Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Industry Continues to Poison Appalachia

Some other threads at Appalachia Group directly related to this subject of this article may be found here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1272790
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1272744
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12724

Common Dreams
Saturday, November 01, 2014
originally published by EcoWatch
Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Industry Continues to Poison Appalachia
by Mary Anne Hitt

There has been some shocking news out of Appalachia in recent days. First, a game-changing new study demonstrated, for the first time, a direct link between the dust from mountaintop removal coal mines and lung cancer. Then Ken Ward, Jr. of the Charleston Gazette reported on a West Virginia lab worker who pled guilty to falsifying water test results because of pressure from the coal industry. And on top of all that came another report, this time out of Kentucky, showing that mountaintop removal is straining the ecosystems needed to support wildlife and critical stream habitats.

The results of the West Virginia University health study are jaw-dropping. Researchers exposed human lung tissue to mountaintop removal dust in the lab, and they found the dust exposure promoted development of lung cancer is the first study that has demonstrated such a direct link between mountaintop removal pollution and these serious health consequences.

I think someday we’ll look back on the publication of this study as a watershed moment in the long mountaintop removal struggle. Health problems have been long documented in mountaintop removal country, including in dozens of peer reviewed studies, but the coal industry has always tried to shift the blame to other causes...

...“The larger implication is that we have evidence of environmental conditions in mining communities that promote human lung cancer. Previous studies … have been criticized for being only correlational studies of illness in mining communities, and with this study we have solid evidence that mining dust collected from residential communities causes cancerous human lung cell changes.”

Meanwhile, the plot thickens in the case of the lab that diluted, substituted and otherwise tampered with water samples from coal mining sites across the state. These self-reported water samples are a key part of oversight of coal mining pollution. Just yesterday came further news from West Virginia that despite the state Department of Environmental Protection revoking certification for the lab where the falsified tests happened, the state board of environmental quality issued a stay on the revocation pending a full hearing to be held in December....

MORE at http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/01/mountaintop-removal-coal-mining-industry-continues-poison-appalachia