A federal judge has ordered West Virginia coal companies to install pollution controls to curb selenium from mountaintop mining runoff in order to comply with EPA's strict water quality standard for the toxic chemical, which could boost EPA's efforts to force states to ensure industry is meeting the risk-based standard, sources say.rnEnvironmentalists hope the ruling will bolster efforts to curtail the use of compliance schedules - in which state regulators extend deadlines for firms to meet their selenium limits - and ultimately that the duty to meet the selenium limits will make it too expensive to mine in high-selenium areas, which includes much of Appalachia.
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