<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Another take on the story from the <span style="font-style: italic;">Idaho Statesman:</span></span></div><div><br><span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></div><h1 class="entry-title"><span>The full story behind Simplot's two-headed fish and phosphate mine</span></h1>
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<span class="grd">Published: June 17, 2012</span> <span class="moddate"></span>
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<a class="grid_2 first" href="http://media.idahostatesman.com/smedia/2012/06/16/22/49/11lAvM.AuSt.36.jpeg" title="Above: Mutated cutthroat fry from a non-Idaho “control” population."><img alt="0617 Local fish deformity" id="item1" src="http://media.idahostatesman.com/smedia/2012/06/16/22/49/11lAvM.AuHi.36.jpeg"> </a>
<a class="grid_2 last" href="http://media.idahostatesman.com/smedia/2012/06/16/22/49/StOcz.AuSt.36.jpeg" title="Below: Two-headed brown trout fry whose parents lived in streams below J.R. Simplot Co.’s phosphate mine. CHALL"><img alt="Microsoft Word - Final_BTstudies_20110525.docx" id="item2" src="http://media.idahostatesman.com/smedia/2012/06/16/22/49/StOcz.AuHi.36.jpeg"> </a>
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<span class="byline">By ROCKY BARKER</span> <span class="creditline">— rbarker@idahostatesman.com</span>
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<div class="sub_headline">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.</div>
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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.</div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div>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. </div><div>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.</div><div>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. </div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div><strong>PHOSPHATE, SELENIUM AND IDAHO</strong></div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div>“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.”</div><div>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. </div><div>Marv Hoyt, the group’s
Idaho director, said such a change also could influence national
selenium standards under review by the EPA.</div><div>“What this is really about is getting Simplot off the hook for cleaning up its Smoky Canyon Superfund site,” Hoyt said.</div><div>Prouty said Simplot is sticking to the science.</div><div>“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.</div><div><strong>QUALIFIES AS SUPERFUND SITE</strong></div><div>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.</div><div>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. </div><div>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.</div><div>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. </div><div>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. </div><div>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.”</div><div><strong>WHAT WILL SIMPLOT GET?</strong></div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div>“From my perspective, the federal government is in part responsible because they allowed this to happen,” Hoyt said.</div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div>“Hopefully this will jump-start some cleanup,” Hoyt said.</div><div>Rocky Barker: 377-6484 </div>
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