[env-trinity] SACBEE-EPA appears set to relax standards for selenium

[Tom Stokely]

It looks like somebody is getting ready for Kesterson 2 or finishing the San Luis Drain to the SF Bay.  For information on plans to create Kesterson 2 and/or complete the San Luis Drain, see http://www.usbr.gov/mp/sccao/sld/index.html (The San Luis Drainage Feature Re-Evaluation and EIS).
The article doesn't mention that with the selenate adjustment in the proposed new rules,  the acute criterion would be 1,590 ppb selenium in water, much  higher than the existing 20 ppb selenium acute aquatic life criterion.  Also, the state of California has designated 1,000 ppb as the hazardous waste level for selenium, so what EPA is proposing is significantly higher than the state hazardous waste level.  Also worth note is that water with selenate/sulfate is generally associated with subsurface agricultural drainage, NOT with mining runoff or refinery effluent.  Somehow this has the appearance that the San Joaquin Valley water users who discharge selenium have had some influence with EPA in the proposed relaxation of selenium standards.
Yours truly,
Tom Stokely  

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/10576582p-11495494c.html
Battle over toxic metal
EPA appears set to relax standards for selenium, which led to deformities in waterfowl in 1980s.
By Stuart Leavenworth -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Over the objections of several federal scientists, the Bush administration is preparing to relax national standards for selenium - a toxic metal that caused mass deformities of water fowl in California's Central Valley during the 1980s.

The revised U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards are outlined in an EPA draft notice obtained by The Bee.

Critics say the proposed standards are based on a study that even its author says was interpreted improperly. The standards follow years of lobbying by power companies, Valley farming interests and mining officials, all of whom say the current federal standards are overly restrictive.

EPA officials declined to comment on the dispute Monday, saying they haven't made a final decision on the rule. "The notice you have is a draft. Until it is signed, it is not final," said Cathy Milbourne, an EPA spokeswoman in Washington, D.C.

Scientists in other federal agencies, however, say it has been clear for weeks the EPA plans to adopt a selenium standard favored by industry and opposed by government biologists. The rule-making process has been controversial since 2002, when the EPA hired a contractor with long-standing ties to some industries seeking relief.

Under the EPA draft notice, the agency plans to control long-term selenium toxicity by switching from a water-based standard to a fish-based standard. Industries would be allowed to discharge into waters until selenium reached a concentration of 7.91 parts per million in fish. EPA contends those levels will be safe for fish and most wildlife. Several non-industry scientists disagree.

Joseph Skorupa, a researcher with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says studies show birds lose 10 percent of their offspring after eating food containing 4 parts per million selenium.

"At 8 parts per million, we are talking about a situation where more than 50 percent of the eggs would fail to hatch," said Skorupa, who has investigated selenium poisonings for more than two decades.

In recent months, Skorupa and other scientists have been alerting EPA officials to what they call "fatal flaws" in evaluating selenium.

"We thought they would go back and modify their criteria," said Dennis Lemly, a scientist with the U.S. Forest Service's Southern Research Station in Virginia. "So far, they haven't done that."

Industry scientists say their research indicates selenium is less toxic than some biologists claim. They also say EPA's current method of regulating selenium - limiting levels to 5 parts per billion in water - is costly to certain businesses.

"The power industry believes the 7.9 (parts per million) standard is more scientifically defensible than the current one," said Rob Reash, a biologist who works for Ohio-based American Electrical Power, the largest electrical generator in the country.

He said power companies could save millions of dollars if the proposed standard is adopted.

A natural element, selenium is considered to be beneficial in small quantities, but can be poisonous as it builds up in the food chain. That threat was illustrated vividly in the 1980s, when scientists started documenting hundreds of deformed and dying birds at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos.

Federal biologists, including Skorupa, tracked the poisonings to selenium runoff to upstream farms, and have continued to document less-dramatic poisonings from the Central Valley to the Delta.

Following the Kesterson episode, EPA set a water-based standard for selenium - 5 parts per billion - and started to regulate industries that discharge the metal in their wastewater.

It's a big job. Across the country, selenium is released by phosphate mines in Idaho and copper mines in Utah. It drains from the piles of leftover ash at coal-burning power plants. It has been found downstream of mountaintop mining operations in West Virginia, and is in irrigation water across much of the West.

Documents obtained by the Public Education Center, a nonprofit research group, show industries have lobbied for relaxed selenium standards over several years, even as the Fish and Wildlife Service has pushed for tougher limits.

Since 1980, the power industry has spent about $10 million on selenium research, helping to fund several studies that discount the threats to wildlife, according to the Public Education Center.

Hoping to sidestep disputes about its water standard, the EPA announced in 2001 it would start using fish concentrations, instead of water, to regulate selenium. Although scientists on both sides supported this approach, they quickly differed on EPA's choice of a consultant to lead the project - the Great Lakes Environmental Center.

Since 2001, the Michigan-based consulting firm has worked for several power companies and trade associations, including American Electrical Power and the Electric Power Research Institute.

Even more worrisome, say scientists for Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Geological Survey, is that the Great Lakes Environmental Center made significant mistakes in proposing a selenium standard for fish.

In calculating a proposed standard, the Great Lakes center relied on a study by Lemly that examined selenium uptake and survival in blue gill, a common fish. But according to Lemly and Skorupa, the consultant misread the Lemly study and assumed he had studied 210 fish throughout the experiment. Lemly had removed 60 fish during two phases of the tests, meaning the survival rate was much lower than the consultant had assumed.

"The Great Lakes Environmental Center made some fairly egregious errors," said Lemly in a telephone interview.

Had the consultant correctly interpreted his study, he said, the appropriate standard should be closer to 4 parts per million instead of 7.91.

Officials for the Great Lake center couldn't be reached Monday. Nor could Charles Delos, who is heading the selenium criteria changes for the EPA.

Several months ago, Delos received a paper from five scientists criticizing the EPA's methodology, said Skorupa, who authored the paper along with Lemly, Theresa Presser of the U.S. Geological Survey and two others.

According to the EPA draft notice, the agency acknowledges its proposed standard is "not necessarily designed to protect all terrestrial wildlife." On a separate track, the EPA is developing selenium criteria for California, although it is not known when those standards will be ready.

Some California farm interests are lobbying for changes. The fish-based standard of 7.9 parts per million "is an important step towards a more reasonable selenium standard," the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Authority wrote EPA in 2002.

In West Virginia, industries conducting mountaintop mining also are urging regulators to adopt the 7.9 ppm standard. Some industries are having trouble complying with the current standard, said Jason Bostic, regulatory affairs specialists for the West Virginia Coal Association.

Bostic said he was unsure if selenium was building up in wildlife downstream of those mines. "We don't know," he said. "Selenium is very new for us."

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About the Writer

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The Bee's Stuart Leavenworth can be reached at (916) 321-1185 or sleavenworth at sacbee.com. 








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