[Vision2020] Daily Show ribs Simplot, criticizes EPA

Ron Force rforce2003 at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 18 12:15:16 PDT 2012


Another take on the story from the Idaho Statesman:

The full story behind Simplot's two-headed fish and phosphate mine
Published: June 17, 2012  
30 Comments E-mail Print 
	* Story Photos:
	*     


By ROCKY BARKER — rbarker at idahostatesman.com 
The two-headed trout was one of dozens 
included in a report intended to demonstrate pollution limits could be 
eased. But that’s not how it was received.
The baby brown trout has become the symbol of a 15-year 
effort to clean up phosphate mine waste in Southeast Idaho that has cost millions of dollars but is years from completion.
The tiny fry 
was the progeny of trout taken from two streams below the J.R. Simplot 
Co.’s Smoky Canyon Mine and raised in a hatchery in Wyoming. Its photo 
was one of several dozen in an appendix to a 2,070-page study Simplot 
did in an attempt to show that allowing higher levels of selenium could 
be allowed in creeks below the mine.
Mutated Yellowstone cutthroat fry, raised from hatchery fish that never swam in Idaho, also were 
pictured. One of those fry also grew two heads. But that fish had not 
been subjected to higher selenium.
The photos’ publication in The 
New York Times and elsewhere around the country brought attention to the study and the overall cleanup. On Thursday, The Daily Show ran a 
segment on the fish and Simplot’s mine on Comedy Central.
The 
publicity has, in the public mind, linked Simplot’s phosphate mining 
with mutant fish. The irony is that the photo was included in the 
Simplot report to bolster the company’s point that all fish populations 
have some mutations, and that levels of selenium in two specific creeks 
can be set higher without harming the fish populations that have become 
good at surviving in those conditions. 
The two-headed fish in the non-Idaho control group underscored that deformities happen in all 
populations. It’s the rate of deformity that matters, and Simplot argued that the rates of deformity in the fish in its creeks are not 
dramatically different.
There’s broad consensus that high levels 
of selenium are bad, especially for aquatic life. But the exact level 
remains debated among scientists and federal agencies. 
A U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service researcher earlier this year found the Simplot study wanting, saying it minimized the rate of deformities in baby 
fish.
While the debate continues over the science and the 
conclusions of the Simplot-financed report, even the company’s critics 
say the photos, while provocative, add little to their case against the 
company’s effort to change selenium limits.
PHOSPHATE, SELENIUM AND IDAHO
A section of the Clean Water Act allows companies to petition for a 
site-specific rule, if they can show the rule wouldn’t reduce 
environmental protection.
Earlier this year, Simplot asked the 
Idaho Department of Environmental Quality to approve higher limits on 
selenium in Sage and Crow creeks below the mine. Simplot said its study 
showed that selenium levels can exceed the current federal standard of 5 parts per billion and still protect fish populations that have been 
stable in the creeks for decades.
DEQ water quality chief Barry 
Burnell said the agency still has a long way to go before determining 
whether to approve the change. DEQ has more questions for Simplot and 
the Environmental Protection Agency before it makes any recommendation. 
Then the Idaho Board of Environmental Quality must approve the change; 
the Idaho Legislature must also sign off.
“Our objective continues to be using the best science to help determine whether a site-specific 
criterion for selenium is appropriate,” said Alan Prouty, Simplot vice 
president for environmental and regulatory affairs. “Any proposed change in the criterion has to be protective of the environment.”
The 
Greater Yellowstone Coalition, an environmental group that opposes 
Simplot’s proposed change, said setting higher levels of acceptable 
selenium would let Simplot and other companies clean up less of the 
waste from a century of phosphate mining. 
Marv Hoyt, the group’s 
Idaho director, said such a change also could influence national 
selenium standards under review by the EPA.
“What this is really about is getting Simplot off the hook for cleaning up its Smoky Canyon Superfund site,” Hoyt said.
Prouty said Simplot is sticking to the science.
“We are focusing on a rigorous technical evaluation of the comments 
received on our work and reviewing other related studies,” he said in a 
statement.
QUALIFIES AS SUPERFUND SITE
Simplot is one of several companies cleaning up phosphate waste after federal 
agencies discovered selenium contamination in the 1990s. Then, horses 
and sheep were found dead after drinking water polluted with mine waste; in 2009, 18 cattle were found dead near a closed mine.
Selenium 
contamination has been measured at three of the region’s five active 
mines, and at all 13 inactive mines. In 2003, Simplot agreed to clean 
the area up under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, 
Compensation and Liability Act, better known as Superfund. 
In 
2006, Simplot estimated its cleanup would cost more than $112 million. 
At the time, the company said it needed to do more review and began the 
study that included the fish pictures. Nearly all of the millions spent 
on cleanup so far have gone to studies or process.
Earlier this 
month, the Government Accountability Office, the investigating arm of 
Congress, released a report evaluating the overall cleanup and the work 
of the federal agencies. 
The GAO said the Bureau of Land 
Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the EPA have improved cleanup 
efforts — hiring more staff, requiring mining companies to do better 
environmental assessments and getting companies to provide better 
financial assurances they will clean up past contamination. 
Despite those improvements, the GAO said, “the fact remains that after years of study and millions of dollars spent, the agencies and mine operators 
are still years away from fully understanding the extent of 
contamination in the area and many more years away from completing 
actual mine cleanup.”
WHAT WILL SIMPLOT GET?
Hoyt, of the Yellowstone Coalition, said he doubts a scientifically 
defensible process will lead to a dramatically higher selenium limit in 
the creeks. Even if DEQ does raise the selenium limits, Hoyt said, he’s 
not sure it will help Simplot much. The group’s own sampling has found 
trout in the creek with selenium levels in their flesh that well exceed 
Simplot’s proposed higher limits.
If the limit is raised, Simplot 
would have an easier target that could save it millions of dollars in 
cleanup costs. But Simplot would be better served, Hoyt said, by helping speed the cleanup and getting the federal government to pay its share.
“From my perspective, the federal government is in part responsible because they allowed this to happen,” Hoyt said.
A federal judge agreed in 2011, ruling in a preliminary decision in a 
lawsuit brought by Agrium that the federal government was “an owner, 
arranger and operator” of phosphate mines, which are on federal land. 
For decades, the federal government mandated land-reclamation techniques at the mines that accelerated selenium runoff.
Eventually, total 
cleanup costs could reach $500 million to $750 million, Hoyt said. And 
an ambitious cleanup could mean Idaho jobs, like those dedicated to 
cleaning up decades of nuclear waste at the nearby Idaho National 
Laboratory.
“Hopefully this will jump-start some cleanup,” Hoyt said.
Rocky Barker: 377-6484 
Read
 more here: 
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/06/17/2158158/understanding-simplots-mutant.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy
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