[env-trinity] Ed Imhoff Op Ed on Selenium Criteria Revision

[Byron]

Subject: Fwd: Ed Imhoff Op Ed on Selenium Criteria Revision

Selective Science, Poisoned Wildlife

Source: Roanoke Times & World News

Publication date: 2005-04-21

 

Twenty years ago, pools of toxic water transformed California's Kesterson
National Wildlife Refuge into an environmental disaster area. Thousands of
birds were poisoned and killed by selenium pollution draining from irrigated
fields, many so deformed that they were called "monstrosities."

 

Public outcry over the episode led to tighter controls on selenium and set
off long efforts to clean up other contaminated areas. In Kesterson's wake,
federal, state and university researchers delved into the toxicity of
selenium, and, over and over again, they concluded that established limits
are not sufficiently protective of fish and wildlife.

 

Yet, astonishingly, the Environmental Protection Agency is now poised to
move in the opposite direction, proposing a weakening of its Clean Water Act
limits based on the misinterpretation of science and the pleas of polluting
industries.

 

The threat posed by selenium pollution extends far beyond California. Though
selenium occurs naturally, it often poses little danger until released or
concentrated through human activities, such as coal, phosphate, uranium or
copper mining and the careless disposal of certain irrigation, electric
power plant or oil refinery waste waters.

 

Selenium accumulates in aquatic environments, and when it reaches a high
enough concentration, the young of sensitive species of fish are the first
to die. Selenium's danger continues onward through the aquatic food chain,
poisoning waterfowl and other wildlife exposed to toxic levels. In small
doses, selenium sustains life. In excess, it is deadly.  

 

But preventing selenium pollution can be difficult, so polluters have long
opposed even the current protections. The power industry alone reportedly
spent more than $10 million on research in an attempt to produce a
scientific record more accommodating to selenium emitters.

 

When a study of mining practices in Appalachia pointed to possible selenium
problems in the East, coal companies quickly embraced a proposed limit of
7.91 parts per million measured in fish tissue instead of water. In effect,
that limit is more lenient than the current water-based criteria; when first
informally floated by EPA in 2002, the number was fiercely criticized by

government selenium experts. Nonetheless, EPA has moved forward with the
industry-friendly number.

 

The decision-making process behind the new selenium limit was flawed from
the start, because EPA decided to accept the death of up to 20 percent of
vulnerable fish. By setting a performance target that transforms the Clean
Water Act into the "Moderately Toxic Water Act," the agency essentially
wrote off one in five fish affected by selenium pollution, a loss that would
be damaging to healthy species and absolutely devastating for endangered and
threatened populations.

 

Yet even after lowering the bar for environmental protection, the EPA still
failed to clear it. In practice, the proposed selenium limit will actually
threaten 40 percent or more of affected fish, a much higher mortality rate
than the administration predicted even for its new rule.

 

The EPA defended its proposal by referring to a study measuring selenium
poisoning in bluegill, a common freshwater fish. But Dennis Lemly, the
author of that study, says EPA consultants misread his findings and settled
on a dangerously permissive standard as a result.

 

Last year, Lemly alerted the EPA to the technical errors, both by letter and
in a paper he authored along with several other leading selenium
researchers. Still, the EPA's proposed criteria remain substantially
unchanged, at a level about twice that advocated by the agency's critics.
According to Lemly, "The tissue levels of selenium that EPA is proposing
would have killed nearly half of the fish in my experimental studies.
Clearly, the number that EPA is proposing will not sufficiently protect
aquatic life."

 

The final decision now rests with incoming EPA Administrator Steve Johnson,
the first full-time scientist ever appointed to direct the agency. In
announcing Johnson's selection, President Bush stressed, "He will ... place
sound scientific analysis at the heart of all major decisions." By
addressing the flaws behind the selenium proposal and issuing a
scientifically sound

recommendation that prevents future fish and wildlife disasters, Johnson can
realize the president's vision.

 

Imhoff, a hydrologist formerly with the U.S. Geological Survey, teaches
science at the University of Virginia.

 

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