districts often use a "bait and switch" tactic to get extra money for teacher pensions and salaries, because building maint. money can be obtained without referendum. They get the cash by saying the roof is leaking, then bid the job out a 3 times the going rate, then move the cash to a different account. Referendums are messy because they actually involve resident oversight.

This is why school funding increases 10% a year while enrollment has been dropping 4% a year. Better check out your local school districts antics, I'll bet anything much of that cash went elsewhere, and the bid was way over the going rate.

Reply to
RickH

How about formaldehyde? I have heard people calling that some dangerous neurotoxin where there is no safe level of exposure, and zero tolerance is required.

But I was in class the day my high school biology teacher explained the chemical reactions in photosynthesis. And I was paying attention in class that day. A CO2 molecule plus an H2O molecule, with energy obtained from light, are rearranged into an O2 molecule and a CH2O molecule. The formaldehyde is used in plants to build carbohydrates.

If you pick something live and green and being exposed to light and then you eat it, guess what!

Reply to
Don Klipstein

I believe they will declare anywhere within a 5 mile radius of your house a class I environmental disaster area if they find out...

Reply to
George

Does 'shoot, shovel, and shut up' ring a bell? Yes, use common sense, and don't knowingly spread toxic stuff into the wild. But for old tile, or asbestos-shingle siding, etc. , just handle it carefully (ie, wet), don't create dust, bag it well, and if somebody challenges you, play dumb. IMHO, in many cases, 'abatement' is a racket and a license to steal.

Reply to
aemeijers

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