Nevada mines may be culprit in high mercury levels in Idaho

[NVMojo]

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - A southern Idaho reservoir popular with walleye anglers has high concentrations of mercury, an element that can cause neurological damage. Some scientists suspect that gold mines across the border in Nevada are responsible.

Since 2002, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has warned people to limit the number of fish they eat from the Salmon Falls Reservoir, located south of Twin Falls.

In tests done since August, state Department of Environmental Quality officials now say they've detected mercury levels in the reservoir that are 150 times the highest levels ever found in lakes in the northeastern United States, which have been doused with mercury from nearby coal-fired power plants.

Separately, scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls who are monitoring air quality in the region found that mercury levels increased as much as 70 percent when winds blew from the southwest. The area includes Nevada mines belonging to Newmont Mining, Barrick Goldstrike, Placer Dome and Queenstake Resources.

"The mines are the only sources big enough to cause those peaks," Michael Abbott, an INL atmospheric scientist, told the Idaho Statesman newspaper.

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/nov/06/110610722.html

[IDemo]

1. And much more mercury may be on the way to the area:

The area in question may eventually be bracketed by three additional potential sources of mercury: coal-fired power plants, each over 500Mw, have been proposed in Pocatello, Jerome County, and Northern Nevada. The Jerome County and Nevada plants are being pursued by Sempra Generation, from California. The coal (for the Jerome plant anyway) would be shipped from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, the site of on-going environmental catastrophe from coal mining and coalbed methane extraction. The Idaho Conservation League is leading the opposition to the Jerome project.

The Pocatello plant is proposed by Southeast Idaho Energy LLC at the FMC Superfund site near Pocatello. This is a site previously operated by FMC Corporation and J.R. Simplot Co. to produce phosphate-based fertilizer since the end of WWII. It has been contaminated with heavy metals, arsenic, cadmium, and selenium. Yet now we must add mercury to the mix to keep our TIVO's running. Oh, and other essentials of life, right?