As a result of the price of gold increasing in recent times, large numbers of people and companies in Third World nations such as Indonesia have set up impromptu mining facilities where miners throw caution to the wind and willfully use highly toxic mercury to extract raw gold from mined soil.

KERENGPANGI, INDONESIA — A gold miner stands waist-deep in a polluted pond, dumps a capful of mercury into a bucket of ore and mixes it in with his bare hands.

The darting liquid metal wraps itself around the gold to form a silver pellet the size of a marble.

The use of mercury in gold mining is illegal in Indonesia because the metal is toxic to humans and the environment. But the price of gold has tripled since 2001, and mercury is the easiest way to extract it.

“Of course I’m worried,” said miner Handoko, 23, a grim man in a baseball hat who goes by one name. “But this is the job.”

Tens of thousands of remote mining sites have sprung up mostly in Asia, Latin America and Africa, using as much as 1,000 tons of mercury each year. The mercury ravages the nervous system of miners and their families. It also travels thousands of miles in the atmosphere, settling in oceans and riverbeds in Europe and North America and contaminating fish.

Small-scale gold mining is the second-worst source of mercury pollution in the world, after the burning of fossil fuels. And Indonesia ranks behind only China in the use of mercury in gold mining. (source)

Why should the rest of the world care about the use of mercury in gold mining operations on the other side of the planet? Simply put, anything placed (or carelessly dumped) in the environment can and WILL eventually wind up distributing itself all over the planet… and in this case that means the mercury from Indonesia will wind up in the air and drinking water all over the world eventually.

While all United States municipalities must carefully monitor the amount of mercury in the water they distribute, no one monitors the mercury content of the water pulled by private well owners — and that means no one really knows if the water contains mercury or not unless the private well owners test for mercury themselves.

Do simple test methods exist for testing mercury in water? Yes. Boris’ Mercury Test Kit tests down to the EPA limit of 0.002 ppm (or 2 parts per billion) and yields its results quickly.

For cases where people fear that larger scale mercury contamination may have taken place, a product named Mercury Check with a detection range of 50ppm to 1,000ppm may come in handy.

Many of our readers have invested in water treatment systems based upon results from home drinking water quality tests and/or had done for them by certified water professionals. Since their initial purchase, though, the need to perform routine (expected) maintenance on their water filtration unit has arisen and some have asked where to find replacement water filters for their water filtration units.

Use the following links to find replacement water filters and/or whole water filtration systems.

Question: When looking at measurements of ‘hardness’, what is the difference between Grains per Gallon (GPG) and Parts per Million (PPM)?

Answer: Both units of measurement refer to the amount of hardness in the water tested. Simply put, multiplying a GPG hardness reading by 17.1 will tell you what the hardness is in PPM and conversely, dividing a PPM hardness reading by 17.1 will yield the hardness in GPG.

Recently we have come across several useful web sites which feature water quality testing information, links to highly accurate home drinking water test kits from several reputable manufacturers, high quality water filter systems, and replacement filters for a wide range of drinking water filter systems. The links below will take you to their main pages:

• Your Water Test
• Quick Water Test
• Water Test Blog
• Air and Water Filters

Below please find a very simplified table of potential symptoms and testing methods for several contaminants which sometimes wind up in drinking water. This list in no way, shape or form represents the total number of potential drinking water contaminants. For a ‘complete’ list of water contaminants and their potential effects on human health, plese refer to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s SafeWater Web Site.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency set the ‘action level’ for mercury in drinking water at 0.002 ppm (parts per million), or 2 ppb (parts per billion). This means municipal water suppliers must test for the presence of mercury in drinking water on a regular basis, report their findings to the EPA, and take corrective measures if the mercury levels in their water reach or exceed 0.002 ppm.

“The regulation for mercury became effective in 1992. Between 1993 and 1995, EPA required your water supplier to collect water samples once and analyze them to find out if mercury is present above 2 ppb. If it is present above this level, the system must continue to monitor this contaminant every 3 months.

If contaminant levels are found to be consistently above the MCL, your water supplier must take steps to reduce the amount of mercury so that it is consistently below that level.” (source)

As you can see, the Federal Government holds public water systems accountable for the water they provide. Personal well owners, must monitor their own water supply. Products such as Boris Mercury Check can detect the MCL for mercury in 3 minutes and makes it possible for well owners to perform periodic checks on their well water without having to send it off to a laboratory.