The star on the Franklin mountain is a city icon. Recently, the City Council voted to take over paying for the lighting of the star with some stipulations on the lease to be worked out. The cost to the City annually will be $45,000. The star (hundreds of CFLs - compact florescent lights strung on wires) is managed by the El Paso Electric Company. The Chamber of Commerce has been responsible for its upkeep. The land is owned by George M. Salom Jr. and is valued at $46,389. The popularity of the star is attested to by the recent outcry to continue its lighting night after night after night.One big problem: the mountainside below the star is littered with broken CFLs (compact florescent lights) and CFLs contain mercury - a deadly neurotoxin that can affect the brain, liver and kidneys, and cause developmental disorders in children.
If the tubes are broken (and many are below the star), then mercury is released. Arguably a single CFL does not contain enough mercury to be hazardous if handled correctly. There are about 5 milligrams of Hg (mercury) in a CFL. If you break one in your home, there are precautions that you can take to clean it up. You don't have to call an environmental clean-up crew wearing Hazmat suits. (See Snopes for more information about the safety and clean-up of florescent lights in your home.)Even though El Paso has no rule for the disposal of CFLs, the city does accept them at hazardous waste collection sites. Frankly, all CFLs should be taken to such sites because they easily break in the trash bins or the garbage trucks.
CFLs are more energy efficient and should be preferred over incandescents. They require on an average about one-fourth of the energy to produce an equivalent amount of the light of an incandescent bulb.
It is also true that the manufacture of incandescent bulbs actually pollutes the environment with more mercury since the electricity used in manufacturing them comes principally from burning coal which contains mercury. (Incandescent bulbs themselves do not contain Hg.)
The concern is not the minimal amount of mercury in a single CFL that is easily cleaned up at home or the office, nor the manufacturing of incandescent bulbs, nor even the question of energy efficiency. The concern is the quantity of broken CFLs over time in a small area - for example, a city dump or a mountainside below a star that is lit night after night after night.
Although minimal, 5 ml of Hg is enought to make up to 6,000 gallons of water unsafe to drink according to an MSNBC report. Obviously we are not dealing with a body of water. However, according to Bob Formisano for About.com, the "reason mercury is so dangerous to humans, wildlife and the environment is that mercury is toxic in many forms and can easily transfer from air to soil and to water. Mercury also bioaccumulates in living organisms and increases in toxicity levels as it moves up the food chain." Water does run off the mountain. Mercury vapor can be breathed in.
The bulbs used for the CFLs of the star are exposed to high winds. Although they have bell-shaped glass covers, many of those covers also litter the ground and have not been replaced.
Too many of the mountain star CFLs dangle on electrical tape alone.
A representative of the El Paso Electric Company was asked to comment but so far has not called back.
