URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Winter_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

by Amy Dunkle and Holly Tran High up in the mountains of Miyazaki prefecture on the Japanese island of Kyushu, the tiny mountain hamlet of Toroku sits tucked into a narrow valley with little more than 30 households and no stores. World We Are One With Our Drilling a new well. | Timothy S. George

people of Toroku paid a terrible price for the mining operation. Ingestion of 0.1 grams of arsenic can cause death, says George, and half that can cause acute poisoning. Long-term exposure at lower levels causes skin problems, general weakening, digestive system disorders, deterioration of internal organs, confusion, and several kinds of cancer. Arsenic was, of course, known to be poisonous. George says arsenic collected from silver mines in some places in Japan other than Toroku, especially in the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), was actually sold as rat poison.

The description evokes a quaint picture of a remote village off the beaten path, but that notion belies a tragic past embedded deep in the small community’s soil. “Toroku reminds us that our bodies are part of the environment, so when we put poisons into the environment they eventually end up inside us,” says Timothy George, professor and chairman of the University of Rhode Island (URI) history department. According to George, a leading expert on modern Japanese history, miners dug into the Toroku landscape to excavate silver in the late 16th century. The mining company processed the ore

by burning, he explains, which produced emissions of arsenic in the smoke. “While there are no specific records of damage, there are accounts of a white powder, or ‘frost,’ falling in the summer and making young women’s black hair look white,” he says. The intentional mining of arsenic came later, in the 20th century. George says the arsenic was released into the air when arsenopyrite, or arsenic ore, was burned to produce the chemical element. Arsenic tailings were dumped on hillsides and in the river and arsenic also precipitated out of the smoke, contaminating drinking water and food sources such as rice, which concentrates the level of contamination. Ultimately, the

“But, clearly, they did not realize how severe

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