Mercury Content In Lake Michigan By Jake Meister

My project was about finding out the content of Mercury, a neurotoxin and the amount that was in Lake Michigan. Along with the potential damages Mercury could have on one's body. ng a neurotoxin into their body. In Highland Park, we are fortunate enough to have such a large quantity of freshwater available for us to drink.  But again, just because we have a large supply of the water, doesn’t mean it is clean enough for us to drink.  According to Don Jensen of the Highland Park Water Plant, they must detect the water of Lake Michigan for Mercury annually.  They have never detected a single particle of Mercury within Lake Michigan’s water. This is obviously fantastic news.  How does HP find this data out? HP, just like your typical student at Highland Park High School, has standard lab procedures. The Environmental Protection Agency creates an extremely lengthy procedure to test the mercury levels of any freshwater body of water.  This is what HP uses as well.  In summary, as provided by the EPA, the process goes as follows. A known portion of a water sample is transferred to a BOD bottle, equivalent ground glass stoppered flask or other suitable closed container. It is digested in dilute permanganate-potassium persulfate solutions and oxidized for two hours at 95°C. Mercury in the digested water sample is reduced with stannous chloride to elemental mercury and measured by the conventional cold vapor atomic absorption technique. In essence, this is a pretty simple procedure, considering the magnitude that mercury can have within our environment.