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This article originally provided by
The
Charleston Gazette
Pauline Canterberry has lived around the Coal River for 67 years.
Canterberry swam and fished, and watched whippoorwills, kingfishers
and bluejays.
“When I was growing up on Coal River, I knew every swimming hole
there was,” Canterberry said. “I used to fish until about 10 years
ago. I quit. I’m definitely not going to eat anything out of it
now.”
For several years, she fought coal dust air pollution and
monitored repeated blackwater spills from coal operations around her
home in Sylvester.
And now, she is concerned that selenium discharges from area
mining operations are making things worse.
“Big Coal River is a nasty place anymore,” Canterberry told the
state Environmental Quality Board Thursday. “Nature’s not the same
in the Coal River anymore because we have so much pollution.”
Canterberry was among eight coalfield citizens who testified
during the opening day of a major board appeal over coal industry
selenium pollution.
Earlier this year, the Manchin administration moved to give
nearly 100 coal operators three more years to fix violations of the
state’s water pollution limit on selenium discovered in a 2003
federal study.
Three environmental groups, the West Virginia Highlands
Conservancy, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and Coal River
Mountain Watch appealed the state Department of Environmental
Protection action.
Board members have set aside four days to hear the appeal.
Hearings continue today and resume Monday and Tuesday.
Selenium is a naturally occurring element that is found in many
rocks and soils. In very tiny amounts, it is an antioxidant and is
needed for good health.
But in slightly greater amounts, selenium is highly toxic. In
humans, it can cause hair loss, nail brittleness and neurological
problems such as numbness. In aquatic life, very small amounts of
selenium have been found to cause reproductive problems.
In 2003, a broad federal government study of mountaintop removal
coal mining found repeated violations of water quality limits for
selenium in the water downstream from mining operations. The
following year, in 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service produced
its own report, finding troubling levels of selenium in fish
downstream from mountaintop removal mines.
After the federal reports, coal industry lobbyists tried — so far
unsuccessfully — to persuade lawmakers and the DEP to relax West
Virginia’s water quality rules for selenium.
During Thursday’s hearing, Derek Teaney, a lawyer for the
citizens, told board members the DEP was illegally helping coal
companies evade pollution limits.
“Can the DEP essentially award get-out-of-jail free cards to
polluters who make no effort to comply with lawfully promulgated
water quality standards just because they don’t like those
standards?” Teaney said. “That is what the DEP has done.”
Teaney and another citizen lawyer, Joe Lovett, are challenging
the DEP’s decision to give 25 different coal operations three more
years to comply with a selenium water quality limit recommended by
the federal government 20 years ago.
DEP lawyer Heather Connolly said her agency was “exceedingly
reasonable” in issuing the selenium compliance schedules under
appeal.
Connolly said selenium concerns from coal mining were a new issue
to the DEP and the agency was trying “to buy time to wrap its
proverbial head around selenium and proper treatment methods.”
Bob McLusky, a lawyer for several coal operators, said industry
is working with the DEP and West Virginia University to try to find
ways to comply with the selenium limits.
“We need time and there is nothing unreasonable about that,”
McLusky said.
Ken Politan, an assistant DEP mining director, testified Thursday
that the agency’s public notices about the compliance extensions did
not state that the extensions were modifications of the company’s
permits.
Politan also testified federal Environmental Protection Agency
officials are concerned the state would need to change its water
pollution regulations to allow these kinds of compliance extensions.
Industry lawyers, including former top DEP water pollution
official Allyn Turner, continue to oppose citizens being able to
appeal the agency’s selenium actions in the first place.
Environmental board members already ruled on the matter, but
industry lawyers continued to argue that the citizen groups do not
have legal standing to bring the appeal.
As a result, Teaney and Lovett put Canterberry and seven other
citizens on the stand to explain their concerns about selenium.
Industry lawyers responded by grilling the citizens about the
details of water pollution laws, permit public notices and
environmental group funding grants.
One citizen, Betty Wiley of Morgantown, told industry lawyer
Robert Stonestreet that he was wasting time questioning her about
the finer points of selenium pollution.
“That’s irrelevant,” Wiley told Stonestreet. “You’re trying to
show if I have standing. I have standing, and I don’t have to be a
chemist to have standing.”
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call
348-1702.
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