article re: airport/mercury

[Mother's Heart]

http://www.argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2007/06/14/news_-_features/lax/l2.txt

[peglem]

I don't understand. Have airports been spreading contaminates into the surrounding environment, or is there mercury contamination only at the airport, or are they just replacing equipment that has mercury components (like most thermostats)? If the surrounding environment is affected, how far from the airport is contaminated?

[Mother's Heart]

good questions. same wonderings I had. I don't know the answers.

[RathyKay]

I can't answer those questions either. Just wanted to say, I received this article from my DAN! group. One person who responded and is chelating her son for mercury lives near SFO. Another who responded lives near San Jose airport. I'm not sure I want to post their entire responses (although, they're short), but I'll share this quote: we lived about one mile from the San Jose Airport and later discovered that our area of San Jose had the greatest percentage of autistic kids in the entire county.
I'm not sure about where you live, but Santa Clara county is very big. (I grew up in Georgia, with teeny-tiny counties.)

[NTLegend]

I think you will find that the entire drainage which receives runoff from the former gold-mining areas has an increased likelihood of mercury contamination. As an example, for that reason the Carson River used to be on the EPA SuperFund list -- (not that it's been cleaned up, but maybe it's been taken off, as in 'we're never going to get this done').

Also, with all of the Silicon Valley high-tech manufacturing, there must be a lot of industrial pollution of every kind.

So there is more to consider than just airports/airplanes.