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MERCURY POISONING OF NATIVE AMERICANS

The Greenpeace Native Lands Campaign and the Indigenous Environmental Network have worked closely on a number of environmental concerns. This collective work seeks to address the ability of Indigenous communities to live in a healthy environment.

Native Environmental Justice
During the past 22 years Native American lands have received far less environmental protection--including federal funding and technical assistance--than states, cities, towns, counties, and parishes have. It wasn't until recent years that Native American demands for environmental justice began getting a response from the U.S. government. As a result, some tribal governments and grassroots organizations have been able to develop environmental programs. However, most communities do not have environmental programs or access to information necessary to make environmentally sound decisions.


Mercury
Mercury is a natural element that doesn't break down in the environment. Pure, metallic mercury can be found in small quantities in some ore deposits. Mercury most commonly occurs in combination with other elements, such as oxygen, sulfer, and chlorine, as so-called inorganic mercury. However, mercury also occurs in combination with carbon-based substances, for example, as methylmercury, an "organic" form of mercury.

The amount of mercury that occurs naturally in any one place is usually very small. However, with the mining and the use of mercury by industrialized people, the amount of mercury emitted into the air and subsequently deposited in water, soil, sediments, and living organisms has greatly increased. More than half of all airborne mercury now comes from human activities.

Some common consumer products in which mercury can be found are thermostats, heater switches, fluorescent lamps, dyes, latex paints, and fungicides. In household wastes, the single largest source of mercury is batteries--rechargeables, lead-acid, alkaline, mercuric-oxide, button cell or coin shaped, and nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries and battery packs such as NiCd packs.

Of the 341 tons of mercury emitted annually into the air in the U.S. because of human activities, most common from four sources:

• Coal-fired power plants, 117 tons
• Medical waste incinerators, 64.7 tons
• Municipal waste incinerators, 63.5 tons
• Oil-fired industrial boilers, 22.5 tons

Other sources of mercury include factories and wastewater treatment facilities that releases mercury into waterways.





Health Effects
All forms of mercury are poisonous. However, organic mercury, such as methylmercury, is a particular concern because organic mercury accumulates in the tissues of living creatures, including people. Any form of mercury can be converted to methylmercury by microbes in water and soil.

Long-term exposure to either inorganic or organic mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus. Symptoms of mercury exposure include blurred vision, damage to the central nervous system, impaired mental development, damaged kidneys, numbness of hands and feet, impaired development of the unborn, short term memory loss, joint pain, nausea, muscle tremor, and muscle weakness. In some cases Native Americans who have had mercury exposure have been mistakenly diagnosed as having symptoms of alcohol intoxication or diabetes.


Exposure
Major pathways of mercury exposure are as follows:

Ingestion: eating foods that are contaminated with mercury. Fish are a great concern because mercury bioaccumulates: airborne mercury that falls on the surface of lakes and rivers and settles in sediments is accumulated by the tiny organisms in the water and sediments. Fish eat these organisms, accumulating higher concentration in the flesh. In this way, the mercury concentration in the flesh of predatory fish reaches levels 10,000 to 100,000 times that in the water. The wildlife--bears, eagles, panthers, etc.--and people who eat the fish accumulate even higher levels of mercury in their flesh. Native peoples who hunt wildlife and eat fish accumulate mercury levels that are higher yet.

Inhalation: through the respiratory system, breathing latex paint and airborne emissions.

Absorption: through the skin, coming in direct contact through air pollutants and precipitation containing mercury.

Prenatal and postnatal exposure: before birth, mercury passes from the mother to the developing fetus; after birth, mercury passes from the mother to the nursing infant in the breast milk.

In exposed populations, such as Native peoples and others living subsistence lifestyles, developing fetuses and nursing infants are potentially most exposed to mercury.

Mercury in deep sediments in rivers and lakes remains relatively isolated until disturbed by removal of vegetation or by the development of reservoirs or dredging of river bottoms. With these activities, large amounts of methylmercury can be dispersed into the surrounding water to be ingested by microbes and fish and, ultimately, people.

When any form of mercury is burned, the metal vaporizes and is released as a gas. Gaseous mercury and mercury bound to airborne particles are transported by air currents until they are removed by rain, snow, or fog or absorbed by vegetation. Weather conditions, including prevailing winds, are a major factor in determining where airborne mercury is eventually deposited. Although local sources--such as power plants and incinerators--are important, sources up to 1,560 miles away or farther can account for mercury deposition from rain and snow.

Many Native communities are being affected, especially communities relying on fishing and hunting as a large portion of their lifestyle. A pregnant woman with mercury in her system can pass it through the placenta to accumulate in the brain of the fetus, as well as through breast feeding. Infants and children are also at a great risk.

In Northern Quebec two-thirds of the Cree Indian community of Chisasibi learned that they have been poisoned by mercury contamination of the fish that are a mainstay of their diet. Some of the elders developed numbness of limbs, loss of peripheral vision, shaking, and neurological damage. They were downstream of the first phase of the La Grande hydroelectric complex. Hydro-Quebec diverter three rivers into the La Grande River in the largest water diversion of volume on Earth.

Incineration facilities that burn hazardous waste, municipal waste, and medical waste in communities where people of color, including Native Americans, live pose a serious threat to the development of future generations. Incinerators are the largest source of mercury in Florida. Studies show a dramatic rise in mercury found in water, alligators, fish, and panthers, thus affecting the traditional Seminole communities.

Burning is not the answer: When an incinerator burns tons of wastes per year, an undetermined amount of some of the most toxic chemicals known to science is released into our environement. Incinerator regulations are based on "acceptable" rates of death and disease, allowing a predetermined number of people to be harmed. According to regulations, which are based on the approach of risk assessment, it is acceptable to kill as many as one in 1,000,000, one in 100,000--even one in 10,000--of the people exposed. In other words, a certain number of people are expendable.

Groups most likely to be exposed to high levels of mercury are Native Americans who have land-based cultures that subsist on fish and foods from the natural food chain. A 1990 Wisconsin study of mercury concentration in blood taken from Anishinabe Ojibwa shows a direct relationship between blood levels of mercury and the number of walleye eaten. Mercury contamination is affecting many Native American populations. In most cases, Native American communities do not know whether these mercury issues are affecting their communities or what their options are.

All life is sacred. Much of the Native American lifestyle is connected to hunting, fishing, and harvesting and is part of the continuing Circle of Life.