Nearly a dozen representatives from environmental groups and members of the public told the Department of Environmental Quality that allowing nearly double the concentration of selenium in Lake Koocanusa would jeopardize the transboundary waterway, harm fish, and make it harder to hold polluters accountable.
They also said it would only benefit international mining companies.
“Selenium is a scary element, and we’re not talking about a little bit of pollution here,” said Derf Johnson, deputy director for the Montana Environmental Information Center. “What we’re talking about is possibly the worst case of selenium contamination in the world.”
Montana’s environmental agency held a public hearing on Wednesday on a rulemaking petition the Lake County Commissioners submitted challenging the current site-specific standard of acceptable concentration of 0.8 micrograms of selenium per liter of water. That is much more stringent than the federal threshold of 1.5 micrograms per liter, which is where the county commission would like to see DEQ end up.
Commissioner Noel Duram, the only proponent of the change at the hearing, said the lower standard doesn’t make sense for his county.
At the hearing, he said the petition is about looking out for the economic interests of the county, and having standards for pollutants that are more stringent than there are nationally could prevent companies from investing in industries, such as mining, in the area, the Daily Montanan reports.
“From our understanding, it only affects new applications for discharge into the lake,” Duram said. “It doesn’t actually affect anybody that’s currently discharging into it from another entity or another region. It does affect Lincoln County specifically.”
But opponents to the petition said that the standard, adopted in 2020, had been developed through years of rigorous study and consultation with stakeholders across both sides of the border, and that the only beneficiaries of leniency are the mining companies responsible for the pollution.
Selenium is a mineral often found in coal-rich deposits. The element, which is an essential nutrient for animals, is toxic in high concentrations, and excessive accumulation in fish can lead to detrimental effects, including growth inhibition, reproductive defects and mortality.
The primary source of the selenium found in Lake Koocanusa can be found by tracing its tributary, the Elk River, which enters the reservoir roughly 16 miles north of the U.S. border, into the mountains of British Columbia.
Those mountains are home to four active, mountaintop-removal, metallurgical coal mines operated by Elk Valley Resources, currently owned by Swiss mining conglomerate Glencore, after being sold by Teck Resources Limited in 2023.
The mining operations have leeched various pollutants into the Elk River, including selenium and nitrates, according to multiple studies spanning more than a decade.
A recent U.S. Geological Survey study published in 2023 linked expanding mining operations with increased selenium concentrations and indicated Lake Koocanusa had exceeded Montana’s site-specific standards since 2020.
Since the rule was put into place, it has been embroiled in litigation on both sides of the border and ongoing attempts by Montana officials to weaken it.
In 2021, the Lincoln County Commissioners submitted a similar petition to the one heard this week. Around the same time, Teck had also lobbied for moderating the standard, submitting the same petition as Lincoln County.
Teck, and now Glencore, have argued against the standard for being “more stringent than the comparable federal guideline for selenium,” according to documents the company submitted to the state.
There is an ongoing lawsuit between the Montana Board of Environmental Review – a quasi-judicial body that handles environmental permit disputes — Teck, and Lincoln County, and a multitude of environmental groups led by the Montana Environmental Information Center seeking to keep the stronger pollutant standard in place, after the review board overturned the standard. In another suit, MEIC sued the Montana Department of Justice for denying access to communications between Teck and the state.
One of Duram’s arguments was rooted in concerns that the current standard might prevent future industries from being able to discharge any amount of selenium in Lincoln County. But in 2021, then-DEQ director Chris Dorrington told Montana lawmakers that “there is no source of selenium, and there would be no scientific basis for a limit placed on a logging or a mining operation due to selenium because the selenium doesn’t exist,” according to reporting by the Flathead Beacon. At the time, legislators from Lincoln County introduced legislation that would have rescinded the new rule.
“It may be true that there are no geological areas of selenium in Lincoln County that will stop the future economic opportunities, but having further regulations that are far more restrictive than the EPA guidelines will not help the future opportunities,” Duram wrote in an email to the Daily Montanan. “I fear that the comments regarding selenium from the alarmists calling the water polluted and saying that selenium is ‘scary’ will not help the fishing economy that they claim to try and protect.”
More than 30 environmental, conservation and outfitting groups signed onto a letter opposing weakening the standard, pointing to potential impacts to Montana’s robust recreation-based economy that includes a $149 million contribution from boating and fishing.
“Compromising Montana’s water-based recreation by allowing more pollution into our waters, all for the benefits of mines located in Canada and owned by a Switzerland-based commodities trader, is not just foolhardy, but reckless,” states the letter, signed by myriad groups including MEIC, Montana Trout Unlimited, Yaak Valley Forest Council, Montana Conservation Voters and numerous fishing and outfitting groups. “Weakening the standard will undoubtedly compromise and negatively impact the clean water and aquatic life of the watershed, and would not benefit Montana economically.”
Another major stakeholder in the discussions over Koocanusa is the transboundary Ktunaxa nation, comprising members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Ktunaxa First Nations of ʔakisq̓nuk, ʔaq̓ am, Yaqan Nuʔkiy, and Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it. The tribal nations have long asked the U.S. and Canadian governments to study the impacts of mining and the extent of pollution in the Elk-Kootenai watershed, including looking at the impacts to Ktunaxa homelands.
“The current standard was developedthrough a rigorous and in depth scientific study amongst all the jurisdictions in the water set, and is supported by multiple state, tribal and federal entities, including our tribes and our sister Ktunaxa governments in Canada,” Rich Jannsen, head of the Natural Resources Department for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said at the hearing. “The current standard also ensures that all species of the fish in the reservoir are protected, including culturally important fish, not just certain species of fish. The current standard is critical to ensuring that Montana tribal and US territory is protected from mine contamination.”
While Duram said during the hearing that he wants to see polluters held accountable, the DEQ standard for Koocanusa doesn’t have a mechanism to do that.
“The headwaters of the Koocanusa do have some pollution coming into them from an entity we have no control over. It’s been 100 years coming,” Duram said. “This problem, no matter what happens on the other side of the border, will be in existence for Lincoln County and Koocanusa for 1,000 years to come, probably because the spoils of the activity will allow selenium to continue to come into the reservoir.”
Many opponents at the hearing alleged that Lincoln County’s petition merely served to benefit the mining companies.
Documents from DEQ when the current standard was being adopted indicated that the stringent standard was partially intended to push Canadian governmental regulators to hold the mining companies accountable for their actions and bolster cleanup activities along the Elk River.
As of last year, Teck had the capability to treat more than 77 million gallons of water a day, with plans to build six more water treatment facilities by 2027, increasing treatment capacity to 150 million litres per day, according to reporting by The Narwhal.
But total cleanup costs could exceed $6 billion, the Narhwal reports, much higher than what the provincial government currently requires as a financial security to ensure the project owners do not leave taxpayers with the future cleanup costs of the mine.
Duram said he met with representatives of DEQ and mining company Elk Valley Resources this spring to discuss the pollution issue, and that EVR gave a presentation challenging the science of the current standard and offering more recent studies.
According to Montana law, within 60 days after submission of the petition, DEQ must either deny the petition in writing or initiate rulemaking proceedings. The department will respond by Sept. 2.
Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.
