The Alberta coal lobby's new bestie
Coalheads are quietly promoting a bogus selenium study from Iran.
Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.
You have to go a long ways these days, a really long ways, to find support for the idea selenium (Se) contamination from coal mining can be prevented. A review, published in the Iranian Journal of Public Health, has begun to circulate in Alberta, possibly to counter concerns the technology of selenium containment and treatment doesn’t exist in mine-scale, meaningful, tested and proven ways.
The paper, Selenium Removal from Water and Wastewater by Different Technologies: A Systematic Review, by authors Abdolmajid Fadaei and Abdollah Mohammadian-Hafshejani, was published in 2023.
The authors provide a literature review, based on a limited key word search of 27 papers from 2011 to 2021. They reviewed the reported techniques for Se removal from water and wastewater, including adsorption, biological treatment, microbial reduction, bioreactors, fungal bioreactor, algal treatment, phytoremediation, and photocatalysis.
Based on their review: “Biological and bioremediation techniques, such as microbial reduction, biotransformation, and fluidized bed reactor have removal efficiency about 100%. The highest Se concentration of 15–7600 μg/L was achieved in ground waters in Ethiopia and the lowest level of 0.07 μg/L in Finland.”
To this the authors conclude: “The combination of biological treatment with chemical or physical technologies is envisaged to optimize Se elimination and to ensure ecological protection and human health safety.”
To dissect this report and its findings it is first important to review who the authors are, what are their credentials and the areas of research the journal publishes.
Both the authors are from the Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Health, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran, and seem to have backgrounds in public health. They do not appear to have expertise in coal mining or interpretation of ecological issues of water contamination and of Se pollution to the environment. The authors are not biogeochemists or aquatic ecologists, and don't seem to work in the realm of environmental contaminant behaviour, management, or effects, or know the relevant science or literature when it comes to coal mining and downstream contamination.
Their review of the subject cannot, in any way, be considered from an informed, technical perspective on the subject of Se contamination and treatment from coal mining.
While Se is a concern to human health, the Iranian Journal of Public Health is not known for publishing cutting edge research on mining, the ecological issues of water contamination or of selenium remediation from coal mining.
Journals have specific areas of research that they tend to publish on. In this case, public health. However Se contamination of surface and ground waters is more than a public health issue. What this means in practice, is that the journal editors probably don't know who is best qualified to review a subject like this.
One might draw a conclusion then that the peer view process was probably less than rigorous, simply because the topic of the paper is outside of the normal scope of both the authors and publications in this journal.
Next, how well did the authors survey the existing literature on Se impacts of coal mining on ecological elements? Well, because of an evident lack of familiarity with studies in this field, they started with a keyword search to identify potential articles of relevance. Although not specifically stated, the resulting papers that they reviewed related to Se treatment of “wastewater.” The implication is that these “treatments” were “end of pipe” ones, where the wastewater stream is controlled, predictable and, compared to mine-scale issues, small in scope and scale.
The authors make no mention of Se from coal mining, nor are any papers referenced from western Canada related to research on the ecological effects of coal mining and of failures of treatment methods to meet guidelines for aquatic life. There was only one paper referenced from Canada but it was from Se in the lower Athabasca River from weathering of shallow bitumen deposits and emissions from nearby mines and upgraders. This was not a paper on Se treatment but rather on the issues of Se contamination and impacts to the environment.
Despite the conclusions in this paper, published in an obscure Iranian public health journal, no effective Se treatment technology has been demonstrated for coal mining and is currently in use for such a thing. At best, and the Iranian paper shows, such treatment only works, or is technically feasible, on a predictable, controlled wastewater stream. Essentially, at the end of a pipe. Coal mines aren’t like that since treatment would have to occur on far more than a single wastewater stream.
Effective Se treatment would have to contain all surface runoff and groundwater that either originates or transmits through the entire mine site. This water volume would then have to be dealt with throughout the operational period and then for an unknown number of decades (centuries?) after mining—and income—cease. Otherwise, the source and levels of Se downstream will be pretty much the same as everywhere else where coal mining has occurred and continues to be a significant source of Se contamination. That’s not an end of pipe issue.
The reality is that the exposure of crushed rock and overburden, high in Se, gets continuously oxidized and Se released via exposure to water and oxygen. And it does so on an immense scale in an open pit, mountain top coal mine. It has been demonstrated, time after time, the inability, the failure, to contain runoff from exposed mine slopes in Alberta. How anyone would channel that runoff, let alone ground water, through a treatment facility stretches the imagination to the breaking point.
Albertans need to be on guard in the constant spin of empty rhetoric on Se treatment. We hear already from UCP ministers and the coal industry the empty promises of “best available technology,” “highest environmental standards,” “rigorous regulatory oversight” and the equally disingenuous promise of a “Coal Industry Modernization Initiative.”
Although some in the coal industry and in the UCP government might be inclined to point at this paper as an indication that we are just a short technological step away from dealing with mine caused Se pollution, we’re not. Instead, there are only promises to try and to use what other existing coal mines are doing and using— which doesn't work.
Bill Donahue, a noted environmental scientist and colleague of David Schindler, points out it is best to be wary of placating promises of using this "best available technology" and applying their "best efforts."
These are references to the normal, but hollow standards applied in regulatory approvals. What this means is that companies won't have to adopt any technology that hasn't already been shown to be effective in controlling downstream selenium contamination by the coal industry.
In simple terms, it means the status quo of allowing selenium contamination to destroy downstream ecosystems will continue on the Eastern Slopes, if Alberta allows new mines to proceed. Albertans should be wary of any promises unless conditions of approvals and operational licensing refer explicitly to proven technologies to prevent downstream selenium pollution. Proven in the unambiguous sense that these methods have been used at scale and in relevant industrial applications.
However, even such conditions would be effectively meaningless, because when it comes to coal mining, there is no such available technology to effectively use water treatment processes and designs to prevent downstream Se contamination. And, may never be.
There is no way, notwithstanding Iranian literature reviews based on internet searches and empty promises from Brian Jean, Rebecca Schultz, coal industry public relations spin masters and the Alberta Energy Regulator, that new coal mining will be safe and “balance critical economic development and access our resources with stringent environmental protection.” That "balance" is entirely one-sided, and involves sacrificing environmental protection to promote short-term economic development that mainly benefits coal mine shareholders.
A critical message is— Don’t ever be tempted to eat the “black” snow or drink the similarly coloured Kool-Aid on selenium treatment.
Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a past Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary.