I'm blown away that they are spending days and days and how many thousands of dollars tearing up a Boise neighborhood because they found what... a few tablespoons of mercury? I suppose back in the 60's we didn't know any better, but I recall having a toy maze with a blob of mercury in it as a kid.

Something like this --

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://tvcream.squarespace.com/storage/photos/puzzles/mercury-maze-2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://tvcream.squarespace.com/toy-list/mercury-maze.html&h=250&w=250&sz=40&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=n_rGW4wNEgDGrM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmercury%2Bmaze%2Btoy%26gbv%3D2%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_en%26sa%3DG

So far as I can tell (grin), I don't have any permanent effects from it. Then of course, how many of us had a mercury-filled thermometer stuck in our mouths or uh, other places, as kids?

Sure, we've since discovered mercury is bad stuff, but -that- bad so as to tear up the neighboorhood for a few blobs?

More puzzling still is given its restricted nature now, who would have more than a drop of the stuff anyway? I'm having to guess that it was probably dropped there, ejected from the tailpipe of an alien spacecraft. (LOL)