Big Coal Wants Weaker Selenium Standards For West Virginia's Waters

A coal industry sponsored bill in West Virginia, considered by that state’s House of Representatives, would allow West Virginia to disregard federal recommendations and set its own standards for the amount of selenium that can be released from coal mines.

            Selenium occurs naturally in the environment. A little bit of it is very good. Your body uses trace amounts of the element to make antioxidants, which can fight off cancer. The thyroid gland also uses selenium. There are foods rich in selenium. Bacon has lots of it, so does shrimp. Like a lot of things, you can also get too much selenium. Too much selenium can give you bad breath. Much more can cause kidney and liver problems. Too much selenium can kill you, too.

            Selenium affects animals as well. A 2010 study of the streams of West Virginia, mandated by state legislation, concluded that high levels of selenium were associated with deformities of fish larvae. In some streams that had high selenium levels, 20 percent of some fish species had deformities.

            Most likely because of the recent lawsuits it has faced over selenium pollutions, the coal industry wants to disregard the science and allow for much higher selenium concentrations in the waterways of West Virginia. Looking at the scars of the land in West Virginia from surface mining, it’s hard to believe that the coal companies need to have the rules that allow for their large-scale mining operations weekend even further. But that looks to be the case here.