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How A Reporter’s Investigation Of Appalachia’s Black Lung Epidemic Pushed Federal Officials To Respond

Miners are suffering from an advanced version of black lung disease known as progressive massive fibrosis. It’s the result of digging at increasingly thin coal seams. That means they’re also cutting into quartz, which creates silica dust. Advanced black lung results from breathing in that blend of silica and coal dust.

Updated on Oct. 10, 2023 at 11:30 a.m.

This story originally aired in the Oct. 8, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.

The coal-producing regions of central Appalachia are at the center of an epidemic of advanced black lung cases among coal miners. New reporting by a retired NPR reporter has shown how federal officials underestimated the sheer number of cases across West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia, and now regulators seem to be responding.

Miners are suffering from an advanced version of black lung disease known as progressive massive fibrosis.

It’s the result of digging at increasingly thin coal seams. That means they’re also cutting into quartz, which creates silica dust.

Advanced black lung results from breathing in that blend of silica and coal dust.

Retired NPR reporter Howard Berkes has been covering this story for years.

He worked with NPR and the PBS series Frontline, and spent more than a year investigating fears that federal regulators and mining companies were failing to protect coal miners from toxic dust.

He and his team obtained documents and data showing federal mine safety officials had evidence of the danger dating back more than 20 years, but never addressed it.

Howard Berkes spent 38 years as an NPR Correspondent. His investigative reporting exposed an epidemic of advanced black lung disease affecting thousands of coal miners, and decades of failure of federal regulators to take steps to prevent it.

*Credit: Wanda Gayle*

In 2018, Berkes reported that more than 2,000 miners were dying of illness related to that toxic dust. Since that story aired, at least four of the miners in it who appeared have died, and at least two have received double-lung transplants. Danny Smith, who was prominently featured, is being assessed for a double-lung transplant.

Danny Smith spent just 12 years mining coal in eastern Kentucky and was diagnosed with the advanced stage of black lung disease at 39. Both are shocking numbers because it used to take decades of mining for coal miners much older to get as sick as this.

*Credit: Elaine McMillion Sheldon/PBS Frontline*

Lately, the metallurgical coal industry has been ramping up production to meet global demand, and experts predict even more advanced black lung cases will appear. After years of inaction, though, federal officials are addressing the issue.

Over the summer, the Mine Safety and Health Administration proposed a rule intended to protect coal miners from exposure to silica dust. By the time the comment period closed in September, the draft rule had attracted 157 comments.

Now, Berkes is part of a new investigation into advanced black lung cases that was co-published by Public Health Watch, Louisville Public Media and Mountain State Spotlight. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Berkes about what his team found.

The New Beginnings Pulmonary Rehab Clinic in South Williamson, Kentucky, features photos of coal miners with advanced black lung disease, including those who have not survived.

*Credit: Elaine McMillion Sheldon/PBS Frontline*

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

Adams: So your work in the past, your investigations have in the past have seemed to have resulted in some action. Now MSHA has proposed some new regulations for monitoring silica dust.

Berkes: Yeah, MSHA has taken two very significant steps in this proposed rule. One is to make the exposure limit for silica dust twice as tough as it has been. That was recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health back in 1974, and it was recommended again by the Labor Department’s own mine dust advisory committee in 1996.

It’s taken all these years for MSHA to finally adopt what has been long recommended, this tougher limit to exposure to silica dust. That’s a major, major improvement. The second thing that they did is that they decided to regulate overexposure to silica dust directly. In the past, they applied a complicated formula: If a mining company had too much silica dust, then the mining company had to lower the amount of overall mine dust, coal dust and silica dust in the air. That was supposed to bring down the silica dust exposure to an acceptable level. But it’s not a one-to-one relationship.

What we found in our previous investigation was 9,000 overexposures to silica dust, even after the mining companies responded to the regulation that was in effect at the time. So now MSHA is directly regulating silica dust. There can be citations and fines associated with exceeding the silica dust level, that has never happened in the past. So those are two very promising elements of this proposed rule.

This slogan appeared in a Department of Labor document warning about silica dust exposure in workplaces, including mines, in 1997, 26 years before the Mine Safety and Health Administration proposed tougher restrictions on exposure to silica dust.

*Credit: Mine Safety and Health Administration*

Adams: There have also been some criticisms of the proposed rule as well.

Berkes: Yeah, mostly on enforcement and oversight. There really is no regular oversight built into the rule. The rule requires mining companies to conduct an enormous amount of sampling of dust, and to record the results of those samples. If they show that there’s overexposure to silica dust, the rule requires that the mining companies then make changes in the way they’re mining so that the silica dust is reduced. There are various things that can be done: they can increase the ventilation, they can make sure that their water sprays on the mining machines are working properly. Those are two key elements in managing dust in coal mines. They can slow down the mining machines and not mine so quickly. They can stop mining a seam that has so much quartz in it. Those are all things that mining companies are required to do once there’s excessive dust. And while they’re doing those things, they’re allowed to continue to mine.

They’re allowed to let miners continue to work in what are dangerous levels of dust. But miners must wear respirators; that has its own set of problems. We’ve interviewed dozens and dozens of miners since 2016, and they all complain about the dust masks not working properly clogging up, inhibiting their breathing, getting too hot, inhibiting their ability to communicate with fellow miners in a very dangerous environment.

There are new helmets out that are very effective for protecting miners from dust, but they can block vision and can block communication in ways that can become dangerous in a coal mine. The main problem with all of this is that MSHA is not going to be watching all the time. Mine inspectors only go into coal mines four times a year, and they’ll do their own sampling when they’re in there. They can ask to see the results of the sampling the mining companies have done. But what this means is that most of the time, there will be no Mine Safety and Health Administration oversight and enforcement of this new rule. It’ll be up to the mining companies. And as coal miner after coal miner after coal miner who we’ve interviewed over the years will tell you, some mining companies have conducted fraudulent sampling over the years. As recently as last year, there was a criminal prosecution in Kentucky for fraudulent dust sampling.

A display at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown, West Virginia shows how much damage results from exposure to coal and silica dust.

*Credit: Howard Berkes/NPR*

Adams: MSHA has been collecting comments on these proposed rules and they’ve been hearing from miners and advocates in the coal industry. By the time this segment airs, that comment period will have come to a close. But in the last few days, Public Health Watch has published a new investigation with Louisville Public Media and Mountain State Spotlight that calls into question some of MSHA’s projections on which it’s basing this rule. Can you tell us a little bit about that investigation and what your team found?

Berkes: Sure. One of the things that really struck me in the very extensive and dense document that MSHA has produced to justify what it wants to do, is they project how many lives will be saved, and how much disease will be avoided if this new rule is permitted to take effect. What really shocked me was that the projection for coal mines was 63 deaths avoided over 60 years — a little more than one a year — and 244 cases of black lung disease avoided over 60 years. That just doesn’t make sense, given how much disease has actually occurred, which MSHA never mentions in its document. And so we calculated how much disease has occurred by continuing our survey of black lung clinics — both independent clinics and clinics that are funded by the federal government.

What we found, which MSHA doesn’t mention, is that in just the last five years, there have been 1,500 new cases of progressive massive fibrosis, the advanced stage of black lung disease, as reported by these clinics. The total since 2010, since that’s as far back as we go in our survey of clinics, is over 4,000 cases of this horrific, fatal disease. There is no cure. We also, by the way, looked at how many excessive exposures there have been in coal mines in recent years. At the new limit — say the new limit was in place since 2016 — we found over 5,000 excessive exposures at the new limit.

So what these numbers sort of provide is a sense of how serious this situation is, how much over exposure continues to occur, and how much disease continues to occur. That’s not in this proposed rule making. In fact, the numbers presented for silica dust exposure since 2016 by the Mine Safety and Health Administration, they just have numbers from 2016 to 2021. They don’t report how many excessive exposures there were in this document. They report that there were 93 percent of exposures that were within the limit. Well, that sounds like a great number, 93 percent. It sounds like, “Oh, things aren’t so bad.” But that other 7 percent represents more than 5,000 excessive exposures. And because this is such a toxic substance, that’s a lot of potential disease and death. You got to understand that for proposed rule making that this process involves.

Federal Mine Safety Chief Christopher Williamson addresses a crowd gathered in Arlington, Virginia, on Aug. 3, 2023, for a public hearing on proposed silica dust regulations. Williamson is the first mine safety chief to directly address overexposure to toxic silica dust.

*Credit: Justin Hicks/Louisville Public Media*

So right now, it’s proposed, you mentioned that there’s this comment period that has taken place, that the industry and the public and mine safety advocates and miners get to comment on it. Before there’s a final rule, the Department of Labor has to approve whatever the final rule might be. The Office of Management and Budget has to approve this final rule. We’ve got an election year coming up. There’s often sensitivity from the White House and the Office of Management and Budget on anything that might make voters not vote for candidates that the administration supports or might not vote for the president again, if there’s something in this that offends them.

I’ve seen this happen in the past, where regulatory action was stalled in order to hold off until after an election. There may be other reasons that there could be concerns or objections, budget-wise or otherwise, from the impact on the industry. So it’s important, if you’re going to state your case, to state it as strongly as possible. This rule making does not state that case as strongly as possible. There may be lawsuits from the mining industry over this. So it’s puzzling to me why they didn’t do that. When we asked the Mine Safety Administration, they said, “The comment period exists so that people can tell us what we might need to do better. And this will be one of the things that we consider if people comment on this.

Adams: It’s mind-blowing to think that this represents thousands of people. And behind each of these numbers is a human being. You’ve interviewed dozens of these miners. What have you taken away from those interviews that’s not necessarily reflected in the data?

Berkes: I want to point out that every one of those miners had progressive massive fibrosis. We interviewed miners who had the worst stage of disease. One of the things they all talked about was what their prospects were for the future. Many of them watched fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers die of black lung disease, and so they know what they face. This is a tragedy that strikes generations and families: Fathers that won’t see their kids grow up. Fathers that won’t see their daughters at their weddings, won’t see high school graduations. And actually, it’s not just men, there are women miners with this disease as well.

The tragic nature of this is just so astounding and moving and deep. When you talk to a miner with severe disease at advanced stages, they can hardly get a sentence out without coughing or without having to pause for very deep breaths. A miner in my story, Danny Smith, who was diagnosed at 39, he’s 51. Now, he has his grave site picked out. I tried to call him in the last couple of weeks, and his breathing is so labored, he said he can’t get through a phone call. So we were communicating by text message.

Lungs riddled with fibrotic tissue from complicated black lung disease are displayed in the office of radiologist Dr. Brandon Crum in Pikeville, Kentucky.

*Credit: Elaine McMillion Sheldon/PBS Frontline*

Danny was featured in our 2018 story. We’ve been in communication since then. And he’s in terrible shape, and it’s so bad. He loved coal mining, but it’s so bad. He said now he wishes he never stepped foot in the mine. And this was a job he loved. It was a job that made a good life for him and his daughters. He’s a single parent. And there’s an enormous amount of regret, of buying into this bargain of a great life for mining coal. You know, part of what I don’t understand is, in any other workplace in our country, if you had thousands and thousands of people who were sick and dying from a disease, there would be outreach, and there would be response, and there would be response quicker than what has come.

I don’t know why people don’t seem to care about coal miners. There are 40,000 coal miners still working today. I don’t know what it takes to get a response that gets this going in a way that really protects and helps coal miners. But they are people like you and me who have done a job to make lives better for their families. They’re caught up in this whole thing and it’s killing a lot of them.

Retired coal miner Roy Keith undergoes a spirometry test at the New River Health Clinic in Oak Hill, West Virginia as part of the process of measuring lung capacity and diagnosing the onset of black lung disease.

*Credit: Allen Siegler/Mountain State Spotlight*

Adams: Howard Berkes, thank you for your important work on this topic. This is an important subject that has such a deep, deep impact here in central Appalachia. Thanks for coming on Inside Appalachia and speaking with us about it.

Berkes: Always a pleasure to be with you.

A statue at the courthouse in Grundy, Virginia, honors the coal miners of Buchanan County.

*Credit: Howard Berkes/NPR*

——

After the Public Health Watch/Louisville Public Media/Mountain State Spotlight investigation documenting thousands of advanced black lung cases was published in August, mine safety advocates and Congress members cited it in comments to MSHA about its proposed silica dust rule.

MSHA responded with a statement that said the agency was considering “suggestions that the [proposed rule] underestimates the benefit” as it develops a final version of the rule.

***Editor’s Note: The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration collected 157 comments on its proposed silica dust rule. A previous version of this story misstated the number of comments the agency received.

Black Lung Advocates Want More From New Proposed Silica Dust Rule

A draft rule to protect coal miners from exposure to silica dust garnered more than 5,200 comments from advocates and the American public.

West Virginia’s coal mining communities face an ongoing public health crisis as pneumoconiosis, better known as black lung, affects miners of all ages.

For decades, the nation’s top health officials have urged the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the federal agency in charge of mine safety, to adopt strict rules protecting miners from rock dust.

In recent years, the problem has only grown as miners dig through more rock layers to get to less accessible coal, generating deadly silica dust in the process.

Rebecca Shelton, the director of policy at the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, said an MSHA inspector would visit a mine quarterly to take an air sample to test for silica dust.

According to Shelton, those measurements are not taken regularly enough, and she and other experts are unhappy with the current rule, which allows miners to be exposed to silica dust at 100 micrograms per cubic meter of air for an eight-hour shift.

“That 100 microgram standard is not one that’s supported by organizations or entities; other health institutions like the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), they for many decades have recommended an exposure level that’s half of that,” Shelton said. “So we’ve known for a long time that this exposure level is too high.”

On July 13, MSHA proposed a rule that would cut the current limit for silica exposure in half, down to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air for an eight-hour shift. That level matches the standard set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The new rule would also set up new protocols for sampling and monitoring silica dust exposure levels.

“For example, it now asks that coal operators do some amount of sampling for silica dust. Our understanding is that the agency would still continue its quarterly sampling for silica dust,” Shelton said. “If there are samples that are returned over that 50 micrograms limit, that permissible exposure limit, they will require the operators and mine operators to take corrective actions to reduce that limit.”

However, after decades of inaction, miners and advocates worry about the government following through on these rules. In addition, they don’t think the rule does enough to protect miners.

“One, we feel uncomfortable with the amount of lives that this rule is projected to affect because it’s not many,” Shelton said. “The analyses in the rule actually project that fewer than 100 coal miners’ lives will be saved, while hundreds continue to get sick.”

A public comment period on the new rule was extended to Sept. 11 to allow additional time to develop and submit comments on the proposal.

“It’s quite a variety of folks who have participated in this comment: former miners, organizations like ours who care about the health of miners, and also the industry has participated as well,” Shelton said. “So a lot of public health officials, doctors, a lot of folks who are directly involved in and have been directly involved in treating miners who have been ill with this black lung disease.”

More than 5,200 individuals signed onto a petition created by Appalachian Voices and Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center backing a stronger rule.

Several desired changes to the rule were consistent throughout the comment process. Commenters want the rule enforced on a more frequent basis and for routine sampling to be performed by MSHA, not coal operators.

“One of the things that we care a lot about is enforcing this new exposure limit based on more frequent and routine sampling conducted by the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and not relying on coal operators sampling, especially because the sampling technology that they have proposed in the rule is an old sampling technology that is easily manipulable by operators in order to try to reduce what that sample returns,” Shelton said.

Commenters also asked for stronger criteria for citations and to provide clear penalties for those violating the rule.

“We do think that the rule needs to have more specificity around the criteria for issuing citations, and penalizing operators who violate the rule,” Shelton said. “The requirements or the process for issuing citations, or what will trigger a citation is not clear in the rule.”

Advocates for miners with black lung also asked that the new rule include provisions to temporarily shut down mines in violation of silica dust limits, rather than allowing them to stay open and rely on miners to use respirators.

“We do not think that it is a bad thing to have respirators and extra protection on hand. We think that absolutely should be the case, but if and when a mine has depth levels that are over that safe exposure limit, we think that production should be shut down and that miners should be withdrawn until corrective actions can take place so that the ventilation plans, the engineering controls, are adequate to reduce dust levels back down to a safer level,” Shelton said.

Lastly, commenters, advocates and miners asked for the rule to phase in better sampling technology.

“Rather than grounding the rule or having the rule rely on the current sampling technology that’s available, that there will be technology-forcing, and that it will adopt better technology as it becomes available,” Shelton said. “We know that these kinds of regulations and rules can produce the demand for better technology. And so we really want to see that change.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Woman Underground — How One W.Va. Miner Found Family and Fatherly Connection In Coal

Anita Cecil McBride is a self-proclaimed country girl. She lives up a steep winding road, through a lush forest, and between a small field of corn and a chicken coop in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia.

It’s a hot summer day when Cecil-McBride settles into a plastic Adirondack-style chair facing the woods and she begins to tell the story of how she came to be a coal miner. Her story starts with family.

“My dad was a lifetime coal miner and supporter of the family, made really good money. He was a really good provider,” Cecil-McBride said.

Cecil-McBride grew up in an old coal camp town in Wyoming County, West Virginia, called Covel. Her mom took care of the house, the kids and — her father.

“They wanted me to go to college, but I ended up getting pregnant right out of high school and having a son,” Cecil-McBride said. “I tried to go to college, but it just, I had to go to work.”

Delores French Cecil (top left) Anita’s mother, Verland Cecil (top right) Anita’s father, Anita Cecil-McBride (bottom left) and Christopher Cecil (bottom right)

Even working multiple jobs, it was hard to support her son. Then, she got to thinking about a job she knew paid better — coal mining.

“I listened to the stories of my dad growing up and all the things that he had to say,” she said. “And I just thought, man, that’s gotta be so cool.”

The first female coal miner in America wasn’t legally hired until 1973. At that time, women made 57 cents to a dollar earned by men. The American labor force has come a long way since then but still has a ways to go to reach equality, especially for women of color. In 2020, women earned 82.3% of men’s annual salary.

Cecil-McBride started working underground in July 2005. After she put in the time and took the training to earn her black hat, or mining certificate, eventually, she told her parents.

Anita Cecil McBride worked as an underground coal miner in Boone County, West Virginia. Miners wear red helmets during while they train and get experience.

“Oh lord. My mom threw a fit,” Cecil-McBride said while laughing. “My dad said, ‘you sure that’s what you want to try.’ I said, ‘Yeah, Daddy it is.’ He said, “Well, I tell you one thing, if there’s any woman alive that can do it, you could.”

So she followed her father into a male-dominated industry. Not everyone thought she could be a coal miner.

Underground mining was a new culture and her dad had plenty of advice for her.

“He said respect yourself first and those men will respect you,” she said. “And I did and they did. He was right. He told me to find the oldest guy there and stick with him because he knew everything and then experienced everything and could keep me from getting hurt.”

Still, starting out was rough.

“I was probably the most nervous person that you could imagine,” she said. “It was different. I was the only woman there. They had to make me a shower room.”

Anita Cecil-McBride worked as an underground coal miner in Boone County.

This was in 2005 and even the latest data from the U.S. Dept. of Labor says that in 2020, about 10% of workers in the coal industry were women.

It was just a little more than 40 years ago that women were still battling the idea that a female underground was bad luck.

But Cecil-McBride said this wasn’t the case for her in 2005. Some of the other miners knew her father, Verland Cecil, or “Big Dog” as they called him, which helped.

“They’d say, ‘that was one tough you know what,” Cecil-McBride said with a smile. “I’ve heard that was the strongest man anybody ever knowed.”

Being an underground coal miner was a big part of who her dad was and it was starting to become a part of her identity too. She embraced certain aspects like shedding cultural expectations for women to dress, speak and even look a certain way.
When she was asked to be a part of a photography project in her mining clothes, she jumped at the chance.

Anita Cecil McBride was photographed as part of the ‘America’s Coal Miners’ project. The project portrays life size photos of coal miners and are now a part of West Virginia’s art collection.

The project was called “America’s Coal Miners” and was recently donated to the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. The project, shot by photographer Thorney Lieberman, includes life-size images of Cecil-McBride and other West Virginia coal miners in high quality photographs from the tips of the boots to the tops of their hats.

Cecil-McBride’s proud to be a part of the project but nothing compares to the special closeness she felt with her fellow miners.

It still makes her emotional to think about it.

Part of Cecil-McBride’s crew while she worked underground.

“It’s a relationship and a bond that a lot of people won’t ever get to experience and that’s because my life’s in your hands,” she said. “From the moment we get on that man trip until the time we come back out.”

Cecil-McBride says that the negative feedback she received because of her career choice came from the women in her community, not the men.

“It’s very hard,” she said. “Because they had a husband helping support their family, I didn’t. I even told one one time, ‘I’ll stay home if you want to pay my bills, too.”

Still, sometimes Cecil-McBride did have to deal with traditional divisions of labor underground.

“I tried my best not to ask for help,” Cecil-McBride said. “I said, you know, if I’m going to go underground and make the same money that they’re making, I need to really give it all I’ve got. But I’m sure that they didn’t put me in positions that they knew I couldn’t do.”

Anita Cecil McBride wore a red hat while training underground.

She’s not alone. Sue Tallichet, professor of sociology at Morehead State University in Kentucky wrote a book about women miners in Appalachia called, “Daughters of the Mountain.”

“A lot of the women were determined, even when it was really tough on them. If it was really hard for them to do something, they went at it anyhow because they felt they had to prove themselves,” Tallichet said.

Tallichet talked with women during the 1990’s. These women had jobs as coal miners because of the Coal Employment Project in the late 70’s. It was a non-profit organization that brought a class action lawsuit against a coal company after an operator refused to allow a woman underground because he said it was ‘bad luck.’

But that was just the first fight for the women miners. They had to even navigate the workload carefully as chivalry could create more problems.

“Don’t pick that up! You’re a woman,” Tallichet said. “That would have bothered a lot of women because then they would have been afraid that the same male miner would have come in and tried to help them and then later turn around and say see I told you she couldn’t do it.”

Women miners had to learn how to navigate the expectations of men, take on the traditional female roles and figure out where to draw the line.

“They wanted to make it as coal miners but they really were up against it because being a coal miner meant being a man. Being masculine,” Tallichet said. “They kind of had to walk a fine line between staying female and keeping that identity and while at the same time knowing how to do things men could do.”

Talichett remembered a few examples the women miners shared with her.

“After their dinner the boss came to her and said there’s some trash down there in the dinner hole would you mind cleaning that up,” Tallichet recalled, “and she said ‘No and I’ll tell you why. I’m no housewife down here.’

“They wanted to make it as coal miners but they really were up against it because being a coal miner meant being a man. Being masculine."

Sue Tallichet, professor of sociology at Morehead State University

Women found themselves in those situations, a lot. Where they were expected to do sort of the mining housewifery and a lot of said no I’m not doing that. I’m not here for that.”

When it came to harassment, female miners found an even more difficult situation, even at mines supported by the United Mine Workers of America, where not all of them felt welcome or equal.

“Some women that I interviewed who wanted to be more a part of the union but they just felt that they were not full-fledged members. Not often treated that way. ‘Yea, you can be a part of the union but you need to do as you’re told and know your place.’ Union — it was welcoming but at the same time, you’re welcome but sit over here.”

Cecil McBride had a different experience with the union — mostly positive.

Like her father, Cecil McBride was a dues paying member of the United Mine Workers of America. She once traveled to Las Vegas for a rally to support legislation protecting miners’ pensions.

Anita Cecil McBride and her husband Terry sit on their porch with dog, Max, during a hot summer day.

She got married in 2014 and added the name McBride. In 2015, with the coal industry in sharp decline, it was the UMWA that helped Cecil-McBride find another job.
So along with her husband, another out of work coal miner, she got her CDL or commercial driver’s license, and switched to another male-dominated field — truck driving.

“We decided that the only thing you could do to make as much money as you did coal mining was truck driving,” she said. “So they sent us to school. Paid to get us trained, even helped us find a job. But the only downside to that was it was over the road, so we were gone weeks and weeks at a time, and that was really hard.”

She misses being a miner, especially the bond she had with her crew.

“The relationship that I had with my guys, I wouldn’t trade for the world,” Cecil-McBride says as she fights back tears. “I love them and I miss them. Every one of them, even the hard-headed ones.”

Coal mining helped to build her relationship with her father, and she’s grateful for that.

Anita Cecil McBride keeps sentimental treasures in a corner cabinet in her living room.

“Every time we were together, we mined on the porch,” she said. “We’d sit and we would talk about all kinds of things to tell different stories.”

Inside her home, in the corner of the living room, is a wooden cabinet filled with items attached to her precious memories. There are portraits of her coal mining family, their obituaries, and her father’s harmonica.

She even has a few figurines carved from coal. “My dad used to collect these for me,” she said. “These are women coal miners. Everywhere he found them he would pick one up.”

Cecil McBride’s father gave her female coal miners carved out of coal.

Now the statues help to pick her up in a way. She’s no longer a miner, but the coal statues help her to remember the relationships she built underground- and with her father, Verland, before he died earlier this year.

She also treasures memories from her new job in the cabinet. There’s a glass vase-like container stacked with unique rocks, sea shells and even a cork – items that represent her new journey, driving a truck.

“All of them’s from the states we went to,” Cecil-McBride said. “And we would always find a rock or (something.) That was a bottle of champagne we drank in California.”

Anita Cecil McBride has collected an item from each state in which she’s traveled as a truck driver.

There’s even a piece of lava in the vase, and so far — only one piece of coal.

‘America’s Coal Miners’ Photography Exhibit Donated to W.Va. Art Collection

A photography project called “America’s Coal Miners” was recently donated to the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. The project includes life-size images of West Virginia coal miners in high quality photographs.

Photographer Thorney Lieberman has kept some of the images of coal miners in his own home in Charleston since 2007. Some hang on Lieberman’s walls and others even hang from the ceiling and among his coat rack.

Several life size photos hang in photographer Thorney Lieberman’s home in Charleston.

In 2007, two photographs won awards from the West Virginia Division of Arts Culture and History. The only image of a female coal miner in the project won a Merit Award. The subject of that image was Anita Cecil-McBride.

Lieberman says he’ll never forget the first time he met Cecil-McBride at a church in Boone County.

“She jumped out of her car and she was driving like a tiny little Geo Metro,” Thorney said, “ and across the windshield in huge letters, it said ‘COAL DIGGER.’ She jumped out in her mining clothes, filthy. And I was so stunned. I didn’t take a picture but it’s burned in my memory of her jumping out of this coal digger car, and ‘here I am!’”

Lieberman photographed Anita in those mining clothes for a black and white photo, put together with mosaic images.

Six pieces of Lieberman’s coal miner series are already on display for the public in Moundsville at the Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex.

While he can’t know how every person has reacted to the images, he’s aware of a certain group.

“Especially West Virginians,” he said. “Very proud to have seen them. It makes them proud to be West Virginians. It makes them proud of their culture.”

Thorney Lieberman has kept some photographs in his home in Charleston, WV. John Freeman was one of the first miners he photographed.

The photographs are life-size portraits from the tops of the miner’s helmets to the tips of their boots. Most of the portraits are shot in black and white and mounted on steel sheets. The final pieces are almost 7-feet tall.

The project was meant to “put a human face on energy.”

The exhibit was originally sponsored by some pro-industry groups such as coal companies and Appalachian Power along with the United Mine Workers of America, and private donors like the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation.

Lieberman is not from “coal country.” Even when he moved to Charleston, he didn’t have much ties to the state’s coal fields. But he’s used to being an outsider to the subjects of his portraits. He photographed Native Americans in Colorado for 15 years.

“I’m very proud,” he said. “This kind of New Yorker, you know, came into West Virginia and was able to contribute.”

Initially, he was inspired to take the photos after watching the terror of the 2006 Sago Mine Disaster unfold, shortly after moving to West Virginia. Thirteen miners were trapped for two days underground in the Sago Mine Disaster. All but one eventually died.

The lifesize image of Coy and Corissa Daniels hangs in photographer Thorney Liebermans’ home by his coat rack.

“The explosion at the Sago mine happened and it was big in the news,” he said. “And it shocked me into realizing that I lived in the middle of, even though I live in town and there isn’t much evidence of it, but I live in the middle of coal country. And so I sought out some subjects to photograph.”

Throughout working on the project since 2006, Lieberman learned more about the coal miners’ values and sense of self.

“They all wanted to be photographed with their kids, which is telling. These coal miners are very family-oriented,” Lieberman said with a chuckle.

Lieberman said that familial pride is evident not just in the photos but in the reactions to his exhibit that’s on display.

“The kids of these miners are just absolutely thrilled to see their dads immortalized like this,” he said. “I mean, they come to the exhibits and they stand in front of them and they’re beaming from ear to ear and they’re so proud. And and the wives and the kids really are. And the miners themselves are extremely happy that these things are being shown.”

Lieberman says 16 pieces, including most of the ones from his house, will find a permanent home at Chief Logan State Park. The exhibit will become a permanent part of the West Virginia State Museum collection.

The exhibit is expected to be picked up from Lieberman’s home in Charleston, on Aug. 23. He’s thrilled to know more people will see it — and understand a bit more about those who do this often dangerous but important job.

“My work in these portraits had really been sort of a celebration,” he said. These were sort of heroic figures. I mean, they, you know, they work very hard under terrible conditions, but they powered America.”

West Virginia Coal Miner Dies In Underground Accident

A coal miner died Wednesday in a workplace accident in northern West Virginia, the governor’s office said.

Trenten J. Dille, 26, of Littleton, died while working in the underground section of a Marion County Coal Resources mine, the governor’s office said in a statement.

Preliminary information indicates the edge or rib of a coal support pillar fell and struck Dille, a section foreman, the statement said.

The accident is being investigated by the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. It is the third fatality involving a U.S. coal mine this year.

“It is an absolute tragedy to lose this hard-working, dedicated young man,” Gov. Jim Justice said in the statement.

The mine is operated by American Consolidated Natural Resources Holdings Inc. of St. Clairsville, Ohio. The company is the largest privately owned U.S. coal operator. It emerged from federal bankruptcy protection last year and was formerly known as Murray Energy Holdings.

West Virginia Underground Coal Miner Killed

Authorities say a coal miner has been killed at an underground mine in northern West Virginia.

The West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training says the incident occurred shortly before 4 a.m. Tuesday at Wolf Run Mining LLC’s Sentinel mine in Barbour County.

According to the office, 52-year-old Leonard W. Griffith of Valley Bend, West Virginia, was working on a continuous mining machine when he was struck by a rib roll, which occurs when a block of coal comes loose from the wall or ceiling.

Inspectors from the state office are investigating.

The mine is owned by St. Louis-based Arch Coal.

According to the company, the mine that produces high-volume metallurgical coal has been temporarily idled.

Griffith, an electrician, worked at Sentinel more than three years.