CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The Manchin administration approved a new Hobet Mining permit that does not include limits on the mine's discharge of selenium, a pollutant that a top expert says is already pushing the Mud River watershed "to the brink of a major toxic event."

Environmental groups alleged Thursday that the permit, approved in May 2007, violates a federally approved plan aimed at cleaning up selenium problems in the Guyandotte River and tributaries including the Mud.

In a letter, lawyers Derek Teaney and Joe Lovett of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment urged state Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman to add selenium limits to the Hobet permit.

Teaney and Lovett are already in federal court trying to block the Hobet 22 operation. Their clients, including the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Sierra Club, are concerned the new Hobet mine will make the selenium problem in the area worse.

Controversy over the mine, located along the Boone-Lincoln County line south of Charleston, is growing.

U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers has temporarily blocked the federal Army Corps of Engineers permit for the operation. Chambers scheduled a hearing for next week to consider extending his 10-day temporary order.

Hobet Mining warned its employees it might start laying them off. And on Thursday, the United Mine Workers union announced plans for a rally on Monday to support Hobet employees.

Gov. Joe Manchin is also getting involved. Spokeswoman Lara Ramsburg said Manchin is talking to both sides, trying to find a solution.

But environmental group lawyers said the permit is an example of how lax enforcement by the state Department of Environmental Protection leaves citizens little choice but to turn to the courts.

"I consider this to be an abdication of the state's responsibility under the Clean Water Act," said Jim Hecker, environmental enforcement director for Public Justice, a nonprofit law firm that is also representing citizen groups in the case.

Technically, the citizen groups have challenged a federal Clean Water Act permit issued by the Corps of Engineers.

A major complaint is that the corps did not properly evaluate the mine's potential to add to the selenium pollution violations already occurring at Hobet's sprawling mining complex.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The Manchin administration approved a new Hobet Mining permit that does not include limits on the mine's discharge of selenium, a pollutant that a top expert says is already pushing the Mud River watershed "to the brink of a major toxic event."

Environmental groups alleged Thursday that the permit, approved in May 2007, violates a federally approved plan aimed at cleaning up selenium problems in the Guyandotte River and tributaries including the Mud.

In a letter, lawyers Derek Teaney and Joe Lovett of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment urged state Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman to add selenium limits to the Hobet permit.

Teaney and Lovett are already in federal court trying to block the Hobet 22 operation. Their clients, including the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Sierra Club, are concerned the new Hobet mine will make the selenium problem in the area worse.

Controversy over the mine, located along the Boone-Lincoln County line south of Charleston, is growing.

U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers has temporarily blocked the federal Army Corps of Engineers permit for the operation. Chambers scheduled a hearing for next week to consider extending his 10-day temporary order.

Hobet Mining warned its employees it might start laying them off. And on Thursday, the United Mine Workers union announced plans for a rally on Monday to support Hobet employees.

Gov. Joe Manchin is also getting involved. Spokeswoman Lara Ramsburg said Manchin is talking to both sides, trying to find a solution.

But environmental group lawyers said the permit is an example of how lax enforcement by the state Department of Environmental Protection leaves citizens little choice but to turn to the courts.

"I consider this to be an abdication of the state's responsibility under the Clean Water Act," said Jim Hecker, environmental enforcement director for Public Justice, a nonprofit law firm that is also representing citizen groups in the case.

Technically, the citizen groups have challenged a federal Clean Water Act permit issued by the Corps of Engineers.

A major complaint is that the corps did not properly evaluate the mine's potential to add to the selenium pollution violations already occurring at Hobet's sprawling mining complex.

Selenium, a naturally occurring element found in many rocks and soils, is an antioxidant that is needed in very small amounts for good health. But in slightly larger amounts, selenium can be highly toxic. In aquatic life, very small amounts of selenium have been found to cause reproductive problems.

At surface mines, selenium can be released when mine operators blast apart and dig up rock and earth to reach coal seams. If not properly controlled, selenium can then be washed off mine sites by rain into waterways.

Earlier this year, a national expert on selenium, Dennis Lemley, warned that strip-mine discharges of the chemical are poisoning Mud River fish, leaving some with deformities and pushing the river ecosystem "to the brink of a major toxic event."

Coal industry lobbyists and state officials have been trying to fend off citizen efforts to enforce West Virginia's selenium standards since federal scientists discovered major violations as part of a landmark study of mountaintop removal issued in 2003.

In its permit documents, the corps concluded that existing Hobet operations in the area "have been found to be within acceptable limits" for selenium.

Citizens pointed out in their lawsuit that monitoring reports filed by Hobet actually show that the operations "are discharging illegal amounts of selenium far above the permit limits." And last month, Hobet agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine to resolve a lawsuit DEP brought after citizens filed their own case over the company's selenium violations at other mines in the area.

Corps officials said a Hobet "materials handling plan" could deal with any selenium at Hobet 22. But citizen groups pointed out that similar plans at other nearby mines aren't working.

In Thursday's letter to Huffman, environmental groups noted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in March 2004 approved a plan to clean up selenium pollution in the Guyandotte River watershed. The Mud River flows into the Guyandotte, and the EPA plan included Mud River tributaries, including those where Hobet 22 is located.

Under the EPA-approved plan, new selenium discharges in the watershed were to be limited so that the state's water quality standard would be met. But when DEP approved the Hobet 22 water pollution permit, it included no such limits for selenium. The company was required to only monitor selenium discharges, and report those results to DEP.

On Thursday, DEP officials could not immediately explain why they did not include selenium limits in the permit.

Lovett, one of the environmental group lawyers, said he thinks DEP is trying to help the coal industry avoid citizen suits over selenium violations.

"The reason they don't put limits in the permit is so that we can't sue them for violating those limits," Lovett said. "The DEP would rather allow the streams to be polluted."

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.