Hearings To Start On Fed's Mercury Consolidation Plans

The federal government is seeking public comment on what to do with more than 4,400 metric tons of mercury stored in four states -- one of which could become the permanent home for the nation's supply of the toxic metal.

Public hearings were scheduled May 20th in New Haven, Ind., where 614 tons of the liquid metal is already stored, and May 22nd in Niles, Ohio, near a depot in Warren, where 620 tons more are kept.

Mercury also is stored at facilities in Somerville, N.J., and Oak Ridge, Tenn. Officials with the Defense National Stockpile Center are mulling the possibility of consolidating the stockpile at one location.

In New Haven, just outside Fort Wayne, officials are leery about the possibility of having so many tons of mercury so close. The surrounding county is home to 337,000 people.

The City Council and Allen County Commissioners oppose consolidating the mercury stockpile there, and U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., also is against the option.

"They're gonna fight this thing," said Souder's spokesman, Seth Becker. "That's an awful lot of mercury to want to put in a small town, and it's a fairly densely populated county."

Officials in Oak Ridge, Tenn., a Smoky Mountain city of 27,000 that already stores some 742 tons of mercury at the Y-12 National Security Complex, were not as worried.

"Generally speaking, our community doesn't get too concerned about that kind of thing because Y-12 has an excellent record of handling such things," City Manager Paul Boyer said.

The fourth site, in Somerville, N.J., 40 miles west of New York City, currently stores 2,883 tons of mercury. The government is also considering locations in New York, Nevada and Utah.

In the 1940s, military scientists discovered that mercury was good for more than filling thermometers: They could use it to enrich lithium to make atomic bombs.

Scientists later linked the liquid metal with human neurological, reproductive and immune problems. The effects of exposure can range from dizziness and memory loss to kidney and brain damage, depending on the amount of mercury and duration of exposure.

The four mercury sites are among 45 depots the government created in the 1940s to minimize the nation's reliance on foreign sources for materials such as mercury, lead, tin and zinc.

But Congress decided the depots had outlived their usefulness, and the branch of the Defense Logistics Agency that oversaw them began phasing them out and selling or recycling the surplus materials.

The mercury in the government depots is sealed in 76-pound steel flasks which are in turn placed inside airtight 30-gallon drums kept in locked, guarded warehouses in remote areas, said Essie Schloss, deputy administrator of the stockpile agency. Associated Press