Mercury: The Toxic Legacy of the California Gold Rush

Miners dug up 12 billion tons
of earth, and used mercury to extract
the gold ore. The amount of mercury
required to violate federal health st
andards is equivalent to one gram
in a small lake. Approximately
26,000,000 pounds of mercury was used in gold mining Northe
rn California, mostly in the Sierra Nevada
and the Klamath-Trinity Mountain areas. The amount
of mercury lost to the Northern California
environment from the 1860’s through the early 1900’s
is estimated at 3 – 8 million pounds. A University
of California at Davis study estimated that Clear Lake
, the traditional homeland
to Pomo Indian fishing
communities, contains over 100 tons of mercury today.
http://calwater.ca.gov/content/Documents/library/tribal/Updated_Mercury_Flyer_6-14-05.pdf