Stone Lab staff are maintaining a longterm data collection and monitoring station measuring atmospheric mercury. This program is funded by the Ohio EPA, who will use the data. The analyzer unit was installed at Stone Lab’s Research Building on South Bass Island in November 2011, and is one of only 22 active units of its kind in North America. Two are located in Ohio, one at Stone Lab and the other at Ohio University in southeastern Ohio.

According to the EPA, mercury is naturally found in certain rocks, including coal. Coalburning power plants account for about 50 percent of human-caused mercury emissions in the United States. Burning hazardous waste, spilled mercury, and the improper disposal of products that contain mercury — such as compact fluorescent “energy saver” light bulbs — can also release mercury into the environment.

Long term exposure to mercury can affect the nervous system, brain, heart, kidney, and lungs. While airborne mercury concentrations are usually too small to have direct health impacts, mercury eventually settles out of the air and into water, either directly or as runoff from surrounding land. There it accumulates in food fish and other aquatic organisms and can eventually become a health risk. Ultimately, monitoring efforts like the station at Stone Lab are an important first step in limiting mercury emissions before the toxin can become part of the food chain.

The analyzer collects data on three forms of mercury: pure, oxidized, and bound to other particles in the air, Hart says. Data from the unit is sent to Ohio EPA daily via cellular link. This monitoring effort runs continuously year-round.