A ‘fundamental shift’ needs to be made by coal companies in how they control exposure to coal and silica dust in underground mines, according to a new federal report.
The report, released on Thursday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS), found that there’s been an increase in cases of severe black lung disease, or pneumoconiosis, in Appalachia.
Researchers wrote that coal operators largely comply with recently tightened rules requiring monitoring for coal dust, at a rate of more than 99 percent.
But they say these measures may not be sufficient because cases of black lung disease have hit a high not seen in almost 20 years.
A report released on Thursday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that a ‘fundamental shift’ needs to be made by coal companies in how they control exposure to coal and silica dust in underground mines
‘There is an urgent need for monitoring and sampling strategies that enable continued, actual progress to be made toward the elimination of diseases associated with coal mine dust exposure,’ said Thure Cerling, a biology professor at the University of Utah who helped write the report.
The control measures, imposed by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Obama administration, requires some miners to wear devices that measure dust-sampling devices so coal dust exposure can be monitored in real time.
By monitoring the samples in real time, mine operators can quickly adapt so that workers are not exposed to as much dust whether it means increasing the amount of ventilation or slowing down the mining machines.
However, the committee found that not only do the monitors not track the dust exposure of those not wearing the devices, but they also do not measure real-time samples of silica dust.
Silica dust is created when mining machines cut into sandstone and is more damaging to lungs than coal dust.
The NAS report recommends that a real-time silica dust sampling monitor be developed.
The authors also called for studies to be conducted on the causes of the resurgence in the disease, which had been nearly eradicated in the 1990s.
Black lung disease develops when dust is inhaled and remains in the lung where it can cause inflammation or fibrosis (scarring).
The most common symptoms of pneumoconiosis are cough and shortness of breath.
The risk is generally high for miners due to the mineral dusts they are exposed to in high concentrations for long periods of time.
Black lung disease has killed about 77,000 coal miners since 1968. As many as 35 percent of all miners with at least 25 years of experience in the early 1970s were diagnosed with black lung disease.
By 2000 it had fallen to five percent. However, in 2012, that number jumped back up to eight percent.
An increase in the number of rapidly progressing cases has been seen in certain regions, including central Appalachia, which is comprised of parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
According to government health officials, cases of the illness are rising to levels not seen in decades because miners use heavy blasting equipment to cut into thin coal seams.
More than 400 coal miners in three clinics in southwestern Virginia between 2013 and 2017 were found to have complicated black lung disease, an extreme form of the disease which sees dense masses of scar tissue in the lungs.
Currently, the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, a federal fund, provides medical coverage and monthly payments for living expenses to more than 15,000 people,
However, a report released this month by the Government Accountability Office released this month said the fund will require a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout if Congress does not extend or increase the tax on coal production that funds it.
The coal industry has been lobbying Congress to ensure that scheduled reduction in the tax it pays into that fund goes forward, arguing the payments have already been too high.
The report is also a reminder of a study that was looking at how surface coal mining was affecting the health of people who lived nearby, which was halted by the Interior Department.
The Department claimed at the time that the stop was temporary and was part of a review ofall grants costing more than $100,000.
However, reports later showed that the Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, Katharine MacGregor pushed for the study’s cancellation after meeting with representatives from some of the nation’s biggest coal companies including the National Mining Association and Arch Coal.