DAILY SHOW: Mining + Selenium = Two-Headed Fish

[Ryan Goble]

Excellent video from the Daily Show...

Plus some more traditional journalism on the topic from the NYTimes - Mutated Trout Raise New Concerns Near Mine Sites

A sample from that article...

The implications extend beyond Idaho. Selenium is a pollutant at 200 of the 1,294 locations designated by the federal government as toxic Superfund sites. And even though its effects on wildlife have been known for decades, federal agencies have not been able to agree on what level should be prohibited. The E.P.A. is currently reviewing federal selenium rules.

After hearing about the mutant trout, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the Democrat who heads the chamber’s Environment and Public Works Committee, asked the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to step in and vet the mining company’s scientific research and conclusions.

The service’s review, released last month, was scathing, describing the study as “biased” and “highly questionable.” Joseph Skorupa, the service’s selenium expert, cited a “lack of valid field controls” and the absence of any analysis of the selenium’s impact on reptiles, birds or the 12 other types of fish in the creeks’ waters. Most troubling, he wrote, was that the researchers systematically undermeasured the rate of serious deformities in baby fish, which were pictured only in an appendix.