Primarily because the unions have been able to hold the line on demands in having excellent health care. The miners know their lungs are under attack, they simply accept that. And for as long as coal has been mined, one would expect a reactive industry to have conquered the disease called Black Lung.
...In mid-century, (click here) when Marcum worked, dust filled the mines, largely uncontrolled. Almost half of miners who worked at least 25 years contracted the disease. Amid strikes throughout the West Virginia coalfields, Congress made a promise in 1969: Mining companies would have to keep dust levels down, and black lung would be virtually eradicated.
Marcum doesn't have to look far to see that hasn't happened. Throughout the coalfields of Appalachia, in small community clinics and in government labs, it has become clear: Black lung is back....
Coal, mining and Black Lung Disease is something I know something about personally. My Grandfathers worked in the Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Mines, one a Blacksmith crafting the tools needed by the miners and one as a coal miner in the coal shafts.
My Grandfather who was a Blacksmith worked above ground. He, on rare occasion, went into the mines. He never had lung complications. He also used to enjoy local politics to help the people of the community who did, to save their lives, bring in medical talent, build good hospitals through federal government fund sharing and be sure the children were getting the best education, including his own.
My Grandfather that worked in the mines, did contract Black Lung Disease. He was a big, Irish fellow, 2nd generation in the USA that had lost both his parents to the Avian Flu of the early 1900s. He was seventeen when he became the eldest in the family and the eldest son who inherited the responsibility of five younger siblings. The youngest, who was also the youngest sister, went to nursing school and had a very successful career. The second sibling was a sister that took up the matriarchal care of the family and was supported by my Grandfather until she married.
He died of Black Lung Disease and then the fund paid his wife a subsidy to her income until she died. She died 22 later than he. She missed him almost every day of her life and her daily Rosary kept her going along with her eleven children.
The reason the initiative to stop the occurrence of Black Lung Disease fails so royally is not for the trying to modernize the industry was because the Republicans insisted on deregulation at all costs including the workers. The cronies to the Republicans didn't work in the mines either, they worked above ground playing and financing politics. The owners of these mines have no intention of contracting Black Lung Disease and the unions are happy to maintain health insurance rather than solve the problems.
The lack of Republican backbone to solve the problems of the Coal Industry while maintaining high employment and still turning a profit to stockholders is overwhelming. The lack of resolve to overcome the industry's problems through concerted research and development has moved the industry to smaller and smaller work forces, mountain top mining, destructive practices and shrinking economic demand rather than a stable source of energy.
The Coal Industry is losing it's market share and deregulation will never bring it back, it will simply increase profits to Wall Street while the industry still exists.
Rachel Cernansky
My Grandfather who was a Blacksmith worked above ground. He, on rare occasion, went into the mines. He never had lung complications. He also used to enjoy local politics to help the people of the community who did, to save their lives, bring in medical talent, build good hospitals through federal government fund sharing and be sure the children were getting the best education, including his own.
My Grandfather that worked in the mines, did contract Black Lung Disease. He was a big, Irish fellow, 2nd generation in the USA that had lost both his parents to the Avian Flu of the early 1900s. He was seventeen when he became the eldest in the family and the eldest son who inherited the responsibility of five younger siblings. The youngest, who was also the youngest sister, went to nursing school and had a very successful career. The second sibling was a sister that took up the matriarchal care of the family and was supported by my Grandfather until she married.
He died of Black Lung Disease and then the fund paid his wife a subsidy to her income until she died. She died 22 later than he. She missed him almost every day of her life and her daily Rosary kept her going along with her eleven children.
The reason the initiative to stop the occurrence of Black Lung Disease fails so royally is not for the trying to modernize the industry was because the Republicans insisted on deregulation at all costs including the workers. The cronies to the Republicans didn't work in the mines either, they worked above ground playing and financing politics. The owners of these mines have no intention of contracting Black Lung Disease and the unions are happy to maintain health insurance rather than solve the problems.
The lack of Republican backbone to solve the problems of the Coal Industry while maintaining high employment and still turning a profit to stockholders is overwhelming. The lack of resolve to overcome the industry's problems through concerted research and development has moved the industry to smaller and smaller work forces, mountain top mining, destructive practices and shrinking economic demand rather than a stable source of energy.
The Coal Industry is losing it's market share and deregulation will never bring it back, it will simply increase profits to Wall Street while the industry still exists.
For National Geographic News
Published August 9, 2012
Neighbors recall promises (click here) that the eerie azure lake known as "Little Blue" would be made into a recreational jewel, complete with swimming, bike trails, and sailboats.
But the sprawling pond, its blue somewhat faded in recent years, delivered more blight than benefits to its rural surroundings near the West Virginia border in southwestern Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania officials now have initiated shut down of the facility south of the Ohio River, one of the largest U.S. impoundments for waste ash from coal power plants....
...Combustion Residue
Coal, which for years provided half the electricity in the United States, doesn't disappear entirely up the smokestack when it is burned at a power plant. While U.S. reliance on coal is decreasing in favor of now-cheaper natural gas, there is still the issue of the leftover "combustion residuals" and ash....
The residents hope there would be a tourist economy instead of a threat to their lives and livelihoods. "Little Blue" also has implications to the Ohio River through leaching which would distribute the toxins everywhere along its banks.
