On December 17, 2004, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed changing the current Clean Water Act water quality standards for selenium.  The existing standards limit selenium in waterways to 5 parts per billion – with the concentration measured in water. The EPA proposal replaces the existing water limit with a limit on selenium measured in fish tissue – the proposed criterion is 7.91 ppm (dry weight). While the EPA is calling this proposal an “improvement,” the change would effectively weaken the existing Clean Water Act limits, allow for more selenium to be dumped into our waters, and fail to protect fish, birds, and other wildlife. 

Selenium Standards Should Be Stricter, Not Looser

Concerned scientists have been calling for stronger selenium standards for many years. Highly publicized cases of wildlife poisoning at Belews Lake, North Carolina, in the 1970s and Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, California, in the 1980s first drew attention to the serious threats posed by the highly toxic metal, which has been linked to significant reproductive impairment among fish and birds. Growing concerns about the impacts of selenium on wildlife led to a consideration of new criteria that would address selenium in the food chain as well as in the water. Additional criteria were intended to supplement the existing water-quality limits for protection of aquatic life, making our nation's waters cleaner and safer.

Instead of strengthening the current standards, however, the EPA's new proposal replaces the existing water-quality criterion with a fish-tissue standard based on a highly questionable and disputed EPA study. Besides raising questions about how this standard will be translated into enforceable limits on water-pollution dischargers and whether it will be adequately protective in the long term, this proposal has drawn strong criticism from scientists who believe that it will not adequately protect fish or other wildlife.

EPA's approach to setting chronic aquatic-life criteria has traditionally focused on determining the concentration of a pollutant that causes an ill effect to 0 to 10 percent of a population.  In this instance, however, EPA initially assumed that a 20 percent mortality rate for fish would be acceptable. If that is not bad enough, the scientific critics of EPA's proposal estimate that the actual population death rates for the 7.91 ppm fish tissue limit could be twice as high or more—as much as 50 percent for juvenile bluegill and between 40 percent and 95 percent for mallard ducks. 

While these impacts would be significant for healthy populations of fish and birds, they would be disastrous for more vulnerable endangered and threatened species. Some 15 endangered or threatened species have been identified by the Fish and Wildlife Service as potentially affected by selenium discharges. 

Standards Are Industry-Friendly

Selenium occurs naturally in some areas, but high levels are generally associated with a variety of industrial sources, including coal mining operations, coal-fired power plants, copper mines, phosphate mines, oil refineries, and irrigated agriculture. It is these interests that have largely promoted EPA's proposed criteria.  According to representatives of the utility industry, power companies could "save millions" in avoided treatment cost under the new standard.  Similarly, according to representatives of the coal industry, a shift to the new fish tissue standard could make existing violations of water quality standards disappear.  The coal industry sought to have the state of West Virginia adopt the 7.91 ppm fish-tissue standard a year ago, after the state's Department of Environmental Protection began placing selenium limits in water discharge permits issued to West Virginia mining operations.

The comment period for the proposal ends on April 18, 2005.  Please tell the EPA not to weaken standards for toxic selenium.