Don Baccus wrote:
> each seaon's
> lead gets fairly well covered by silt and thus does not get
> ingested by the little ducky-poos. Still, there's an friggin'
> amazin' volume of lead down there.

I don't want to pretend to be a chemist, but in one of my good chem books
I read, "Lead is rapidly attacked by distilled or rain water in presence
of air, forming lead hydroxide, which is appreciably soluble or forms a
colloidal solution. . . . Peaty waters, containing organic acids, act
rapidly on lead or zinc, unless neutralized by lime." Now "peaty waters
containing organic acids" sounds like a good description of the gunk at
the bottom of a pond or marsh, where a lot of microbial activity is going
on, creating organic acids around the little lead pellets. So doesn't this
imply that _all_ this water is contaminated with lead hydroxide, and that
everything that lives in the pond or marsh or drinks its water is in
danger of getting lead poisoning?

Maybe someone who really knows the chemistry could comment on this.

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 360-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 360-866-6794