BRIEF BUT SPECTACULAR - Brandon Dennison

"A Brief But Spectacular take on rebuilding and diversifying the Appalachian economy" PBS NewsHour 11/2/2021

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SUMMARY:  Brandon Dennison is a sixth generation West Virginian who is on a mission to revitalize Appalachia.  His community based non-profit, Colefield Development, has trained over 1200 people facing barriers to employment, helping with education and personal development.  Dennison gives his Brief But Spectacular take on rebuilding the Appalachian economy, and making it sustainable in the process.

THE FUTURE OF WORK - Appalachia

"In rural Appalachia, can health care become the new coal?" PBS NewsHour 12/3/2018

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SUMMARY:  Pikeville is a small city of 6,700 nestled in the mountains of eastern Kentucky--a rural area that has struggled to survive the decline of the coal industry.  Now, local residents are pinning their futures on health care, which is desperately needed for a population whose life expectancy lags years behind the national average.  Amna Nawaz reports for our new series, The Future of Work.

DEADLY WORK - Coal Miners

"Rate of black lung disease among miners may be 10 times higher than reported" PBS NewsHour 12/16/2016

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SUMMARY:  Lung disease is a well-known deadly consequence of working in the coal industry.  But a new NPR study finds miners are suffering from the most advanced form of the disease at a rate ten times higher than the government has reported.  Hari Sreenivasan speaks with NPR's Howard Berkes about the causes of this late-stage lung disease, possibilities for treatment and why it's been direly underestimated.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  For the past five years, the government has reported just under 100 cases of complicated black lung disease, which is also called progressive massive fibrosis.  But a new NPR investigation found nearly 1,000 cases in nearly the same time from clinic reports in four states — Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

The extent of the problem has stunned a number of researchers and experts who work with miners as well.  One of the miners diagnosed with black lung and profiled in the NPR stories — Mackie Branham — spoke of just how difficult it is for him to breathe and his ill health.  But he said mining was in his blood.

MACKIE BRANHAM, Diagnosed With Black Lung:  Takes a lot of pressure in my chest at all times.  I've never been scared to death.  It don't bother me a bit.  It's just I won't see my kids grow up.  But if I had it to do over, I would do it again.  If that's what it took to provide for my family.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Howard Berkes has been uncovering this in a two- part series that concludes tonight on “All Things Considered” (NPR show) and he joins me now from Salt Lake City.

Howard, it is so difficult to hear that man struggling to breathe, and it's also hard to reconcile how he says he would do this again because this is what he would do for his family, even though the health challenges that he and so many people in this community are facing.

HOWARD BERKES, NPR:  It's so common to hear that.  Miners want to go back to work.  Mackie Branham told me if he could get a lung transplant tomorrow, he hopes he could go back to work, which is not going to happen.  But mining, as he said, is in his blood.  It's part of the local culture, local history.  Generations of families mine and it really is about the only decent job in most parts of Appalachia.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  All right.  Let's talk about the gap between the numbers here, the numbers the government documented, and the numbers you're able to uncover in your investigation.  What accounts for this?

HOWARD BERKES:  Well, first of all, it's the limitations on government researchers.  This is the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and they track black lung disease by bringing in miners for x-rays.  But they're limited by law to only testing working miners (number one) and the x-rays are voluntary (number two).

So, they miss non-working miners, people who've retired, and they're also missing a huge segment, most miners, really, who avoid getting tested because they fear if there's a positive test for black lung, somehow their mining company will figure out and they will lose their jobs.

POLITICAL INK - "Hillbilly Elegy"

"The struggling, rural, white communities that feel like nobody cares" PBS NewsHour 9/27/2016

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SUMMARY:  In “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance explores life in some of the most geographically secluded parts of the country and the mountain of problems communities there are facing, from economic issues to drug addiction.  The subject is a personal one for Vance, who was raised by his grandparents in Appalachia.  Judy Woodruff sits down with him to discuss his experience and how these issues came to be.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now, in this topsy-turvy election year, we have a timely portrait of Americans who are often ignored and misunderstood, depicted as only an insider could.

It's the first in an occasional series on books this election season we're calling Political Ink.

J.D. Vance, welcome to the NewsHour.

This book is many things, “Hillbilly Elegy,” but I think, amongst all else, it's a personal story.  It's about growing up in Appalachia under what I think what everybody would agree difficult circumstances, raised by your grandparents, father who wasn't there, mother had an addiction.

I think, for most people, hard to write about these things, but not hard for you?

J.D. VANCE, Author, “Hillbilly Elegy:  A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis”:  No, it was definitely hard.

I definitely struggled allotted with the intrusion and just being so open about my personal history and my family history.  But I decided that, ultimately, it was worth it because I felt that a lot of these issues needed to be talked about.  They needed to be talked about openly.  And I couldn't think of a better way to do it than just be really honest about my own failings and my family's failings, because sometimes honesty is just the best policy, and that starts with me.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Well, you do write very candidly about a rough-around-the-edges lifestyle, both in Kentucky and then when your family moved to Southern Ohio.

It's rough around the edges, but it's a life you love and a life you honor.

J.D. VANCE:  Yes, absolutely.

There are good and bad parts of this community and of my own family, of course.  And I try to be very frank about the problems, but also very compassionate, and also explain why so many of these people were so good to me and so important in my life, and, frankly, why I wouldn't have had the opportunities I have right now if it weren't for them.

COAL - Producer to Pay $200 Million Cleanup Fine

"Leading coal producer agrees to pay record fine to clean polluted waters across Appalachia" PBS Newshour 3/5/2014

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GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  We return now to the EPA’s settlement today with one of the largest coal producers in the country over pollution in five Appalachian states.

Dina Cappiello, the national environment reporter for the Associated Press, joins us now.

Twenty-seven-and-a-half million dollars in fines, $200 million for the cleanup, in the range of penalty, how does this rank?

DINA CAPPIELLO, The Associated Press:  Well, it’s the biggest ever for a company that violated its water pollution permits.

So, obviously, other companies have paid big fines in the past.  In 2008, the EPA settled with Massey Energy, another coal company, for $20 million.  But this is the biggest ever for a company that violated permits it had from states.

GWEN IFILL:  Now, describe to us how widespread the pollution was.

DINA CAPPIELLO:  The numbers here are pretty staggering.

You’re talking over 6,000 violations, violations over 300 state-issued permits, hundreds of streams, tributaries and rivers, 79 active coal mines, 25 coal processing plants, where they put the coal and wash it before it’s shipped, over five Appalachian states.  So it’s a pretty massive coverage area for the settlement.