Residents of a Pawtucket apartment complex where a liter jar of mercury was spilled last week will have their blood tested today at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, North Providence, for exposure to the highly toxic metal.
Footing the bill for the tests will be New England Gas, from whose facility the mercury was stolen last Monday.
According to the police, two men and two juveniles broke into a New England Gas shed and stole the jar of mercury, not knowing what it was. They allegedly spilled about 10 pounds of it at the gas company's Tidewater site, located between the Seekonk River and Taft Street, then allegedly spilled another 10 pounds in the driveway of an apartment complex at 196 Pleasant St.
Two of the men -- Jason Smith, 18, and Stephen Carberry, 20, both of the Pleasant Street complex -- were arrested and charged with breaking and entering and larceny under $500. The other two, both juveniles, were arrested on similar charges and will appear before Family Court.
Twenty-seven people were evacuated from the Pleasant Street area. City Director of Administration Harvey Goulet said that the evacuated families are staying at the local Comfort Inn and other motels.
Tomorrow at 9 a.m., he said, a van from New England Gas will shuttle the displaced residents from the Comfort Inn to Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, which has set up an emergency clinic to test residents' blood for exposure to the metal.
Otis Brown, the hospital's vice president, said New England Gas is paying for the extra phlebotomists the hospital has called in as well as the processing of the blood tests.
"This is not a standard test that most labs will be able to do," Brown said. The blood samples will be sent to the Mayo Clinic in Massachusetts, which will be able to test for elevated levels of mercury.
Brown said any residents who believe they might have been exposed to the metal are welcome to show up at the hospital around 9:30 a.m. for testing.
The state Department of Environmental Management did a cleanup of the Tidewater site, and a spokesman said the spill was likely contained. Goulet said that New England Gas will pay for the cleanup at the Pleasant Street complex, which will include excavating the driveway.
He said that the Health Department is checking whether the mercury has contaminated the residents' possessions. If so, he said, the gas company will pay to replace them.
"New England gas will foot all the bills. All these people will be made whole," he said. But, he added, the department "feels pretty confident" that exposure levels are low.
By itself, elemental mercury is "totally innocuous," said David Kennedy, a staff member at Fatima Hospital's laboratory. But once inside the body, it bonds with other organic chemicals to form compound molecules that interfere with the body's functions.
Everyone absorbs a trace amount of mercury from the environment, Kennedy said; it can be breathed in, ingested or absorbed through the skin. Anything over 50 nanograms of mercury per milliliter of blood is considered dangerous, he said.
Vomiting, runny eyes, diarrhea, and excessive salivation are all signs of mercury poisoning, he said. It can also cause nerve damage.
Much like lead, mercury has not always been known to be dangerous; that's why it was once commonly used in thermometers, thermostats -- and gas meters.
The mercury that was stolen from the New England Gas shed was part of a "reclamation" program to dispose of old mercury-using gas meters and thermostats, said Chris Medici, New England Gas spokesman.
Medici said the Tidewater facility was mostly vacant, and was being used for mercury reclamation on an "as needed" basis.
He could not say how much mercury was stolen, or how long the mercury had been at the facility.
He said the company is conducting "an exhaustive review of things in place at the time."
Goulet said the company had assured him that the facility will no longer store mercury. The city had been unaware of the reclamation program, he said, and was not pleased to find that out after the mercury was stolen and spilled.
"Everybody was upset," Goulet said. "The police were upset, the fire department was upset. I think even [the state Department of Environmental Management] was embarrassed because they didn't know anything about [the mercury] being there. The administration was very upset. These are the type of things we like to know ahead of time."
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