Family struggles to recover from mercury poisoning

Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004 | 11:34 a.m.

The Las Vegas family whose home underwent an extensive mercury decontamination last month said the environmental crews left the home uninhabitable.

The family of five temporarily is living in a two-bedroom apartment in the shadows of the closed Castaways casino, facing an uncertain future as they work to rebuild their shattered lives.

"I've never needed assistance before, so I'm really not used to this," said Lorraine Estes, grandmother of Michael Coleman, the teen who was hospitalized Jan. 10 with mercury poisoning after playing with and ingesting the liquified metal.

"I've always had a home," the 71-year-old Estes said. "Now I have lost just about everything and I'm starting over practically from scratch."

In some ways, less than scratch.

The family's free stay in a motel ended recently when the Environmental Protection Agency ended its cleanup efforts. But when they tried to return to their four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the 1400 block of Saylor Way near Vegas Drive and Jones Boulevard, they found that the EPA crews had ripped out all of the toilets, showers, bathtub, carpeting, the washing machine and much of the other contents.

The mercury-poisoned back yard was also ripped out and all 8,000 gallons of water were drained from the in-ground swimming pool.

During the decontamination, the crews had to extensively run the electric heater as well as the cooler and had to be vented. That ran the electric bill to $448 in January, even though the family only lived at the home for 10 days that month.

With payments in arrears, Estes now owes Nevada Power $1,141.32.

On top of that:

Of course, Karen Coleman, Michael's mother, said, "I count my blessings that Michael is alive and the rest of us are healthy."

She, Michael and Estes share the apartment with Karen Coleman's fiance and Michael's younger brother.

Estes says the Saylor Way home is owned by her brother Dale Lattimer, who plans to fix it up and sell it to recoup the costs of repairing it. His homeowners insurance, Estes said, does not cover damages caused by biological hazards and cleanups.

Mercury is a naturally occurring element that is found practically everywhere in small, nondangerous amounts. When concentrated and released in a confined area, however, it can be deadly.

When the EPA cleanup was completed earlier this month, Estes returned to the home to see what was salvageable. She found much of her figurine collection damaged. Delicate wings on porcelain angels were broken off, statuettes were missing heads and intricate Victorian pieces were chipped.

Estes was hesitant to criticize the EPA for breaking the items because she and other family members are grateful for so much that was saved, including a valuable hutch, a big screen TV, a huge wall tapestry and other furnishings.

"I don't think they did it on purpose, they're just not professional movers," Estes said.

The $176,000 cost of the cleanup labor and materials was covered by the EPA, but not the electricity used during the work.

When the electric bill arrived it showed that in January 159.5 kilowatt hours were used per day compared with 65.7 kilowatt hours per day in January 2003.

"I have been behind in paying the bill and I have been trying to catch up," Estes said. "But I don't know where I am going to get this kind of money."

EPA spokesman Mark Merchant, who was at Estes' home in the earliest days of the cleanup, said damage caused by the EPA to things like figurines and higher utility bills in the wake of their cleanups are not uncommon and usually are covered under a homeowner's insurance policy.

"We don't try to break things, but we are not licensed, professional movers," Merchant said. "We do a video documentation of the property before we start our work.

"We try to be careful, but our employees wear those bulky white suits and bulky gloves and it is not easy handling delicate items. Also, the items have to be placed into plastic bags to be tested, and things bumping together in the bags can break no matter how careful we are."

Karen Coleman questioned why the EPA just didn't throw the broken items out with the contaminated ones and just tell the family the broken stuff was contaminated.

"We try to do our operation with as little disruption of people's lives as possible," Merchant said. "If something is not contaminated, we want to have it returned to the family. It's not fair to them to just say something was contaminated and throw it away when it could be repaired.

"We don't want to come in like knights on white horses and succeed on one level of saving the home and on the other fail by destroying things. It upsets us greatly."

As for the use of electricity, Merchant said mercury vapors rise when above room temperature. Part of the cleanup operation involves raising the indoor temperature as high as it will go then opening windows to cool the home and allow the vapors to vent into the atmosphere, where they are harmless.

That's done two to eight times per day during a decontamination, Merchant said.

Also, he noted that the Saylor Way job was done quicker than expected and for well under the early estimates of $250,000 to $500,000.

Sonya Headen, spokeswoman for Nevada Power, said the person whose name is on the account is responsible for paying the electric bill even if the EPA ran up the charges during the its cleanup operation.

"But we are going to work with this customer," Headen said. "We will give them a good time frame (to pay the debt)."

Also, Headen said, the family will be helped through the utility's social services program that includes assistance from the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, state agencies that assist low-income families, Help of Southern Nevada and Clark County Social Services.

Estes, the widow of a man who long worked for a government contractor, has lived off her late husband's pension and her Social Security.

But she also has robbed Peter to pay Paul by getting into debt to five local payday loan companies -- the type of loans where if you pay just the high interest you will shell out 300 percent of the principal per year.

Last month she did not pay the electric or rent on the Saylor home, but managed to only pay down the loans -- cutting two of them in half -- but not paying them off completely. Now, she has rent, utilities and those loans to pay.

Almost lost in the mix is Michael's future. He says he has forgiven himself for playing with the mercury he found while rummaging through mining equipment that an uncle left in the home when he moved out. But his mother said he has terrible bouts of depression over what has happened to the family.

"We know there is a feeling among many people that we deserve what happened to us because Michael played with the mercury," Karen Coleman said. "People have come up to us in grocery stores and told us it is our own fault."

Michael, an aspiring artist, has paid a high price for his actions. Because of the numbness in his hands, he has not been able to draw since coming home from the hospital.

His mother has applied for Social Security disability on his behalf, but it will take at least two months before she will learn if his disability is significant enough to qualify for monthly support checks.

Many of the family's medical bills have been paid by Nevada Solutions, and Michael said he is ready to begin home rehabilitation therapy through a company called Gentiva. His hope is to one day finish high school.

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