Mercury Found In Catskills Bald Eagles Threatens New York's Water Supply

"If mercury is affecting them, it eventually is going to affect us, as well," Ms. White said.

Eagle chicks elsewhere in New York also were tested for mercury. But levels were not as high as those in the Catskills, which is home to several huge reservoirs that store drinking water for New York City, 110 miles away.

The city's water is tested regularly, and so far the mercury poses no known threat to people who drink it, city officials say.

But the mercury makes its way into worms and organisms eaten by fish, in streams and ponds as well as the reservoirs. The fish are then consumed by eagles (and sometimes by people, although New York has issued advisories limiting the amount of fish from the state's lakes and rivers that can be consumed safely).
Read the full story here.

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Paige Donner: Water: The New Energy Crisis?

Comments

[OkieMon]

when bush relaxed mercury levels for coal burning plants he murdered thousands of american adults, children, and unborn babies.....

[nellie]

This headline sounds like the eagles are threatening the water supply!!!

Dear HufPost headline writers:

Please give us a break.

[DudleysPa]

My thoughts exactly!

Like...how much mercury can eagle droppings possibly contain and how do you get them to poop elsewhere?

[AmbivalentGuy]

Ah, headlines.
To even the most green, isn't the
important headline
"Eagles threatened by mercury".

[pokemon]

Better worry about terror attacks, disable the water supply in New York for more then 3 days and you would have MASS evacuations / problems.

[darthdarcy]

This is right here where I live and lived even closer I had bald eagles landing in the tree tops of my back yard they are magnificent..!

The shame is The DEP police up here, are largely political patronage jobs of guys who leave their cars running as the stop in nearby shops and are not from rural areas largely..

We are in the Watershed region and they have this long history or poor or even logical enforcement and or regulation largely corrupt and terrible at getting along with the communities here and the people who actually took such great care of our woods and waterways in this beautiful region for hundreds of years....

I drink bottled water buy it by the gallon..

So many of the wells around here are polluted..and unfit, some with so much sulfur the water smells others polluted by a company here that makes the triggers for our nuclear weapons and other high tech military technology...

There is a huge plume of their pollution that threatens many wells in nearby Woodstock where I used to live....their other installation is even closer to the famed Ashokan Reservoir which provides the water for NY City and where many eagles nest and catch fish from thus the Mercury poisoning and pollution..

The Ashokan Reservoir is what inspired Jay Ungers great Ashokan Retreat the theme for the Civil War series on PBS he plays with his wife Molly Mason around here all the time...

[curiousasheck]

Right Wing knee jerk reaction would be ______________________

Fill in the bank

[OtayPanky]

I knew we should have let those damn birds become extinct!

[SomaMinneapolis]

bald eagle is the new thanks giving turkey

[jon-mullen]

We have a petition from 1000 scientists that say mercury is a great nutritional supplement! Leave it to the left-wing doom and gloom crowd to find something bad about our national bird!

[ZellaBee]

Maybe they flew in for their yearly flu shot and no one told them about the mercury in the vaccine.

[coreopsis]

The title of this post should be:

Eagles threatened by mercury found in New York water supply

[Beowolf741]

Agreed! It makes it sound like the Eagles are poisoning New York instead of the other way around.

[crazylikeafox]

It does.

Change the title Huffington Post.

Poor eagles are being poisoned. Not poisoning people.

Wow. Education is really failing in America.