While coal mining is fading across the U.S., it’s still very much active in West Virginia and Wyoming. Coal is possibly the dirtiest form of fossil energy, greatly damaging the climate and the communities where coal is extracted. The most destructive and polluting form of mining is so-called mountaintop removal mining, where the tops of mountains are literally blown apart to get at the coal seams beneath. This mining method produces dangerous toxic air pollution and contaminates the mountain streams where the blasted waste material is dumped.
Two decades ago, during coal’s heyday, West Virginia University professor Michael Hendryx began studying the health impacts of coal mining, with a focus on mountaintop removal. Due to his and others’ efforts, the National Academy of Sciences undertook a study of mountaintop removal’s serious health impacts. However, when President Trump took office, he ended the study. Many people in Appalachia are troubled that in the almost two years that Joe Biden has been president, the study has not yet been resumed.
Between The Lines Melinda Tuhus spoke with Michael Hendryx, now an emeritus professor at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, about his team’s ground-breaking research on mountaintop removal mining’s negative health impacts and his support for ending this destructive mining practice.
MICHAEL HENDRYX: It was just a topic that I started to learn about when I moved to West Virginia and I realized there hadn’t been any peer-reviewed research that had been done on the potential health impacts of mountaintop removal, even though you would hear anecdotes and stories about it, but I couldn’t really find research.
So we started, for example, by looking at the county-level mortality data that the CDC keeps on an annual basis, where you can look at age-adjusted death rates overall and by certain causes. And we were able to link that with data from the Department of Energy on the amounts of mining that would take place in different parts of Appalachia. And then we could control for other demographics as we are taught to do as very standard practice: you control statistically for age and race and income and sex and education and so on.
And we showed there really was an independent, significant effect of living close to these surface mining operations on mortality rates, over and above the other risks. And not only was it present, but it was a stronger effect as the level of mining increased, as measured by tons of coal, and it was also stronger specifically in areas where mountaintop removal was taking place, as opposed to other forms of mining.
So, we went from there to do community studies where we were going door to door and collecting community health surveys from people who either lived close to the mining operations or not, found again that yes, people that lived near the mining sites were at greater risk for a variety of health symptoms and the types of problems that we would find were primarily cardiovascular and respiratory problems that were consistent with the data that we were seeing from the mortality data, so it all kind of held together.
So, from there, we went to environmental studies. We found elevated levels of particulate matter in the air around these mining sites and in people’s homes, in communities where people were living.
MELINDA TUHUS: What do you see in the future? Do you think because of its incredible destructiveness and health implications, that mountaintop removal shouldn’t be done?
MICHAEL HENDRYX: Yes, I think it should not be done. It’s actually for three reasons: because of the public health problems that it generates through the air and water pollution that the practice creates – because of its environmental destructiveness it can’t be done according to the provisions of the Clean Water Act if the Clean Water Act were really enforced. It’s not.
And it also doesn’t make sense economically, because this form of mining uses these huge draglines; it uses explosives and they’re able to extract a lot more coal per employee than other forms of mining. So, this form of mining, despite what the coal industry will tell you, does not generate economic strength for the region. If you look at basic statistics, the parts of Appalachia that engage in mountaintop removal have the highest poverty rates, not the lowest. They have the highest unemployment rates, not the lowest. They have the lowest income levels.
There’s just not that many jobs. There’s a few guys working a site, and they like their job because it does pay well if you’re one of the few fortunate ones that has it, ‘cause if you’re not one of those few you are probably unemployed, or working part-time at the Dollar General. There’s nothing else going on. And you go in here and strip the forest and blow them up and pollute the waters and decimate the land. Nobody else wants to come in there and offer new opportunities and new types of jobs. It’s a moonscape. It makes no sense whatsoever, except it helps make a few executives rich and it helps re-elect politicians. That’s it.
MELINDA TUHUS: Michael Hendryx, a number of years ago, legislation called the ACHE Act was introduced. That stands for Appalachia Community Health Emergency Act. So, my understanding is that if should pass the ACHE Act would basically put a moratorium on mountaintop removal until its health impacts were studied, right?
MICHAEL HENDRYX: Yes, it would put a moratorium on MTR and conduct an independent health assessment of its impacts, yeah.
MELINDA TUHUS: Do you think there’s any hope for that?
MICHAEL HENDRYX: Yeah, I would like to say “yes” under the current more receptive administration that maybe it would be taken up again, but it hasn’t been. It’s disappointing to me, a little bit of a surprise, but maybe there’s just not the widespread support for it, maybe there’s too many other fires to put out, I don’t know. I don’t know why, but just like the National Academy of Science study hasn’t been taken up again, this ACHE Act – you’d think if it was going to have a chance at all, it would have a chance now. But nothing’s happening that I’m aware of.
For more information, visit Coal River Mountain Watch at crmw.net.
