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<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Subject: Fwd: Ed Imhoff Op Ed on Selenium Criteria
Revision<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Selective Science, Poisoned Wildlife<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Source: <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Roanoke</st1:City></st1:place>
Times & World News<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Publication date: 2005-04-21<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Twenty years ago, pools of toxic water transformed <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>'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."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The threat posed by selenium pollution extends far
beyond <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>.
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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>When a study of mining practices in <st1:place w:st="on">Appalachia</st1:place>
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<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>government selenium experts. Nonetheless, EPA has
moved forward with the industry-friendly number.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>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<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>recommendation that prevents future fish and wildlife
disasters, Johnson can realize the president's vision.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-style:italic'>Imhoff, a hydrologist formerly with
the U.S. Geological Survey, teaches science at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Virginia</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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