Mercury in The Everglades
...or soil. Throughout its travel to earth via the rain, Mercury transforms to its dangerous counterpart, methylmercury. With the over abundance of wetlands, the transformation is naturally aided (Pierce 2). “Everything it could possibly need for its wicked business is right here, and in spades. Year round great climate, beaucoup friendly molecules, an energetic food chain that feeds everything from bacteria to panthers—it’s made-to-order factory for creating a phenomenon called biomagnification” (Stephenson 1). Mercury has been recognized also as an air pollutant, helping Florida to attain higher pollution levels than many industrial states (Pierce 3). Consequently, the environment and all of its components become vulnerable to the poison. Through biomagnification, mercury in its methylated form increases in potency at each level of the food chain. Of course, many fish have been labeled too dangerous for consumption; and the population of Wading birds has decreased significantly since the 1950’s. The editor of Research in Review at Florida State University, Frank Stephenson, agrees that the Everglades create an overwhelmingly perfect environment for mercury: Whatever the case, with its inexhaustible supply of organic material, mostly in the form of peat- the decayed remnants of millions of acres of sawgrass- the Everglades represent an enormous reservoir of energy perpetuating mercury’s natural fondness for building up in the flesh of fish and other watery wildlife (1). Concentrations of methylmercury within the South Florida Everglades are among the highest in the world (“Research Trace Mercury” 1). A powerful toxin, known as sulfur, may be being unleashed into the soil of the Everglades. Such an enormous amount of sulfur has been used in agriculture; and the implicated costs to soak up the phosphorus from the fertilizers would be a minimum of one billion dollars. Farmers, for many decades, have utilized sulfur as a base of fertilizers which draw manganese, zinc, iron, and a number of other nutrients from depleted soil (“Research Trace Mercury” 2). Scientists’ theory is that “diluted sulfur is fueling bacteria that actually do the conversion work” (2). Microbes are thought to use sulfur in the same way that human beings use oxygen. With this agriculture process, ...