State health officials are poised to begin a long-awaited study of the effects of mercury pollution in South Carolina, and whether some groups of people are suffering mercury- related illnesses.

But the study will begin as a more modest effort than the more statewide effort envisioned last year.

That study was called off because of the state budget crisis, and the study that’s getting under way now will start off small because of the same financial limitations, according to Adam Myrick, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

“Due to budget cuts, we won’t be able to do a full epidemiological study as previously discussed. With a loss of somewhere around $40 million in state funding, that type of study simply isn’t feasible at this time,” Myrick said.

This study will begin with a focus on people in the Pee Dee region, where mercury contamination is particularly high. Asked when the study would begin, Myrick said, ‘We’re in the process of getting it off the ground now.’

Calls for the mercury study began in late 2007 after The Post and Courier’s series, “The Mercury Connection,” revealed that many people who eat fish caught in the state’s mercury-contaminated rivers have unusually high levels of the poisonous heavy metal in their systems.

The series also revealed mercury “hot spots” where fish caught in rivers had the highest levels of mercury. One area near the confluence of the Great and Little Pee Dee rivers was named the mercury triangle because fish caught there contained some of the highest mercury levels in the state.