The Sierra Fund has just released a new brochure for its “Get the Mercury Out” campaign.
Click here to view the brochure.
The brochure is intended to educate people at any level of expertise about the dangers posed by mercury and the importance of the campaign, which is being conducted in partnership with the nonprofit Tuleyome, based in Woodland.
Mercury formerly used in legacy gold mines in the Sierra poses a serious risk to public health. Erosion causes the mercury to wash into the rivers of the area, where it undergoes a chemical process called methylation and bioaccumulates in the food chain. There have been many studies documenting the serious health risks to humans who eat fish contaminated with small amounts of methylmercury.
The brochure gives succinct summaries of the major points of the campaign, including the history of mercury in the Sierra, the serious risk it poses to public health, and the solutions The Sierra Fund is pursuing to fix the problem, including a number of pilot projects to assess, design and implement methods to “Get the Mercury Out.” The brochure also illustrates the process by which mercury from upstream sources like legacy mines affects downstream communities, and is accompanied by a fact sheet with full references.
The brochure can be viewed online here: GET-THE-MERCURY-OUT-Brochure-4web
The fact sheet accompanying the brochure is available here: GET-MERCURY-OUT-FactSheet-June2013