Black rock and brown sandstone
Isn’t it amazing that Appalachian Black Lung rates are the highest in nearly 50 years as coal miners protections stall while the Black Lung Trust Fund owes $3 billion to the US Treasury because of company bankruptcies and being under insured; all of this while the administration in June funded some 700,000,000 to sustain coal-burning power plants and help coal exports.
Black lung rates are now the highest they have been in 50 years among veteran coal miners. As reported by NPR, mining experts blame toxic silica dust, now more common in mines. In the past we mined the big seams of coal first and now much of that is gone and mining operations involve small seams that encounter a lot of silica dust that is much worse. The silica comes from sandstone that is more prevalent with the smaller seam mining.
My father also contacted brown lung from his years of shoveling sand into the blast furnaces in a Pittsburgh steel mill. I just recently learned that brown lung was much worse than black lung as the particles are much smaller and get into the lungs much easier.
After working over 25 years in the mill, Dad became disabled from breathing in a bit of silica with each shovel of sand. After my father died I questioned why Mom did not receive his disability and was advised that he checked the box “not extend to spouse.” I thought this was odd and when he died some 10 years before Mom I felt the steel company may have guided him in this decision.
Stone Mountain Health Services in Jonesville, Virginia has helped over 2,400 coal miners in the past five years with health issues related to black lung. They provide miners and their families with testing, treatment, and legal help to secure black lung benefits. One of the most haunting items in reading this story by NPR was the picture of a miner’s actual lung which was black. It brought home the realty of my father’s brown lung and his suffering.
Fortunately detection today is so much better than 50 years ago but black rock and brown sandstone still take an awful toll on our workers. It took almost 50 years to get our government to pass the Silica Dust Regulation Act in 2024. The current administration seems to have a love affair with “black bock” and not a love affair or compassion for our miners who still work in a very dangerous environment.
Today a lung transplant for our miners cost $2,000,000 and buys about seven years of life. Perhaps we could get better value out of the 700,000,000 in tax dollars we are going to spend helping power plants and coal exports, and provide better care for our workers.
Maybe our politicians ought to spend a day or two mining a bit of coal before they do away with programs that help our workers. Also they could restore funding to media outlets like NPR who take the time and do the research to do the type of in-depth reporting that bring the plight of our workers to the forefront.