Abstract
Environmental impacts of selenium are related to bioaccumulation which is highly dependent on the type of receiving environment. That is why modern regulations stipulate not only water quality limits but also establish fish tissue criteria as the primary metric to measure success. Moreover, although permissible under law, the reliance on dilution to meet the receiving environment water quality objectives is often no longer “socially acceptable”. Finally, all selenium management plans must address the question of the ultimate fate of selenium removed from water in the long term. The presentation reviews examples of industrial scale plants using non-biological selenate removal to address project specific goals in a truly holistic manner, i.e. not only meeting regulations but doing so in a socially acceptable and sustainable way.