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Mercury Spill

jefftk.com

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Re: Mercury Spill

#11

Post by Laforet »

function_seven wrote: post #5

Yikes. I'm glad my house was built in the 80's. No asbestos, no lead in the paint, no mercury hiding out in my ceiling. How dangerous was this contamination, though? I know mercury evaporates, and that it is an air quality concern, but given its location and assuming normal levels of indoor air movement, is it worth $50k to abate it? I tend to be skeptical of mold issues, for example, but I also imagine that mercury…

Probably not that harmful, but it's a liability issue and definitely worth addressing early if the house is to be sold in future.

The building I currently work in is going to get some plumbing work done and there is likely asbestos somewhere. The current word from above is that if any asbestos is found during the process the whole bulding will have to be evacuated until somebody from the appropiate authority sign it off as safe. Overeaction? Probably. We know that to cause cancer you need to be inhaling asbesto dust for years. But the liability is too great that any other course of action would be deemed negligent.

Re: Mercury Spill

#12

Post by PhasmaFelis »

> Call it $50k total?

Jesus fucking Christ. So I guess the lesson here for the average homeowner is "if you find a mercury spill, don't tell anyone or you'll lose your home"?

Also:

>They were using a Jerome meter, which can only measure down to 3000 ng/m3 when the safe indoor limit is 300 ng/m3

Huh? Why would a mercury-abatement crew use a mercury detection meter that can't actually detect hazardous levels of mercury?

Re: Mercury Spill

#13

Post by fragsworth »

I had a physics class in a community college that had us handling open containers of mercury for our experiments. It was maybe 15 years ago.

Someone in one of the classes managed to knock one of the jars over, and mercury spilled everywhere on the floor. Either the students hid their spill from the staff, or the staff just had some janitors do a simple sweeping of it, because I noticed spheres of mercury everywhere in that classroom throughout the semester.

I didn't realize that mercury spills are such a huge issue until recently.

The professor also seemed to be going crazy, which suggests to me that this happened more than once in the past and he was suffering from the effects of mercury poisoning.

Re: Mercury Spill

#14

Post by ccvannorman »

It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-]

In all seriousness, cool story, glad you're okay, and this makes me think "insurance" as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.

Re: Mercury Spill

#15

Post by ccvannorman »

paulsutter wrote: post #7

Maybe the lesson is to save. There's a huge number of very unlikely risks. Too many risks to carefully avoid them all. Something unexpected will happen. Insurance can help, but as the articls shows, not always.

This after a study reveals more than half of Americans have less than $1k in savings.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that in extreme cases, most people would simply go bankrupt or starve. Something to think about when you root for certain laws and politicians..

Re: Mercury Spill

#16

Post by steckerbrett »

detaro wrote: post #9
function_seven wrote: post #5

Yikes. I'm glad my house was built in the 80's. No asbestos, no lead in the paint, no mercury hiding out in my ceiling. How dangerous was this contamination, though? I know mercury evaporates, and that it is an air quality concern, but given its location and assuming normal levels of indoor air movement, is it worth $50k to abate it? I tend to be skeptical of mold issues, for example, but I also imagine that mercury…

The article says: There were still areas in that room that were .037 milligrams per cubic meter. Wikipedia gives the following info: Chronic exposure by inhalation, even at low concentrations in the range 0.7–42 μg/m3, has been shown in case control studies to cause effects such as tremors, impaired cognitive skills, and sleep disturbance in workers. Even if the first number is as high as it is because they handled i…

I would definitely be very uncomfortable with my health had I been living there, balls of mercury in the bathroom seem to suggest that there was quite a high degree of exposure.

Re: Mercury Spill

#17

Post by nathanb »

paulsutter wrote: post #7

Maybe the lesson is to save. There's a huge number of very unlikely risks. Too many risks to carefully avoid them all. Something unexpected will happen. Insurance can help, but as the articls shows, not always.

Seriously. I don't know a lot of people for whom a surprise $50k bill would be "unfortunately" rather than "disastrously".

Re: Mercury Spill

#18

Post by ubercore »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #12

> Call it $50k total? Jesus fucking Christ. So I guess the lesson here for the average homeowner is "if you find a mercury spill, don't tell anyone or you'll lose your home"? Also: > They were using a Jerome meter, which can only measure down to 3000 ng/m3 when the safe indoor limit is 300 ng/m3 Huh? Why would a mercury-abatement crew use a mercury detection meter that can't actually detect hazardous levels of mercur…

My understanding was they weren't specifically a mercury-abatement crew, so they probably had detectors for a broad range of contaminants, but not specialized equipment for particular toxins. At least that's how I read it.

Re: Mercury Spill

#19

Post by deegles »

ccvannorman wrote: post #14

It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-] In all seriousness, cool story, glad you're okay, and this makes me think "insurance" as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.

Wouldn't an insurance company that was TOO good at paying out go out of business? :)

Re: Mercury Spill

#20

Post by Empact »

ccvannorman wrote: post #14

It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-] In all seriousness, cool story, glad you're okay, and this makes me think "insurance" as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.

Yep, an alternative model enabled by technology is mutual / cooperative insurance in which the policyholders not only own the company but also govern the release of funds. This way incentives are aligned - the insured want the insurance to act fairly, even with respect to others, so that it will be there for them. It would be something like gofundme but on a subscription basis, with up or down decision-making by subscribers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance

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