Coal Tattoo readers have followed the ongoing controversy over efforts by West Virginia’s coal industry to further delay compliance with water quality limits for toxic selenium pollution from coal-fired power plants. (See previous posts here, here, here, and here).
Now, federal regulators are focusing in on selenium discharges from coal-fired power plant waste dumps, as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s broader examination of coal ash, prompted in large part by the December disaster at a TVA ash impoundment in East Tennessee.
Juliet Eilperin reported on this in Sunday’s Washington Post. According to her story:
Faced with new evidence that utilities across the country are dumping toxic sludge into waterways, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to impose new restrictions on the level of contaminants power plants can discharge.
Plants in Florida, Pennsylvania and several other states have flushed wastewater with levels of selenium and other toxins that far exceed the EPA’s freshwater and saltwater standards aimed at protecting aquatic life, according to data the agency has collected over the past few years. While selenium can be beneficial in tiny amounts, elevated levels damage not only fish but also birds and people who consume contaminated fish.
But the reason more selenium and metals such as arsenic are now entering U.S. waterways is because the federal government has pressed utilities to install pollution-control “scrubbing” technology that captures contaminants headed for smokestacks and stores them as coal ash or sludge. The EPA estimates that these two types of coal combustion residue — often kept in outdoor pools or flushed into nearby rivers and streams — amount to roughly 130,000 tons per year and will climb to an estimated 175,000 tons by 2015.
And interestingly, it quotes Adora Andy, spokeswoman for EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson as saying the agency “is moving to establish a new water-quality criterion aimed at selenium.”
Remember, EPA was already trying to change its selenium water quality limits, but dropped the idea when a group of scientists blasted the proposal as a major weakening of existing pollution standards.  And, one of those scientists was Dennis Lemly, the nation’s foremost expert on selenium’s effects, who has warned that selenium pollution from mountaintop removal has pushed at least one West Virginia watershed, the Mud River, to the “brink of a major toxic event.â€
And, of course, that brings us back to the debate in West Virginia over the Stalling Selenium bill, which gives coal operators another three years, until July 2012, to comply with existing water quality limits. Lawmakers passed this legislation, SB 461, but it doesn’t appear to have made it to Gov. Joe Manchin’s desk yet for his consideration.
Manchin’s DEP Secretary, Randy Huffman, has gone off on the Obama administration’s EPA, for — in his view — sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong in reviewing mountiantop removal mining permits.
Now, Huffman’s agency has said it’s against the Stalling Selenium bill, but no one from WVDEP showed up to speak against it at one key statehouse hearing. Of course, DEP has repeatedly given coal operators more time a move that both the state Environmental Quality Board and a federal judge have said was wrong.
If Huffman and his boss, Gov. Manchin, want to keep EPA out of West Virginia, the best way to do that is to have a very strong state enforcement effort.
I’ve predicted before that the Stalling Selenium bill could turn into Manchin’s mitigation bill — remember that one? Read this post if you don’t. But in short, it’s the legislation that WVDEP opposed a decade ago because of the big permitting breaks it gave the coal industry. Then-Gov. Cecil Underwood signed anyway, and that brought federal officials down hard on the state and its coal industry.
So what will Manchin do? Stay tuned …
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Ken,
You once again are making up facts to fit your story. Very, very , few people consider Dennis Lemly the foremost expert on seleium and in fact the EPA was reviewing all of his work because they believe that his findings were not correct. Second the DEP di not say they were against the Stallings Bill just that they would not support it . . . I big difference in being against it
EM2
That’s incorrect. I’m not making up anything here. You may disagree, but that’s a different thing altogether. Please provide some evidence (including links) to back up your assertion.
I think if you do a search in the literature, you’ll find that Lemly has published more research in this area than just about anyone — who has published more?
Also, it’s clear from the record that EPA — in proposing a weakened selenium standard favored by, among others, the coal industry, mis-characterized some of Lemly’s research. The Union of Concerned Scientists explained that here:
http://tinyurl.com/c8g2qf.
As for WVDEP — I think you’re pointing out a distinction without a difference. DEP does not think lawmakers should have passed this bill, at least that’s what agency officials have said publicly. whether or not they back that up by urging the governor to veto it, we’ll have to wait and see.
I checked with Matt Turner, spokesman for Manchin, and he said the governor has no specific plans to ask Randy Huffman his views — so it will be up to Randy to insist that his agency be heard.
Ken.
I would like everyone to read this article because there are more selenuim allowed in tap water and drinking water than the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc. are wanting allowed to be put out by mining companies. This is ridiculous. Just another way of making mining a target and letting the rest of the U.S. have the easy way out. Just another proven fact that is not let out by the bias media.
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/selenium.pdf
Brandon,
A couple of things — I’m not aware of Greenpeace being involved in the selenium issue in West Virginia or elsewhere in the coalfields. I’m assuming you’re just throwing them out there as a generic environmental group that you happen to not think highly of.
But, your post raises a couple of questions …
First, to be clear: The issue with selenium discharges from mountaintop removal mines is that they are violating water quality standards intended to protect aquatic life.
In West Virginia, those standards are 5 parts per billion for chronic exposure and 20 parts per billion for acute. In general, those have been translated by DEP into permit limits on the order of 4.7 parts per billion monthly average and 8.2 or so daily maximum.
While you’re correct that the WHO organization guidelines you mention do suggest a weaker standard for drinking water — the equivalent of 10 parts per billion — that’s really beside the point.
Why?
First, because the issue here is effects on aquatic life. And our state government has determined that limits of 5 ppb and 20 ppb in the water are needed to protect aquatic life. Many mining operations are violating those limits.
Second, if your concern is drinking water, then why aren’t you advocating that West Virginia tighten its human health criteria to match the WHO guidelines?
Currently, West Virginia’s human health WQS for selenium is 50 ppb, the same as EPA’s recommended Maximum Contaminant Level (See http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/contaminants/dw_contamfs/selenium.html).
Shouldn’t West Virginia adopt the more stringent 10 ppb WHO guideline you are suggesting is something we should all read?
Thanks for reading Coal Tattoo and for commenting.
Ken.