September 4, 2009
On August 25 at 2:30 PM, EPA responded to a mercury release at the Bella Lago Apartments located at 1600 Airport Road in Carson City, NV. EPA Emergency Response and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) are providing technical support to the Carson City Fire Department and the Carson City Health Department. Carson City Fire is serving as Incident Command.
The apartment complex consists of nine apartment buildings, each of which has twenty units. It appears at though only one building is impacted. Within that building, a relatively large pool of elemental mercury was discovered by workers who were replacing the carpet. The tenant of the unit had recently been evicted. Up to 20 pounds of mercury has been spilled within the apartment. The source of the mercury is unknown, and timing of the release is also unknown. The Carson City Sheriff's office is investigating the nature of the release.
EPA and NDEP conducted Lumex screening of the apartments. Mercury vapor concentrations in the impacted unit exceeded 50,000 ng/cubic meter. Significant mercury vapor concentrations were detected in 4 other aparment units. Several other units had mercury vapor concentrations that exceeded 1,000 ng/cubic meter. Based on these findings Carson City Fire evacuated all units within the impacted apartment building. These residents were relocated to a hotel. Several of these units have families with small children. Carson City Fire/Health ordered the property owner to pay for the relocation and to conduct the cleanup. The property owner and/or his insurance company have been funding the cleanup and relocation. An environmental contractor arrived onsite around 8:00 PM on 8/25, and began securing the impacted unit.
The residents of the impacted units were advised to seek medical monitoring from their physicians. EPA provided phone numbers at U.C. Irvine (which were provided by ATSDR) for residents and their physicians to call if they had medical questions. Carson City Fire and Carson City Health are continuing to coordinate issues relating to the displaced residents.