The Mercury Connection

Hundreds of miles of South Carolina rivers are tainted with mercury, and the state warns people not to eat fish caught in some of these waterways. But no one had checked to see if the mercury was harming humans until The Post and Courier in Charleston had tests conducted on people who eat the fish as part of an investigative series on mercury pollution. Tony Bartelme and Doug Pardue report that nearly half of the people tested had mercury levels above the amount considered safe.