How much mercury does it take to contaminate a fifty acre lake?

Answer 1

Using Current Massachusetts Regulatory Limit of 0.002 mg/L. (2 ppb) as a starting point and assuming an average 10 ft depth for the lake.

The lake would contain (43560 x 10) ft3 of water

or about 27 million lbs of water, a bit more than 10 million liters

To reach the standard would require (.002 x 10,000,000) mg of Mercury

This would be 20g of mercury, approximately the weight of 4 American nickels

At a density of Mercury of 13.6 g/cm3, this would be about 1.5 cm3 mercury

Answer 2

The amount of mercury needed to contaminate a fifty-acre lake would depend on the concentration of mercury considered harmful to the ecosystem. Mercury contamination is typically measured in parts per trillion or parts per billion, so even a small amount of mercury can have significant ecological impacts in a lake of that size.