Community Development Graduate Group

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.