Environmental groups charged this week that state officials in Kentucky have failed to regulate dangerous levels of selenium in water and fish near coal mines in the Appalachian coalfield. The Kentucky Waterways Alliance and other groups allege that the state kept the information secret for two years, Andy Mead of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.
Peter Goldman, assistant director of the state Division of Water, told Mead that an employee erred when he repeatedly denied an environmental group's request for selenium test results under the state Open Records Act. Mead reports the water downstream from one mine site and one road cut exceeded state water quality standards, and other mines showed elevated levels. Levels of selenium in fish was also found to have exceeded Environmental Protection Agency standards at three mine sites. The state released a new Clean Water Act general permit for mines in July, without selenium restrictions. (Read more)
Selenium levels in West Virginia's Mud River watershed have been pushed to the "brink of a major toxic event," Ken Ward of The Charleston Gazette reports. Ward also examines the Kentucky selenium reports and notes that environmental groups are hoping to use the data draw more attention to what they feel is a growing, unaddressed problem resulting from surface mining in Appalachia.
"As this Sierra Club fact sheet points out, selenium is a mineral that is beneficial to health in tiny, tiny amounts," Ward notes. "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." (Read more) Ward provides useful links to more information. One is a Sierra Club fact sheet, which notes, "Exposure can cause hair and fingernail loss, fatigue, and irritability. In the long term, selenium exposure can cause damage to the liver, the kidneys, and to the nervous and circulatory systems."
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