A petition submitted by Lincoln County commissioners to ease selenium standards in Lake Koocanusa met resistance at a recent public meeting held by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

About a dozen attendees Aug. 13, including representatives from environmental and outdoor organizations, local fishing guides and private citizens, spoke in opposition of the proposal, which would raise the maximum allowable amount of dissolved selenium in the lake from 0.8 micrograms per liter to 1.5 micrograms per liter.

“In terms of the benefits of weakening the standard, I’m kind of scratching my head trying to figure out what they might be,” said Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center.

While selenium is considered an essential nutrient, large amounts

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