SUMMARY: For decades, coal miners have been inhaling silica dust on the job. The extremely fine particles, generated when the quartz-rich limestone surrounding coal seams is cut, lodge in the lungs, obstructing respiration. According to a Frontline/NPR report, both the industry and the government understood the hazard for decades but did little to contain it. Howard Berkes of NPR joins John Yang.
John Yang (NewsHour): Judy, this is all due to minors inhaling silica dust.
While regulations about monitoring mine dust have been on the books since the mid-1970s, this new investigation finds that federal regulators failed to pay close enough attention to their own data. Since 2010, the government has counted 115 cases of advanced black lung nationwide.
But the NPR/"Frontline" investigation identified more than 2,300 cases in just five Appalachian states.
IMHO: OK, in 'coal country' this is a jobs issue, BUT it is also a pollution issue for our nation. So which should have precedence, I vote for our nation (anti-pollution over jobs). As for coal miners, you need to go into another industry, your region needs to attract new industries.
About the video, notice the first man interviewed? He is wearing breathing tubes likely because he worked in coal mines, and coal dust has damaged his lungs.
SUMMARY: In the coal towns of West Virginia, President Trump made economic promises that helped him win the election. Around 12,000 mining jobs have been eliminated in the last few years in that state alone while production remains at its lowest since the 1980s. In collaboration with the NewsHour and Marketplace, Frontline offers a look at the hopes and realities for some of the Americans who voted Trump.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now a special series this week on the hopes and economic realities of many of those Americans who voted for President Trump.
Three reports will take us to Erie County, Pennsylvania, Central Valley, California, and the coal towns of West Virginia. The President made economic promises in each of these places that helped him win.
Filmmakers with PBS' Frontline went to those areas looking for personal stories.
Our first report is set in coal country in West Virginia, and profiles two miners we spoke with after the election.
It is part of How the Deck Is Stacked, NewsHour's collaboration with Frontline and Marketplace, in conjunction with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
DAVE BOUNDS, Retired Coal Miner: I have been registered Democrat all my life, but I crossed over this year. I voted for Donald Trump, because he promised to help the coal miner. And, for this region, we need help.
There's good men out here just walking the streets. Their families are getting desperate. Welfare can't keep people forever. These men need to go back to work.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: So I just left parts of Virginia, and West Virginia.
And the coal industry is decimated. The miners are out of work. They are totally out of work. I mean, there's — there will be no such thing as coal in this country pretty soon. What we're going to do, folks, is going to be so special. We're going to bring back our jobs.
We are going to be America first. We are going to make America great again.
DAKOTA HALL, Coal Miner: I really want to be a coal miner, always have been, ever since I was in high school. Everybody had their dreams about being a basketball player, football player. I always just wanted to be a coal miner.
The only thing that I really have given thought about is Trump getting in office and going back to work. My American dream would just be to watch my kids grow up happy and healthy. That's the only thing I could ever ask for.
I didn't have anything very long, you know, not a whole lot anyway. Didn't make enough. Didn't work long enough. They said that things went dry. It made it really, really hard to take care of a baby and a wife.
ROGER BALL, Owner, B&B Mine Safety: Since the election, a lot of lights have came on in mining.
Most of them have a job waiting on them, or they wouldn't be here to spend that money.
Getting outside with nobody hurt, now that's what pays the bills, and pays it the right way. We don't want no blood on that coal. Nobody does.
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.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
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