The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has denied a petition by the board of commissioners in Lincoln County seeking to loosen the state’s site-specific regulatory cap on the mining byproduct selenium, which is leaching out of coal mines in British Columbia and contaminating the international watershed at Lake Koocanusa, as well as further downstream in the Kootenai River of Montana and Idaho.

DEQ issued its written findings on Sept. 2 along with its response to Lincoln County and copies of the 305 comments the agency received. They included comments supporting the state’s current selenium standard submitted by tribal representatives, local area businesses, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and state agencies, as well as some opposing it, such as from Canadian

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