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Car Forum / Antique and Collectibles / Studebaker / March 2005Mercury spill O.T.
Saw on the news today that they closed a school for a mercury spill. Someone broke a friggen thermometer and the cleanup will take a few days at a cost of 20K. When I was in school, we played with mercury, had maybe 5 pounds of the stuff in chemistry class.  SignatureJP/Maryland Studebaker On the Net http://stude.com My Ebay items:http://www.stude.com/EBAY/ 64 Challenger (Green Wrapper) 63 R2 4 speed GT Hawk #2 62 GT Hawk (Ind. Div) 56 Golden Hawk 50 Commander Coupe Well, good to see there wasn't any brain damage, like wanting to play with old Studebakers or anything! ;-) Dick S. > Saw on the news today that they closed a school for a mercury spill. > Someone broke a friggen thermometer and the cleanup will take a few days > at a cost of 20K. When I was in school, we played with mercury, had maybe > 5 pounds of the stuff in chemistry class. Well... He is a liberal! JT <ggg> > Well, good to see there wasn't any brain damage, like wanting to play with > old Studebakers or anything! [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > 56 Golden Hawk > > 50 Commander Coupe > Saw on the news today that they closed a school for a mercury spill. > Someone broke a friggen thermometer and the cleanup will take a few > days at a cost of 20K. When I was in school, we played with mercury, > had maybe 5 pounds of the stuff in chemistry class. When I was a kid, my entire family was in construction, specifically plumbing and heating. They had little 1 lb and 5 lb bottles of the stuff all over the building. It was used in testing of some sort. We used to open a bottle or two and flick it around, and play games with it. Nobody knew it was toxic, or if they did, they were not telling. But we survived. I think BG As a tech, I used to clean it, in a beaker, by putting some sort of acid in to eat up the contamination, then run water into it to rinse it, then remove the water on top by sopping it up with a towel. Does that explain my style of writing on this NG? Karl (Retired Safety Professional) Haas It's almost funny watching them get into space suits to clean up a broken thermometer or handle asbestos. > As a tech, I used to clean it, in a beaker, by putting some sort of > acid [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Karl (Retired Safety Professional) Haas SignatureJP/Maryland Studebaker On the Net http://stude.com My Ebay items:http://www.stude.com/EBAY/ 64 Challenger (Green Wrapper) 63 R2 4 speed GT Hawk #2 62 GT Hawk (Ind. Div) 56 Golden Hawk 50 Commander Coupe Asbestos is a problem but the mercury thang is gross overkill. Nearly every one of us played with the stuff when we were kids. Lookit me, I'm poifectlee norml.. JT > It's almost funny watching them get into space suits to clean up a > broken thermometer or handle asbestos. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > 56 Golden Hawk > 50 Commander Coupe I used to say that the way to shut down commerce in Califormia would be spilling a box of some hard to recognize substance around a freeway entry cloverleaf. I had 101 and 17 in mind, livig in San Jose. > I used to say that the way to shut down commerce in Califormia would be > spilling a box of some hard to recognize substance around a freeway > entry cloverleaf. > I had 101 and 17 in mind, livig in San Jose. Wouldn't work. 101 and 17 don't cross. (17 becomes 880 when it crosses 280. 880 does interchange with 101, however). -Dick- (tough to keep up with California freeways <g>) I be watching for the Black Helicopters if I were you. You'll be locked up in Gitmo for 2 years before you can explain the thread.<g> >> I used to say that the way to shut down commerce in Califormia would be >> spilling a box of some hard to recognize substance around a freeway [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > (tough to keep up with California freeways <g>) SignatureJP/Maryland Studebaker On the Net http://stude.com My Ebay items:http://www.stude.com/EBAY/ 64 Challenger (Green Wrapper) 63 R2 4 speed GT Hawk #2 62 GT Hawk (Ind. Div) 56 Golden Hawk 50 Commander Coupe > I be watching for the Black Helicopters if I were you. You'll be > locked up in Gitmo for 2 years before you can explain the thread.<g> Especially since the thread is supposed to be something about a Mercury spill <g>. -Dick- >>> I used to say that the way to shut down commerce in Califormia would be >>> spilling a box of some hard to recognize substance around a freeway [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >> >> (tough to keep up with California freeways <g>) Do they still have the yellow diamond sign there saying "Weave?" (101 N to 17 going to Santa Cruz) I used to think that was the best sign I ever saw. No doubt what it meant. Karl (I was more likely to weave coming from Santa Cruz.) Haas > Do they still have the yellow diamond sign there saying "Weave?" > (101 N to 17 going to Santa Cruz) > I used to think that was the best sign I ever saw. No doubt what it > meant. > > Karl (I was more likely to weave coming from Santa Cruz.) Haas No 101/17 interchange. No sign. The closest thing would be the 880/101 interchange, but no need to weave and no sign. Sorry. -Dick- Heck, a bunch of little kids with pennies could clean it up for nothing. Typical bureaucratic over-reaction. Metallic mercury isn't all that dangerous. It's the vapor and mercury salts, particularly organic salts, that are the nasties. I cleaned up a mercury spill myself, once. Still have a jar with about 3 oz. of mercury in it. And I'm OK, too. Gord Richmond Big, Bigggggg overreaction to the dangers involved. Yes no one should be playing with it 'cause the danger of someone ingesting it. That said, some simple cleaning it up and sending it out to the haz mat disposal firm is all that is needed. No school evacuations, no mass hysteria to make a already nervous, scared bunch of kids into neurotics for the rest of their lives. No common sense and worried about lawsuits to the point of massive overreaction. Last year in Flagstaff I responded to 3 of these. By the by if anyone knows me , or cares I was just hired as the Assistant Fire Chief of a local Tucson plant. Regular fire department and all. Now the fun start. Being a manager instead of a grunt. Wish me luck. Kelly By the by if anyone knows me , or cares I > was just hired as the Assistant Fire Chief of a local Tucson plant. > Regular fire department and all. Now the fun start. Being a manager > instead of a grunt. Wish me luck. Kelly Most assuredly congratulations, but after 90 days i will bet you will want to be a grunt again, especially with all the paperwork. BG Congrats on the new job Kelly. The third time is a charm you will like this one. SignatureJerry Kaiser (Studeblu) 64 One Ton 61 Champ pick up 53 Starlight Coupe 53 2R6 > > Big, Bigggggg overreaction to the dangers involved. Yes no one should [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Regular fire department and all. Now the fun start. Being a manager > instead of a grunt. Wish me luck. Kelly > Being a manager > instead of a grunt. Wish me luck. Kelly Prepare to long for the good old grunthood days. SignatureDave Lester www.davesplaceinc.com The Studebaker Hang Out Casbah of 'Sheba the Tramp, and Goliath the Hateful Truck Kelly, You will miss being a grunt BTDT, I am a grunt now and just laugh and also go home at 4 p.m. > > Being a manager > > instead of a grunt. Wish me luck. Kelly [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > The Studebaker Hang Out > Casbah of 'Sheba the Tramp, and Goliath the Hateful Truck Congratulations on your new posting, Kelly! Gord Richmond In the early sixties, I remember visiting one of my friends in the hospital. He had poisoned his kidneys playing with the big bottle of mercury in the high school chem. lab. About 1970, I was taking courses at a gov. facility. We had to read and sign a warning about mercury spills and clean up procedures. A lot of kids may have gotten sick and not known what it was. We used to play with the stuff! I remember mercury coated pennies in pocket change. Mike M. What a bunch of BS......Used to work with it in tha lab all the time. Mercury was the least of the things I worked with.....spill big deal put on the respirator and use one of those old fashioned brooms like you used to have to have to sweep out your car. Get it into puddles and then suck it up with a dropper or sweep it onto a copper dustpan.......then all gone. I was in town (Baltimore..or was it DC?) when that happened.. For the second time... Ratbastard kids learned quick how to close the school. "John Poulos" wrote... > Saw on the news today that they closed a school for a mercury spill. > Someone broke a friggen thermometer and the cleanup will take a few days > at a cost of 20K. When I was in school, we played with mercury, had maybe > 5 pounds of the stuff in chemistry class. Gee, I clearly remember my 8th grade science teacher holding a test tube full of red mercuric oxide over a Bunsen burner flame to demonstrate how the reduction process could generate oxygen and plain mercury. Of course, she was breathing the fumes more than the rest of the class. Come to think of it, she was the same one who took a beaker of hydrochloric acid and titrated it with some lye solution (sodium hydroxide in water) until the little pink and blue litmus paper strips showed that the pH was 7.0 or neutral. Just to prove the point that she was correctly at the neutral point, she took a swig of the stuff in the beaker. With skill - and some very good luck - it was only salty water at that point (HCl+NaOH -> NaCl + H2O). She also sent me home one day equipped with a pound or so of the lye pellets for a science homework project. I mixed the lye with leftover fat from one of my mother's roasts to make soap. I found the whole thing fascinating, which must be why I wound up in engineering and science. But, with examples like that, I sometimes wonder why I am still alive and have all of my fingers, toes, eyes, etc. I'm sure that no teacher would attempt or sanction any of that stuff today because of liability laws. In 1957 you could do things like that. Of course, a number of people will testify that my brain is totally fried, but it probably wasn't the mercury vapor, LOL! Damn, she was a GREAT teacher! Gary Ash Dartmouth, MA '48 M5 '65 Wagonaire www.studegarage.com I once spent a summer making my own explosives, I was about 12. It's a miracle I survived that, or any of my other experiments. (The vandegraph generator with the X-Ray tube is the one that scared people the most, my attempt to build a hang glider is the one that scared me the most.) Paul. > Gee, I clearly remember my 8th grade science teacher holding a test tube > full of red mercuric oxide over a Bunsen burner flame to demonstrate how the [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > '65 Wagonaire > www.studegarage.com SignatureWTF is Oujdeivß? http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3762&version=kjv to contact me try Oudeis via softhome.net Yep. I could buy the potassium nitrate and sulfur at the drug store, charcoal from the furnace. I'd make 5 or 10 pounds of gunpowder at a time. Made rockets, brought down trees with pipe bombs. I was about the same age, 13-14, I'd still be in prison today in the times we live in now. <g> > I once spent a summer making my own explosives, I was about 12. > [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] >> '65 Wagonaire >> www.studegarage.com SignatureJP/Maryland Studebaker On the Net http://stude.com My Ebay items:http://www.stude.com/EBAY/ 64 Challenger (Green Wrapper) 63 R2 4 speed GT Hawk #2 62 GT Hawk (Ind. Div) 56 Golden Hawk 50 Commander Coupe Good grief: I opened this thread thinking a car hauler carrying a load of Grand Marquis' or Montereys or ??? had fallen off a freeway somewhere <G>. |
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