More selenium problems: Violations found at Ky. mines
Here in West Virginia, a leading scientist has warned state regulators that selenium pollution from mountaintop removal mining has pushed the Mud River watershed to “the brink of a major toxic event.”
West Virginia regulators have generally bent over backwards to help the coal industry avoid having to reduce this pollution and eliminate selenium violations. But earlier this year, when lawmakers passed a bill giving coal operators three more years to comply, even the state Department of Environmental Protection thought it was going too far.
Now, evidence has surfaced that there are growing selenium problems in the coalfields over in Kentucky — and allegations that regulators there sat on the information until they got a new, industry-wide general permit approved without selenium limits or comprehensive selenium monitoring.
Environmental groups today are releasing the results of the water monitoring and fish tissue sampling that shows violations of the state’s water quality standard for selenium and of the level of selenium experts consider safe in fish.
Some of the sampling was done in September 2007, but was not made public until recently — and not until after July, when Kentucky re-issued its “general permit” that covers water pollution discharges from coal mining operations.
Margaret Janes, a researcher with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, had been trying for two years to get the information — and could not get it in time to submit comments about it during the review permit for that general permit:
The state of Kentucky inappropriately withheld information requested through the Freedom of Information Act. No one should have to wait nearly two years to find out what dangerous toxins are in their fish and their water.
I put in a call to a spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection, but have not heard back yet from him.
But the Appalachian Center, the Sierra Club and the Kentucky Waterways Alliance are hoping to use this data on selenium in Kentucky to draw more attention to what they feel is a growing problem from mountaintop removal that is not being addressed.
In West Virginia, the coal industry has been scrambling to find ways to avoid complying with existing water quality standards for selenium for several years, since federal studies found dangerous levels of selenium runoff from mountaintop removal mines in Southern West Virginia. A federal judge and the state Environmental Quality Board have both found that the industry has been stalling its efforts to stop selenium violations. (Also see Stalling on selenium?)
As this Sierra Club fact sheet points out, selenium is a mineral that is beneficial to health in tiny, tiny amounts. But it can also be very dangerous, especially to fish and other aquatic life, at only slightly larger amounts. That makes regulating it tricky, but also especially important, given the thin margin of safety involved.
I’m posting the four Kentucky selenium reports here, here, here and here for anybody who is interested. The sites marked with an A are at the toes of valley fills. Sites with a B are ponds, and sites with C are downstream.
In all, Kentucky surveyed 13 sites in the state’s eastern coalfields, including six active mining sites, two “reclaimed” coal sites, and one abandoned coal mine. They also looked at two reference sites and two sites located at road cuts.
The results? Here’s how the environmental groups summarized them:
At one active coal mining site and one road cut site, water downstream from the disturbance exceeded state water quality standards for selenium. Additional water quality data showed elevated levels of selenium on the mining sites.
Notably, researchers also found fish at three of the nine mining sites whose bodies’ selenium content exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft recommendations for selenium in fish tissue.
Downstream from five other mining sites and both road cut sites, researchers found fish with selenium levels at which scientists have found can cause adverse effects in sensitive species.
(FYI, the water quality standard for selenium in Kentucky is 5.0 parts per billion, the same as in West Virginia. (That’s for chronic effects on aquatic life). EPA proposed, but never finalized a fish tissue standard of 7.9 parts per million. Leading experts on selenium, though, say that levels in fish as low as 4.0 parts per million can damage fish.)
Judy Peterson, executive director of the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, said:
This is simply unforgivable. We’ve expressed concern about the lack of selenium limits in mining permits for years now and the agency has responded that there is no known problem and therefore no reason for selenium limits in permits.
Selenium, like mercury, doesn’t degrade in the environment so the problem will only get worse. We need the Division of Water to act now to set limits in permits and require regular monitoring to protect people and wildlife in eastern Kentucky.
It’s interesting to note that most mining discharges in Kentucky are regulated only under a general Clean Water Act permit. In West Virginia, few mining operations are authorized through this streamlined process. The WVDEP requires individual NPDES permits for mining operations.
And, the new general permit in Kentucky requires for selenium only a one-site sampling sometime during the five-year life of a permit authorization. It sets no limits on selenium discharges.
Lauren McGrath in Kentucky with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said:
By delaying the disclosure of public data about toxic selenium levels in Kentucky’s waterways, the state has been allowing the coal industry to operate without regard to water quality or human health. The spotlight is now on Kentucky to hold the coal industry accountable and to clean up its waterways.
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I believe that surface mines in Southern WV (and presumably Kentucky) have in general been able to “discharge” their drainage and meet NPDES standards without any form of chemical or other “treatment.” (We are talking huge amounts of drainage, hundreds of thousand of gallons at many different discharge points, especially in the wet times of the year.)
In this region of Appalachia, the rubble left after mining is usually not acid-producing — and therefore the groundwater that flows through the rubble is much less likely to dissolve minerals like iron, manganese, etc. than is the case in Northern WV — where the drainage from some surface mines is like battery acid, pH2.5, and laden with toxic dissolved minerals.
Now, it’s starting to look like that even in the non-acid-producing rubble of Southern WV, selenium is leaching out at potentially toxic levels.
Collecting drainage from these huge sites and treating it, if that’s what’s required to meet NPDES standards, might be very expensive. This blog posted a description of a protype treatment system for one WV mine at http://www.vsep.com/pdf/VSEP-SELENIUM-TREATMENT-SYSTEM.pdf.
Calculating drainage amounts and treatment costs from surface mines is actually not too hard. I wonder if anyone has run the numbers for selenium, even roughly.
Overlooking selenium is not new.
September 23, 2007
In a telephone news conference Thursday, a regional environmental group is accusing the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management of plotting with phosphate mining companies in Southeast Idaho to cover up decades of serious pollution.
Along with the regional environmental group, a retired federal hydrologist says he has documented a supposed cover up of toxic selenium contamination in Southeast Idaho by these federal agencies and the phosphate mining industry.
Edgar Imhoff, Retired Federal Hydrologist: “That level of 13,600 is the highest ever recorded in the United States and I’m pretty well up on most the selenium data across the United States. That level is also more than 13 times the hazardous waste level.” [Note: Mr. Imhoff was the OSM regional director in Indianapolis, 1978-80.]
A problem mining companies say they didn’t know about until 1997.
But Imhoff also reviewed thousands of pages of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from federal agencies.
His report claims that mining companies and federal agencies, such as the Forest Service and BLM, have purposefully covered up potential harm from selenium contamination for years.
Edgar Imhoff: “In 1984, Forest Service reported on about 19 other parameters and never released that information; in fact, they quit sampling after finding high concentration in a field identical to what was happening at Smokey Canyon.”
Source:
http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?s=7106720
April 20, 2009
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water - contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/20/health/main4955573.shtml
April 2, 2009
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists have developed a new laboratory method to measure trace levels of 22 human-health pharmaceuticals in surface and ground water.
http://toxics.usgs.gov/highlights/pharmaceuticals_method.html
I long for the day when I report something that Bob Mooney doesn’t already know everything about.
I read the Sierra report on selenium and find it a little misleading. It states “People are exposed to toxic levels of selenium by eating contaminated fish or drinking water that exceeds Safe Drinking Water Act threshold levels of 0.05 parts per million. ” They state drinking water with a level of selenium at 0.05 parts per million is supposedly “toxic”. The level of selenium in human vitamins is 55 micrograms and is stated to be 79% of our daily value. Doctors claim a level of 400 micrograms is unsafe. The 0.05 parts per million is converted to 50 micrograms. Granted this is not much less than vitamins, but it is less. Also, you have to measure the dry weight amount of selenium in the fish tissue. So the Sierra Club should try expanding on their explanation. Many people hear these explanations and believe they are drinking toxic water and eating toxic fish when they are not.
Following up on EB’s comment: another uncertainty in the selenium leaching issue may be the future course of selenium leachate levels.
In the acid mine drainage (”AMD”) areas I referred to in my earlier post, it takes a few years for the acidity-producing biochemical reaction on the surfaces of the rocks to fully develop and be taken up by the groundwater flowing through the rubble.
Then, acidity levels in the affected groundwater begin to decline very, very slowly — over hundreds of years.
I wonder if someone could explain the chemistry of selenium leaching, maybe based on the experience in Western mines being discussed above, and offer some informed opinions of its possible course.
As EB suggests, the more real science and detailed understanding of these things we have, as opposed to just words like “toxic,” the better we can face them with “eyes wide open.”
[…] More selenium problems: Violations found at Ky. mines […]
The article linked by Ken Ward above is simply wrong.
For example, it says the following:
“It’s interesting to note that most mining discharges in Kentucky are regulated only under a general Clean Water Act permit. In West Virginia, few mining operations are authorized through this streamlined process. The WVDEP requires individual NPDES permits for mining operations.”
That’s just an outright lie. KY issues both general permits and individual permits.
With respect to the so-called withholding of data by KY, there again, that has been proven to be an outright lie as well. The data that was generated as a part of this report just finished going thru the QA/QC process about three weeks ago, and once completed was released. The idea that KY withheld data is just more inflammatory lies. In addition, the report analyzing and reporting on the data isn’t even complete yet so any final conclusions need to be evaluated against that report.
At the end of the day, it is disappointing that so many inaccuracies and false statements are being made without effort to verify. Just lend much credibility to other writings.
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