Residents of Appalachian coal communities told a Congressional subcommittee Tuesday that the controversial mining practice known as mountaintop removal should be halted until its health effects are better studied.
Donna Branham of Lenore, West Virginia, was among the many residents with questions and concerns about effects on air and water quality. She was hopeful the National Academy study would bring some answers. But in the summer of 2017 the Trump administration’s Interior Department abruptly cancelled funding and ordered the National Academy to halt the study.
“We felt abandoned, we felt as if our lives didn’t matter,” Branham told lawmakers.
Branham was one of four witnesses from Kentucky and West Virginia who told members of the House Natural Resources Committee that the National Academy study should continue. Until such a study is complete, they argued, regulators should place a moratorium on mountaintop removal mining.
Former coal miner Carl Shoupe of Benham, Kentucky, organizes for the citizens’ action group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. He said mining also threatens cultural and natural areas that could be part of the region’s new economy.
“As we speak, a coal company is seeking a permit to strip mine the ridge behind my home,” Shoupe said. “They plan to go up the entire valley.”
West Virginia University Environmental Health Professor Michael McCawley pointed to what he called strong evidence linking the mining practice to a variety of negative health effects.
Several studies show correlation between mountaintop removal and high rates of illnesses in neighboring communities. McCawley said his work on air quality near mines also shows high levels of fine particulate matter, which are known to present health hazards.
“In my opinion these independent studies should allow the conclusions to be considered more than simply correlative,” he said. “They should be considered causal.”
McCawley said he thinks that mounting evidence of health effects is what motivated the Interior Department to cancel the study.
“I think they believed that the study was going to come out with evidence that supported banning mountaintop mining, that they knew what the evidence was,” he said.
Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, a Democrat who represents the Louisville area, also testified about his legislation, the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Act, which would ban new permits for the mining practice until a comprehensive health study is completed.
Kentucky Coal Association President Tyler White countered that Yarmuth’s bill is too broadly worded and would have negative economic effects.
“This would effectively delay or halt coal production throughout Appalachia and set a staggering precedent that could affect mining nationwide.”
Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who chairs the committee, said in an interview with the ReSource that the Interior Department had declined to answer requests for information and declined to send a representative to answer lawmakers’ questions. Grijalva said his committee is considering using its subpoena power to get documents relevant to the department’s decision to cancel the National Academy study.
“We’re being very diligent in the way that we’re doing it. We want to make sure that our subpoenas have standing,” he said. “When we do it, it’ll mean something.”
ReSource reporter Sydney Boles contributed to this story.
A coalition of environmental groups are suing to stop a mountaintop removal coal mining operation in Raleigh County.
In the lawsuit filed Friday, Coal River Mountain Watch, Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club allege mine operator Republic Energy is illegally operating on the more than 2,000-acre Eagle No. 2 surface mine.
The lawsuit centers on the validity of the mining permit granted to Republic Energy a decade ago. Under the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation and Act, a company must begin operations at a mine within three years of a permit being issued, or ask for an extension from state environmental regulators.
Environmental groups allege Republic Energy waited nearly four years before asking for its first renewal.
According to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection repeatedly allowed the Eagle 2 mining permit to remain valid, despite statutory requirements under federal law.
The state DEP did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit alleges the mine’s permit has expired and the company must stop operations until it gets a new mining permit.
“Allowing an operator to sit on a permit for 10 years and then suddenly start operating is really counter to the whole purpose of the Surface Mining [Control and Reclamation] Act, which is that when a permit is issued the regulator is supposed to consider the most up to date information on the impacts the mine will have and area that’s going to impacted,” said Peter Morgan, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club.
In an statement, a spokesperson for Contura Energy, which recently merged with Alpha Natural Resources, the parent company of Republic Energy, said the company believed “we are in compliance with all applicable rules and regulations.”
Coal River Mountain Watch Executive Director Vernon Haltom disagreed. In an interview, he said the company and DEP are ignoring provisions of the law to the detriment of communities in the region.
According to DEP’s records, the Eagle 2 mining permits most recent renewable expired in June 2018. Haltom said the company did not take adequate measures to ask for an extension.
“They didn’t even go through all the steps they needed had it been a valid permit,” he said. Last month, DEP issued a Notice of Violation to Republic Energy for failing to renew their mining permit.
“It actually would be funny if mountaintop removal weren’t such a deadly process that kills people who live nearby,” Haltom added.
Research has linked the practice, which includes blasting up to 800 feet of mountain, to higher rates of death for those living nearby and an uptick in cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, birth defects and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, such as bronchitis and emphysema.
A federal appeals court was urged Tuesday to overturn a ruling by a judge who found that the state of West Virginia has abandoned its responsibility to write cleanup plans for streams harmed by pollution from mountaintop-removal coal mining.
The judge’s 2017 ruling said the state Department of Environmental Protection has dragged its feet for years on plans required under the federal Clean Water Act.
In arguments before a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a Justice Department lawyer representing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said West Virginia intends to draft the cleanup plans, but has been working to satisfy a 2012 state law that requires broadening the way it determines the biological health of streams.
“This is a hard issue. This is a new issue,” said attorney James Maysonett of the Justice Department’s Environment & Natural Resources Division. “West Virginia has a schedule to get this done.”
Derek Teaney, senior attorney for Appalachian Mountain Advocates, said the law does not require the state to develop the new assessment tool before it submits cleanup plans for the streams affected by pollution from mining.
The group sued the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.
“We are trying to compel agency action,” Teaney said.
In court documents, the group contends that the state has refused to develop “total maximum daily loads,” which are plans for restoring impaired waters that identify the maximum amount of a pollutant a stream can receive while still meeting water-quality standards.
The streams have been designated as “biologically impaired” because of diminished levels of aquatic life. The environmental groups say the state Department of Environmental Protection has identified the cause of the diminished aquatic life in nearly 200 of those streams to toxicity related to mining pollution.
The Clean Water Act requires states to develop the plans for any stream that does not meet water-quality standards. If a state doesn’t develop a satisfactory plan, the law requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in and come up with a plan.
The 4th Circuit did not indicate when it will issue its ruling.
The prestigious National Academy of Sciences recently announced a comprehensive study on the health effects of the controversial coal mining practice known as mountaintop removal. For coalfield residents who have long questioned what impact the dust, blasting, chemicals and water contamination was having, the announcement comes as welcome news, if somewhat overdue.
A decade of efforts to research the health effects of living near mountaintop removal mining have often run into industry opposition, political roadblocks, and bureaucratic delays. After decades of questions and concerns there is now reason to believe that answers are on the way.
Longstanding Concerns
Concerns about how surface mining affects the people of Appalachia are nearly as old as the practice itself. West Virginia first regulated surface mining in 1939, and statements of concern and protest have long been a part of the culture in the central Appalachian coalfields.
Eastern Kentucky author Harry Caudill opened his seminal 1963 book “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” with an indictment of his region’s chief industry. “Coal has always cursed the land in which it lies…it leaves a legacy of foul streams, hideous slag heaps and polluted air.” And that was written well before strip mining really took off.
As technological and market changes brought more surface mining to Appalachian coal in the 1970s, the health concerns increased. You can hear many of those concerns in the 1979 Appalshop documentary film “Stripmining: Energy, Environment, Ethics.”
“All you have to do is look on the mountain to know that it’s not best for the people,” Bruce Hatfield of Mingo County, West Virginia, said in the film. But simply looking at a mountain is not the same as studying the effects of the mountain’s removal.
“Leveling our Mountains”
Starting in the mid-90’s, surface mining scaled up into mountaintop removal. Instead cutting into the slopes, this technique uses blasting and heavy equipment to remove the entire top of a mountain to get at the coal seams below. The waste rock and dirt are dumped into the adjacent valley and frequently waste lagoons are constructed to contain the black sludge left from processing coal.
Ed Wiley of Boone County, West Virginia, saw the boom of mountaintop removal mining firsthand. “They’re just leveling our mountains in here,” he told PRI’s Living on Earth in 2007.
One mine was right beside his granddaughter’s elementary school. She started getting sick, and one day as he drove her home from school early, she started to cry, and then told him she was getting sick because of the coal mines.
“That hurt me,” Wiley said, “It took her tears to wake me up, and it was like a sledge hammer.”
Credit Vivian Stockman
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West Virginia resident Ed Wiley walked to Washington to raise awareness about about mining and health impacts on students.
Wiley decided to take action— he decided to protest by walking all the way to Washington DC. This was back in 2006, and at that point, very little research had been done, so Wiley didn’t have much other than anecdotes to back up his arguments. But that same year, health researcher Dr. Michael Hendryx arrived at West Virginia University as a professor of public health.
First Findings
Hendryx described the focus of his research as “health disparities for disadvantaged populations.” When he arrived in West Virginia he soon started to hear worries about the health impacts of mountaintop removal and the dust it puts into the air. Hendryx tried to read up on the science behind the matter but there was not much to read.
“I looked at the literature and found nothing that was done in the United States on public health problems related to mining,” he said. So he decided to study it himself.
Credit Indiana University
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Dr. Michael Hendryx published several studies linking mountaintop removal to health effects such as cancers and birth defects.
Many of his colleagues were skeptical. He was told that health problems would be due to other issues common in coalfield communities. But Hendryx used statistical analyses to control for issues like poverty and smoking, and found that there was still something more that was causing poor health outcomes.
“I can literally remember the very first study, hitting the run button on my computer, and seeing that yes there was something there,” he said. “I was surprised!”
Hendryx kept on studying the issue, and over the course of a few years he and colleagues published peer-reviewed work that linked mining to a variety of health issues for those living nearby, including increased rates of cancer, lung disease, and birth defects.
A 2009 study found that the economic costs for the region from premature deaths due to exposures to mountaintop removal meant that the coal industry’s costs to public health were greater than its economic contributions. Other scientists began to pick up on the issue and in a 2010 edition of the journal Science several prominent researchers called for a moratorium on mountaintop removal.
But the response from government wasn’t what Hendryx expected.
“I was naive and thought that maybe the evidence would speak for itself,” Hendryx said with a wry laugh. “But I’ve learned that’s not how things work in the coalfields of West Virginia.”
Coal Responds
Bill Raney is the President of the West Virginia Coal Association. When asked about Hendryx, he described him as “anti-mining.” Raney said he doesn’t trust Hendryx’s research, and also thinks it ignores a bigger health concern: the loss of mining jobs, which has fed into a wide-range of health issues across the region’s coalfields. “When they don’t have a job, then health suffers,” Raney said.
Aerial view of mountaintop removal in West Virginia. The “lake” in center is a coal sludge waste impoundment. Credit Vivian Stockman / Southwings
The mining industry sponsored its own studies to scrutinize Hendryx’s research. Much of the criticism argued that influences of smoking, obesity, and poverty were really behind the region’s health problems. One critic went so far as to argue that Hendryx’s findings weren’t reliable because they didn’t account for “consanguinity. ” That’s the scientific term for inbreeding, and an apparent reference to a baseless stereotype about Appalachians.
One coal company filed a request for every single document, email, and scrap of paper connected to years of Hendryx’s research. Hendryx said he thinks it was “a fishing expedition… to make me waste time.”
In 2015 Hendryx was called to testify before a Congressional committee, where he didn’t exactly get a warm reception from Louisiana Congressman John Fleming. Fleming described Hendryx’s research as less scientific than a 5th grade science project. “You should be embarrassed to be here with a study like this,” Fleming said.
A SOAR Point
Hendryx isn’t the only person who’s found that politics can become challenging when you start advocating for research on the health risks of mountaintop removal.
In 2013 state, local, and federal officials in eastern Kentucky formed an organization called “Shaping Our Appalachian Region,” or SOAR. The idea was to explore how the region can adapt to a changing economy and fewer coal jobs.
SOAR started off by setting up working groups to identify community needs. Dr. Nikki Stone was appointed to lead the group focused on health issues. Stone grew up in the coalfield town of Blackey, Kentucky, and now works in the nearby town of Hazard, where she leads a mobile dentistry program that brings care to kids in their schools.
Credit Mimi Pickering / WMMT
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WMMT
Dr. Nikki Stone addressed a health working group in eastern Kentucky, where mountaintop removal was a top concern.
Stone and the rest of the SOAR working group did a regional tour, holding sixteen listening sessions around eastern Kentucky. At every single meeting, she said, at least one person brought up environmental health and worries based on Hendryx’s research.
“It was something that people were afraid to talk about,” Stone said. “But it came up over and over, and it ended up at the top of our list.”
In its final report, the working group advised that SOAR should ask a federal agency for help studying the issue. Dee Davis, Director of the Center for Rural Strategies, was also a member of the health working group. Davis said the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was present at the public meeting when the working group presented its report, and said that if they made a request the CDC would investigate.
No Response
Time passed with no response. As Davis recalled, a CDC spokesperson told the health working group that she was not aware of any request but would look into it. Davis said that as far as he knows, that was the last time anybody from the CDC acknowledged the request. The CDC recently confirmed that the agency is not engaged in any such research.
It’s not clear where exactly things got stalled, but SOAR’s Executive Director Jared Arnett said there’s a reason why the group tends to steer clear of environmental issues.
“It’s about uniting,” Arnett said, “and a lot of things that may not be a part of SOAR that people want to be a part of SOAR are very divisive.”
Dee Davis offered a different perspective, emphasizing two ways that good health is critical for achieving SOAR’s mission of reinvigorating the region’s economy.
“If we want our talent to be part of what turns our region around, then it’s not really going to help us to sweep big questions about cancer and birth defects under the rug,” he said.
Davis argued that if the region wants to develop a thriving economy, it needs to build confidence in the idea that eastern Kentucky is safe.
“It’s about building an economy in a place,” Davis said, “and part of that is making sure that our communities are places people want to live.”
Overdue Answers
There’s still no sign that the CDC is going to look into this issue. But research ismoving forward elsewhere. In addition to the work by the National Academy of Sciences, another study, from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) was announced last year, and has already produced a draft. NIEHS Director Linda Birnbaum recently visited eastern Kentucky and said she expects that study will be released within the year.
Credit wikimedia Commons / Another believer
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Another believer
The National Academy of Sciences will conduct a comprehensive study of mining health effects.
Birnbaum said she doesn’t want to prejudge her agency’s work, but her reading is that mountaintop removal mining “is not good for people’s health.” Given what’s known about the air pollution and ecological impact that mining causes, Birnbaum asked,“Why would we be surprised?”
As for Michael Hendryx, he said the new work underway is “a positive step that… they are at least recognizing that there’s an issue.” But given his experience with coalfield politics, he’s not ready to call it a success.
“I’m going to wait and see what happens,” he said.
A $6 million settlement has been reached in federal court that will restore damage from West Virginia mountaintop removal mines.
The Sierra Club, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy announced the settlement with the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund. A consent decree was entered Friday in U.S. District Court in Huntington.
The Legacy Fund bought the coal mines involved from bankrupt Patriot Coal last year. The agreement resolves a Clean Water Act lawsuit originally filed against the coal company.
Appalachian Headwaters will lead reclamation, including stream restoration and reforestation. The Legacy Fund won’t conduct surface mining, except to aid reclamation.
Environmental groups say it allows a three-and-a-half year extension to decrease the amount of selenium in surface water.
The settlement involves a site in Boone and Lincoln counties where Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has proposed building a business park.
The federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement announced it will fund a million dollar review of current research on links between surface coal mining and human health risks. The announcement came more than a year after the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection formally requested the review.
Over the last decade, more than two-dozen peer-reviewed studies have found correlations between mountaintop removal coal mining and increased rates of cancer, heart and respiratory diseases, and other negative health outcomes.
More recent studies, including several from West Virginia University, have found more direct links to lung tumors and cardiac dysfunction.
Four public meetings about the review are scheduled to be held by the National Academy of Sciences. The dates have not yet been announced.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.
