[Noisebridge-discuss] mercury on the table?

[Curly Wurly]

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 10:50 AM, Christie Dudley<longobord at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure if this is a troll or not, but the accusation of the mercury
> coming from the neon sign is a total red herring based on total ignorance.
> Considering the neon sign was brought in 2 days before the mercury appeared,
> this is really lame.
>
> So, other than demanding people become absolute experts in anything they
> touch before bringing it into the space, or making a witch trial of someone
> who made a mistake, I see no reason to keep dragging this out.  Jonathan
> Foote (who is, by the way, an expert) already mentioned the likely sources,
> so if we can avoid them I think we're great.

I don't check this list daily, so my reply will be a little
anticlimactic.  I'll try to be brief.

First off, hats off to Sai for his thoroughness in cleaning up any
potential mercury residue.  Also, thanks for informing us about the
proper procedures.  I for one didn't know about the SF facility you
mentioned that accepts hazardous waste.  I guess now we know not to
throw it away, but of course a big thanks goes to those who initially
cleaned it up.

I wasn't around when this happened and only went by Jason's post
relaying information from Meredith which suggested the source might be
a neon sign that was being hacked on.  If it hadn't been on the table
for the two days prior to the mercury discovery, then of course it's
not going to be the source, as Christie mentions.  However, perhaps we
could all strive to be more excellent and not cast accusations of
ignorance and lameness, tempting as that is.

As Al mentioned, the larger concern for at least some of us is that
the mercury source has never been identified.  I don't know how much
mercury was discovered, but an earlier post referred to it as a
"puddle".  This seems like more than the 1g you'd typically find in a
thermometer, and I'm not sure how much would be in a tilt switch.
However, one would think that if someone broke a thermometer or tilt
switch, they'd realize it due to the broken glass.

If someone simply broke a thermometer and cleaned it up, this would be
no big deal.  Accidents happen.  However, mysterious puddles of
mercury materializing seemingly out of thin air is quite unsettling.
It couldn't have been on the table for very long, and one would think
it'd be easy to remember who was sitting there for the time leading up
to the discovery.

Though methylmercury is a different form from what's in thermometers,
this is worth reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

I remember when that happened.  She wore latex gloves and operated in
a fume hood.  Very sad.

As to the calls on the list for this discussion to end, I'd like to
suggest those bothered simply delete the messages you're not
interested in.  Apparently some people are more concerned about this
incident than others, and we as a group shouldn't try to quiet
dissenting opinions through shouts of "troll", etc.