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Lowering selenium standards is denying science
Current guidelines for selenium, based on the science of ecotoxicity, include a “warning” level at 1.0 microgram/liter (µg/l) that is supposed to trigger additional monitoring, and a biological limit at 2.0 µg/l that is required to protect aquatic life. However, the sole use of a water column guideline does not enable prediction of bioaccumulation or, ultimately toxicity. Simply assuming a single concentration offers a blanket of protection is deemed unwise by experts.
Imperfect as these guidelines might be, nowhere downstream of existing and legacy coal mines of BC and Alberta have selenium concentrations ever met the 2.0 µg/l standard. Instead they are consistently many times higher, including after wastewater treatment by coal companies to remove selenium.
The impacts of higher concentrations of selenium ripple through watersheds and through food chains. Trout impacted in the Elk River watershed in BC, the watersheds of the Crowsnest and McLeod rivers in Alberta provide mute testimony to the truth about coal mining and the consistent government and corporate inability or unwillingness to protect water quality and aquatic ecosystems.
The inability of industry to meet the current selenium guidelines has resulted in an intense lobbying effort to allow much higher concentrations than are safe to protect downstream water quality. Environment and Climate Change Canada has responded to industry with proposed coal mining effluent regulations. New end-of-pipe water quality standards for selenium of a maximum monthly mean of 10 µg/l and a maximum concentration of 20 µg/l for water samples are being actively considered by the federal government.
Independent experts have panned these new “standards,” saying they are licenses to pollute and are not about protecting aquatic life. Dr Bill Donahue, an environmental researcher and noted water quality expert, points out the proposed federal government changes have no basis or support in science and are “a capitulation to the coal industry.” |Read more|
Runoff from a 'Reclaimed' Mountaintop Removal mine in Kentucky
Image source: creative commons copyright from Flickr .
The author added this text with the image: "Coal companies frequently tout the benefits of reclamation and claim their practices protect and restore water quality. The red-stained water seen below this "reclaimed" mountaintop removal mine in Magoffin County, Kentucky, tells a very different story. Red water like this results from high iron levels, which in turn are an indicator of a plethora of other heavy and toxic metals like selenium, mercury and manganese."