Book Description

The history of gold mining and industrial development around the waterways of Northern California have made the prominence of mercury contamination an increasing problem in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Delta). Scientists strive to understand the relationship between mercury and aquatic environments, between mercury and fish, and between mercury and human health. Meanwhile, fishermen frequent the Delta for both sport and subsistence fishing and are often greeted with advisory signs urging them to limit their locally-caught fish consumption. Advisory signs, however, leave out the more complex historical and political processes that surround mercury's presence in the Delta waters, leaving fishermen with little information outside of the vague threat present on advisory signs. Advisory signs and similar education efforts make assumptions that the best way to mitigate the problem of mercury contamination is through public education, and that fishermen will share an expert-driven understanding of the risks associated with mercury contamination. This thesis addresses the many contexts in which knowledge about mercury is generated, and the many ways its risks are interpreted, framing the case of mercury contamination in four contexts: mercury in the environment, mercury in the body, mercury in the academy, and mercury in the community. Understanding mercury in the environment means placing it in a larger environmental context and understanding both its historic and present day significance. To look at the body means looking at both the toxicology of mercury and how scientists have assessed the risk of its consumption by people. Looking at mercury in the body is in part a reflection on scientific understandings of methylmercury (MeHg), and in part a look at how scientists and researchers impose perceptions of the problem on to affected communities. Academics frequently examine the case of mercury contamination. The methods they have used and recommendations they have made provide a springboard for my own fieldwork and analysis. Finally, I look to communities of fishermen to see how they understand the problem, how they understand their environments, and how they can be involved as the process to curb the problem of mercury contamination lumbers forward.