The Front Porch Blog

Appalachian Voices and Partners Challenge Kentucky’s Weakening of Water Pollution Standards for Selenium

Friday, December 13th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

This two headed trout was deformed by selenium pollution. Today, we have taken action to keep EPA and Kentucky from allowing pollution like this to get worse.

Earlier today Appalachian Voices and a number of partner organizations sued the EPA over their approval of Kentucky’s new, weaker standard for selenium pollution.

Selenium is extremely toxic to fish, and causes deformities and reproductive failure at extremely low levels. The pollutant is commonly discharged from coal mines and coal ash ponds, but currently Kentucky does not regulate its discharge from these facilities.

These new standards were proposed at the behest of coal industry groups, likely motivated by citizen groups’ success at requiring companies in other states to clean up their selenium pollution. We have also seen the state governments of Virginia and West Virginia take steps towards making similar rollbacks to their own standards, making the EPA’s approval of Kentucky’s weakened standards even more alarming.
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EPA Helps Kentucky Roll Back Water Quality Protections

Friday, November 15th, 2013 | Posted by Erin Savage | 3 Comments

Above are blue gills that were collected below the site of TVA’s 2008 Kingston Coal Ash spill. They all have “pop-eye”, a deformity caused by selenium pollution where their eyes bulge out of their heads. These fish had selenium levels of 2.5-6.5ppm, well below Kentucky’s newly accepted standard of 8.6 ppm for fish tissue.

Just today, after several months of delays, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its decisions on the Kentucky Department of Water’s (DOW) amendments to the Kentucky Water Quality Regulations. Unfortunately, the EPA has approved substantive changes to the selenium freshwater chronic standard that will not adequately protect aquatic life and will be difficult, if not impossible to enforce at mountaintop removal coal mining sites throughout eastern Kentucky.

In theory, states review their water quality standards every three years in an effort to make sure these standards are up-to-date with current science and are protective of aquatic life. In some cases, however, the review becomes an opportunity for special interests to influence state agencies. This year, under pressure from the coal industry, the Kentucky DOW proposed to weaken selenium standards. Standards are used to set permit limits for industries that may discharge pollutants into public waterways. Though some mines in Kentucky are known to discharge selenium into streams, the Kentucky general permit for valley fills does not currently include selenium permit limits.

Selenium is a naturally occurring element that can be released into streams through mountaintop removal coal mining. Once in the water, selenium bioaccumulates in fish and other aquatic life, increasing in concentration up the food chain. Selenium is toxic to aquatic life at very low levels. For these reasons, Appalachian Voices and our allies have been working to challenge Kentucky’s proposed selenium standards.

Kentucky DOW proposed to raise the acute selenium standard from 20 ug/L in the water column to 258 ug/L in the water column. They also proposed changing the chronic standard of 5 ug/L to a more complicated system where a level of 5 ug/L in the water column would not be enforceable, but instead would trigger the need to sample fish tissue. The new chronic standard would be 8.6 ug/g in fish tissue, or 19.2 ug/g in egg/ovary tissue. The 5 ug/L water concentration would only be an enforceable limit if no fish were available for sampling.
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Concerns Grow Over the EPA’s Stance on Selenium Pollution

Thursday, July 25th, 2013 | Posted by Erin Savage | 3 Comments

In February, we wrote about the new selenium water quality standards being proposed by the Kentucky Division of Water and urged concerned citizens to express their concern to the state. Now, Kentucky has gone ahead with its proposal, submitting the new standards to the EPA for review. While the EPA may deny Kentucky’s proposed standards, concerns are growing that the EPA, influenced by states beholden to their mining industries, may release its own inadequate standard. That is why we are urging people to tell EPA to stop Kentucky, and to require strong, enforceable standards in every state.

Selenium is of particular concern in Kentucky and other Central Appalachian states because it is often released into streams through mountaintop removal coal mining and is toxic to aquatic life at very low levels. Even though many high-selenium coal seams are mined in Kentucky, companies typically claim there will be no selenium discharge when first applying for a permit, so that the pollutant is not included on the permit. Selenium has rarely been included on mining permits in Central Appalachia, effectively allowing companies to avoid monitoring or treating it, unless citizens force them to with lawsuits. A recent victory in a lawsuits over illegal selenium discharges from a Virginia surface mining operation indicates that selenium pollution is a widespread problem at mountaintop removal mines across Central Appalachia.

Kentucky has faced increased pressure from citizens and the EPA to include selenium standards on pollution discharge permits, so that water quality is adequately protected. Unfortunately for the coal companies, selenium is expensive to treat and difficult to keep out of streams impacted by surface mining in high-selenium coal seams. Adding selenium to permits would mean that many coal companies have to start paying for a much larger portion of the damage they create. It appears that the state is helping coal companies find a way to avoid responsibility for selenium discharges. By increasing the legal limit of selenium allowed in streams and including fish tissue-based standards that are difficult, if not impossible to enforce, the state will allow many companies to continue to skirt their responsibility to the land and the people of Kentucky.
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A Great Day for Virginia Streams

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Two headed trout, a result of selenium pollution. Courtesy of USFWS.

Yesterday, advocates for clean water won a major court victory in Virginia. Under a court order, A&G Coal will be the first coal company in Virginia required to get a permit for their discharges of toxic selenium. U.S. District Judge James P. Jones ruled that because the company did not tell regulators that they might discharge selenium, their permit does not allow them to.

Selenium is a common pollutant at many Appalachian coal mines and is toxic to fish at very low levels, causing deformities, reproductive failure and death.

The case was brought by the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS), Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices, represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates.

>> Read the press release to find out more
>> Read the judge’s ruling here

Court Victory for Clean Water in Kentucky: The Battle Continues

Friday, July 19th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Acidic mine water being discharged from one of Frasure Creek’s Kentucky coal mines

Last week, an attempt by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet to toss concerned citizens out of court failed.

Judge Phillip Shepherd denied a motion to dismiss our challenge of a settlement between Frasure Creek Mining and the cabinet. Appalachian Voices and our partners KFTC, Kentucky Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance, will now be allowed to proceed with our argument that the settlement should be vacated.

In October of 2010, we filed a Notice of Intent to Sue Frasure Creek for submitting false water monitoring data. Frasure Creek and the cabinet reached a settlement for those violations, but it has not been approved by the court. Before that, the data Frasure Creek submitted to the state never showed any violations. After our legal action, they switched labs and began showing hundreds of water quality violations every month.

We attempted to sue Frasure Creek for these subsequent violations, but the cabinet filed a complaint in state administrative court for the same violations. We intervened and became full parties to that case, but then a slap on the wrist settlement was entered between Frasure Creek and the cabinet completely without our consent. Our current challenge to this settlement is based on the fact that we are full parties in the case yet we had no say in the settlement’s creation.

The cabinet attempted to get our challenge thrown out because they claimed that we did not follow proper procedures when we filed it, but the judge dismissed their arguments. Now, the cabinet must respond to the substance of our challenge.

>> Click here to read the ruling
>> Click here to read more about this challenge
>> Click here for more information on our Kentucky Litigation

Appalachian Voices and Partners Challenge Kentucky’s Backroom Deal With Coal Company

Friday, May 17th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Watercolors by Frasure Creek. State inspector's photos show a variety of colors of water at Frasure Creek mines.

Yesterday, Appalachian Voices and our partner organizations filed a “petition for review”, essentially an appeal of a settlement between Frasure Creek Mining and the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. This settlement lets Frasure Creek off the hook for thousands of water quality violations over the past two years, while doing little to ensure that the company fixes its water quality problems.

Our challenge of this settlement focuses on the way in which it came about. But first, a bit of background.

We have a separate case that is ongoing against Frasure Creek for submitting false water monitoring data (entire reports were duplicated and only the dates were changed). After we uncovered this problem the company began turning in more accurate reports, which for the first time showed lots of pollution problems. We then filed a second suit against Frasure Creek for thousands of these pollution problems (which had been hidden by reporting problems before our first suit). Then the cabinet also filed a complaint for these pollution violations and more like them in state administrative court (a court run by the cabinet itself).

We intervened in that case and became full parties to it, but were then shut out of it completely. In fact the settlement was entered despite our previous objections, and there is no evidence that our objections were even considered. The cabinet and Frasure Creek negotiated a settlement completely without us. The law and common sense both dictate that an agreement is not valid unless all the parties involved agree to it, and that is the basis for our challenge of this settlement yesterday.
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The Appalachian Citizens Enforcement Project

Thursday, May 16th, 2013 | Posted by Erin Savage | No Comments

Visit www.ace-project.org to learn more about the Appalachian Citizens Enforcement Project and how you can help protect clean water rights.

The Appalachian Citizens Enforcement Project (ACE Project) is a new citizen water monitoring program being launched by The Alliance for Appalachia this summer. Appalachian Voices’ own Appalachian Water Watch team has been working with several Alliance partner organizations over the last two years to recruit and train volunteers to monitor and report water quality data in their area. Now our program is joining this greater water monitoring effort through partnerships in the ACE Project.

In 2011, Appalachian Water Watch launched community-based water testing in eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia. Through partnerships with Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, we recruited over 50 water monitoring volunteers. Now, the ACE Project will expand water monitoring even farther, into Tennessee and West Virginia. Coal River Mountain Watch and United Mountain Defense have already submitted additional data from West Virginia and Tennessee, more than doubling the amount of data collected.
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Kentucky’s Lab Certification- Is it strong enough?

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Yesterday, Appalachian Voices submitted public comments on a proposed wastewater lab certification program in Kentucky. To discharge polluted water, coal companies must receive a permit under the Clean Water Act. This permit that requires companies to test wastewater and report the data to ensure it falls within the limits of the permit. In Kentucky, there are currently no standards for labs that do this type of testing.

The proposed certification program is a direct result of the lawsuits for falsified water monitoring data we filed against three of the state’s largest coal mining companies. Our investigation revealed that many coal companies were repeatedly submitting the same data and knowingly leaving out reports of any violations of their permits. After we filed these lawsuits, the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet inspected the labs being used for this monitoring and found that in many cases they were not even capable of correctly performing the required tests.

This graph shows some of the inaccurate data submitted by Frasure Creek Mining before our lawsuits lead them to start using a new lab. Click to enlarge.

We believe that enforcing standards on labs used by coal companies will help ensure that labs report accurate data, and that the regulations meant to protect water and those that depend on it from dangerous pollution are effectively enforced. This proposed rule will be a big step forward and we have applauded the cabinet for its efforts to fix these problems. However, there are several weaknesses in the rule that we hope are fixed before it is finalized.

All too often the cabinet has failed to live up to its obligations to protect the people and environment in Kentucky. That is why our comments suggest that discretionary duties given to the cabinet in this rule be made mandatory. Appalachian Voices will continue to work to require the state agencies to actually enforce these standards.

>>Click here to see our comments
>>Click here to read the proposed lab certification rule
>>Click here to read the draft lab manual

Help Protect Kentucky’s Fish from Toxic Selenium

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Two headed trout, a result of selenium pollution. Courtesy of USFWS.

The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet is currently attempting to significantly weaken the state’s water quality standards for selenium.

Selenium is a pollutant common at some coal mines that deforms and kills aquatic life. It bioaccumulates, increasing in concentration as it moves up the food chain, affecting larger fish and aquatic birds. At higher levels, selenium is toxic to people. Humans can be exposed to selenium through the water they drink and the fish they eat. Long-term exposure can damage the liver, kidneys, nervous system, and circulatory system.

Selenium pollution is expensive to prevent and to treat. By loosening standards, the cabinet is trying to protect the bottom line of polluters at the expense of the health of the state’s waterways and those that depend on them.

To learn more about selenium and why it is a problem in Kentucky, click here to read our selenium fact sheet (PDF).

Public comments are being accepted through Friday, March 1. Please help protect Kentucky’s fish from the toxic effects of selenium. Take a minute to make your voice heard by submitting a comment.

Even The Daily Show has taken note of the problem of selenium pollution in our nation’s waterways. The clip focuses on pollution from phosphate mines in Idaho, but the similarities between what happened there and what is going on in Kentucky are striking.

Kentucky Attempts to loosen Selenium Standards, Fish Attempt to Leave the State

Friday, February 8th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | 2 Comments

Fish deformed by selenium pollution

The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet is in the process of making the state’s water quality standard for selenium less stringent. Selenium is a metal that is especially toxic to fish, and is often released into streams through coal mining.

There will be a hearing before the Administrative Regulation Review Committee on Monday February 11, at 1 p.m. in Room 149 of the Capitol Annex, where, according to the Energy and Environment Cabinet website, the public “may” be able to speak out about this, but we still encourage concerned citizens to attend.

Selenium is a toxic nonmetal that is present in some coal and coal ash. Some of Kentucky’s mines release a lot of selenium because they are mining high-selenium coal seams, while others don’t release any.

Selenium is extremely toxic to fish in very low amounts because of its tendency to bioaccumulate. Selenium builds up in small fish and macro-invertebrates, and it accumulates even more in the fish that eat them. Toxic effects of selenium in fish include reproductive problems, deformities, damage to gills and organs, and death. The most obvious deformities are strangely curved spines, and “pop eye” — a buildup of fluid behind the eyes, causing them to bulge out. (more…)

Appalachain Voices and Partners Object to Backroom Deal With Kentucky Coal Company

Monday, February 4th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Frasure Creek owner, and billionaire, Ravi Ruia's yacht. Note the matching helicopter! Frasure Creek Mining is apparently on the verge of bankruptcy, but it's owners seem to be doing just fine. Click the image to learn more about the boat.

A coalition of citizens’ groups including Appalachian Voices filed objections to a proposed settlement between Kentucky’s Energy and Environment Cabinet and one of the state’s largest coal mining companies, Frasure Creek Mining. The agreement would legally resolve over a thousand water pollution violations from 2011 and 2012 at all of Frasure Creek’s mines across Eastern Kentucky, but the agreement will not fix the pollution problems.

Despite the fact that we are full parties to this enforcement action, this agreement was crafted entirely behind closed doors without us. Over and over again the cabinet has made every effort to exclude us and aid polluters. One of our objections to this settlement is that it has violated our right to due process since our names are on this agreement yet we had no say in it whatsoever.

Some of Frasure Creek's false conductivity values

Even more alarming, we expect that if this agreement is entered the cabinet will likely try to argue that this makes another ongoing case that we are involved in moot. That case is primarily based on blatantly false water monitoring reports submitted by Frasure Creek. Prior to that legal action, Frasure never admitted having pollution problems like the ones at issue in this case. It was not until they came under increased scrutiny, following our initial court filing, that they began reporting more truthful water monitoring data, uncovering the pollution violations at issue in this settlement.
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Kentucky Governor Under Suit for Pro-Coal Corruption

Friday, October 19th, 2012 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear

Former Mine Permits director Ron Mills claims he was fired for failing to sign illegal coal mining permits.

Mills was a political appointee of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, whose official website states:

As governor, Beshear has helped restore public trust by creating a culture of integrity in state government that has included rooting out cronyism and implementing stronger ethics standards.

Click below to read the recent Lexington Herald Leader stories:
>>Trial delayed again in case that probes coal’s influence on Beshear
>>Beshear trying to settle lawsuit brought by former mine permits director

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