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Health Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Mining

by Erik Hungerbuhler — last modified May-23-2012 11:58 AM
KFTC Hosts Governor Steve Beshear in eastern KY, April 2011
 

Health Impacts Are Harmful & Costly 

Bev May

“Sometimes [my water] runs visibly colored from the tap and leaves a bright orange ring on the tub. This usually happens when the creeks nearby which drain from valley fills, run orange with iron and aluminum hydroxides which line the creek with sludge and smother any living thing in it. But my water doesn’t come from a well; it is treated public water from a plant at the mouth of Beaver Creek, an area of Floyd County, Kentucky that has seen extensive surface mining for over 50 years. And everyone else, the thousands of people who live on Beaver Creek, drink, cook, bathe and water their gardens in the same water.” Beverly May (Floyd County), statement to the U.S. EPA. August 18, 2011.

Volumes of scientific evidence and data illustrate the harm to human health from exposure to dust and numerous toxins released into the air and water by surface mining. In recent years, peer-reviewed studies by Dr. Michael Hendryx and others have demonstrated that:

  • people living near mountaintop mining have cancer rates of 14.4% compared to 9.4% for people elsewhere in Appalachia; 
  •  the rate of children born with birth defects was 42% higher in mountaintop removal mining areas; 
  •  the public health costs of pollution from coal operations in Appalachia amount to a staggering $75 billion a year.

These findings are consistent with an earlier account of health impacts related to mountaintop mining, “Mountaintop Mining Consequences,” published in the journal Science in January 2010. According to that study:

Groundwater samples from domestic supply wells have higher levels of mine-derived chemical constituents than well water from unmined areas. Human health impacts may come from contact with streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust. State advisories are in effect for excessive human consumption of [Selenium] in fish from MTM/VF affected waters. Elevated levels of airborne, hazardous dust have been documented around surface mining operations. Adult hospitalizations for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are elevated as a function of county-level coal production, as are rates of mortality; lung cancer; and chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease. Health problems are for women and men, so effects are not simply a result of direct occupational exposure of predominantly male coal miners.

Over the past two years, nearly 20 peer-reviewed scientific studies have been published documenting the impact of coal production, including large scale surface mining, in Central Appalachia on human health. Read more on three recent studies....