The Trump administration has halted a study looking at the health risks of mountaintop removal coal mining.
In a letter written on Friday, the Interior Department announced the shutdown of the study, which was started in 2016 under former President Barack Obama, while the department undergoes an agency-wide budgetary review.
Scientists estimate at least 500 Appalachian mountaintops have undergone mountaintop removal mining, a form of surface mining that harvests coal deposits too thin to work from a coal mine.
The Trump administration has halted a study looking at the health risks of mountaintop removal coal mining in central Appalachia. Ordered by the Obama administration, the $1million, two-year study looked to investigate mountaintop removal in West Virginia (pictured), Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee
The initial study was ordered after a 2010 study reported an increase in mortality rates as well as an increase in incidences of lung cancer and kidney disease near where mountaintop mining is common. Birth defects were also reported in a 2011 study (Pictured, the effects of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia)
The study had been launched at the request of two West Virginia agencies, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and Bureau for Public Health.
Ordered by the Obama administration, the $1million, two-year study looked to investigate mountaintop removal in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee.
An emphasis was placed on studying the ‘effects from surface coal mining operations on air, surface water, groundwater, and drinking water quality and on ecologic communities and soil that could potentially lead to human health concerns.’
This came after a 2010 study in Science magazine reported an increase in mortality rates as well as an increase in incidences of lung cancer and kidney disease near where mountaintop mining is common.
Birth defects were also reported in a 2011 study published in Science Daily.
Some suggest the move may be part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to bring back coal. In February, he scrapped the Stream Protection Rule, a regulation to protect waterways from coal mining waste and promised to bring back coal mining jobs.
Additionally, his proposed 2018 budget would cut funding for the Office of Surface Mining, which is responsible for protecting society and the environment from the adverse effects of surface coal mining operations.
Scientists estimate at least 500 Appalachian mountaintops have undergone mountaintop removal mining, a form of surface mining that harvests coal deposits too thin to work from a coal mine (Pictured, the effects of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia)
Some suggest the move may be part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to bring back coal. In February, he scrapped the Stream Protection Rule, a regulation to protect waterways from coal mining waste promising to bring back coal mining jobs (Pictured, the effects of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia)
Critics have railed against the Interior Department for moves seen as halting scientific growth.
Several science advisory boards were frozen earlier this year by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. And Interior Department climate scientist Joel Clement alleged that he and dozens of other scientists had been arbitrarily reassigned.
‘It’s infuriating that Trump would halt this study on the health effects of mountaintop removal coal mining, research that people in Appalachia have been demanding for years,’ Bill Price, Senior Appalachia Organizing Representative for Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, said in a statement.
‘Stopping this study is a ploy to stop science in its tracks and keep the public in the dark about health risks as a favor to the mining industry, pure and simple,’ said Democratic Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, in a statement.