In 2016, the National Academy of Sciences announced that it was going to study the health effects of mountaintop removal mining.
An expert team being appointed by the National Academy of Sciences will examine a “growing amount of academic research” that suggests “possible correlations” between increased public health risks for Appalachian residents and living near mountaintop removal coal mining, the Obama administration announced Wednesday.
That study ended today, but not because the study had reached a conclusion. It ended because Donald Trump ordered it to stop.
Trump administration officials have told the National Academy of Sciences to cease all work on a study of the public health risks for people living near mountaintop removal coal-mining sites in Appalachian, the academy said in a statement late this morning.
Mountaintop removal mining is a uniquely destructive form of surface mining. In most areas, surface mines must follow “return to contour” rules, restoring landforms that existed before mining and taking special care with the structure of stream beds. But with MTR, mines permanently decapitate 300 million-year-old mountains, and waste material is disposed of by dumping it into streams and rivers. Hundreds of mountains have been destroyed forever, with 500 feet or more of material being removed and fouling thousands of miles of streams.
The material that goes in streams leaves water acidic, and tainted with heavy metals. Families that live there show a higher incidence of cancer and birth defects. Earlier studies have indicated that the pollution can have significant health effects, but lawyers from coal companies have a different explanation.
The study failed to account for consanquinity, one of the most prominent sources of birth defects.
“Consanquinity” means kinship. What the coal companies are saying is that health problems are not their fault—because people in Appalachia are inbred hillbillies.
The NAS study might have determined just how harmful MTR waste materials really are for surrounding communities.
OSM had committed more than $1 million to the study, which was launched last year after a request from officials from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the state Bureau for Public Health. The two agencies said they needed federal assistance in a review of several dozen scientific papers that had linked mountaintop removal to increased risks of birth defects, cancer, and premature death among residents living near large-scale surface coal mines in Appalachia.
But now that money has been cut and the study ended.
Coal companies in Appalachia like mountaintop removal mining because it’s much cheaper than underground mining or return-to-contour surface mining. It’s cheaper primarily because it requires far fewer miners than other means of mining. Mining companies can move in fast, using explosives and large equipment, mining away in months what would take years to develop underground. So MTR operations not only require fewer workers, they employ people for a shorter time.
The reduced cost doesn’t create jobs and doesn’t increase the market for coal. But it allows coal companies to maximize their profit by clearing more dollars on each ton of coal sold. That’s why coal companies were excited by Trump’s executive order that allows dumping of coal waste into streams. That executive order expressly supported MTR. The new order removes the study of health effects of MTR. Meanwhile MTR is the most destructive form of mining that employs the fewest workers.
Because Trump doesn’t dig coal: Trump digs millionaire coal mine owners that feed his ego and provide him with fervent crowds of desperate employees.
Mountaintop removal mining is only legal because of coal-friendly rulings that deliberately misinterpret the terms “fill” and “waste” in the Clean Water Act.
A decade ago, Daily Kos engaged in an effort to pass legislation that would address this ruling and outlaw MTR. The supported legislation garnered 118 co-sponsors, but even many Democratic legislators were afraid to go against Big Coal.