Life Expectancy Change by County, 1997 - 2007
http://ilovemountains.org/the-human-cost

KEY FACTS:
People living near mountaintop mining have cancer rates of 14.4% compared to 9.4% for people elsewhere in Appalachia.
The rate of children born with birth defects is 42% higher in mountaintop removal mining areas.
The public health costs of pollution from coal operations in Appalachia amount to a staggering $75 billion a year.

Business Day
Income Gap, Meet the Longevity Gap
By ANNIE LOWREY
March 15, 2014

Fairfax County, Va., and McDowell County, W.Va., are separated by 350 miles, about a half-day’s drive. Traveling west from Fairfax County, the gated communities and bland architecture of military contractors give way to exurbs, then to farmland and eventually to McDowell’s coal mines and the forested slopes of the Appalachians. Perhaps the greatest distance between the two counties is this: Fairfax is a place of the haves, and McDowell of the have-nots. Just outside of Washington, fat government contracts and a growing technology sector buoy the median household income in Fairfax County up to $107,000, one of the highest in the nation. McDowell, with the decline of coal, has little in the way of industry. Unemployment is high. Drug abuse is rampant. Median household income is about one-fifth that of Fairfax.

One of the starkest consequences of that divide is seen in the life expectancies of the people there. Residents of Fairfax County are among the longest-lived in the country: Men have an average life expectancy of 82 years and women, 85, about the same as in Sweden. In McDowell, the averages are 64 and 73, about the same as in Iraq.

There have long been stark economic differences between Fairfax County and McDowell. But as their fortunes have diverged even further over the past generation, their life expectancies have diverged, too. In McDowell, women’s life expectancy has actually fallen by two years since 1985; it grew five years in Fairfax.

“Poverty is a thief,” said Michael Reisch, a professor of social justice at the University of Maryland, testifying before a Senate panel on the issue. “Poverty not only diminishes a person’s life chances, it steals years from one’s life.”....

The rest of the article, plus an interactive map, at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/business/income-gap-meet-the-longevity-gap.html

Thanks for posting.

I think the visuals really underscore just how much mountaintop removal mining is ruining the health of people in Appalachia -- now imagine the damage it's doing to the environment!