Miners who work for an extended period in Appalachia have odds worse than playing Russian roulette with their lives. NPR reports that 20 percent—one in five—of all miners who have worked in the region for 25 years or longer, are now suffering from coalworker's pneumoconiosis, better known as black lung disease.
When mining safety laws were passed in 1969, it brought an almost immediate decline in black lung cases. And miners today should be protected by a number of measures meant to ensure adequate ventilation and the reduction of coal dust in their environment. But, as Donald Trump continually attempts to boost the coal industry and the EPA under both Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler cuts regulations on coal, conditions for miners are sliding.
With coal-powered plants still closing, and projections showing that coal will continue to lose market share over coming years, mine owners are trying to squeeze every last penny out of their declining industry. That is causing some operators to cheat on measures meant to protect miners. In the last month, a company in Kentucky was convicted of repeatedly gaming the system by falsifying results of dust monitors. That conviction seems to be emblematic of whole swathes of the industry in Appalachia.
Meanwhile, companies have been dipping into the compensation meant to go to afflicted miners. Altogether, coal companies have already lifted $11 billion from funds earmarked for miners with black lung, and they have their eye on another $15 billion that they hope to get with a little helpful legislative action. All of that is predicated on the idea that black lung rates are falling, meaning that the funds won’t be needed. Republicans are routinely campaigning on the idea that miners who apply for black lung benefits are lazy cheaters. Republican legislators in Kentucky have passed laws requiring miners to be certified by doctors who work for the coal companies, before they can obtain their due benefits.
But even as the companies attempt to suppress reports of black lung and limit payments, the numbers continue to rise.
In addition to the heightened rates of disease, the study found that the most severe form of disease – progressive massive fibrosis – now occurs in 5 percent of veteran miners in the region, the highest rate ever recorded.
While rates have gone up sharply under Trump, the beginning of the increase started as the industry declined. Where black lung rates in the past seemed to correlate directly to the boom-bust cycle of the industry, the steep fall of coal since natural gas became more abundant has come with a matching increase in disease.
Coal mining was for years about trying to produce the maximum amount of product for a market that could absorb almost any amount and high production equaled high profit. That’s no longer true. In a declining market, the overriding factor in mining isn’t production, it’s cost. With mines selling fewer tons, and with little prospect of being to offload tons on the spot market, mines have chopped production and tightened every belt to look for cost savings. Mine owners know that their bottom line is simply the difference between the price for tons that have already been contracted, and the cost of delivering those tons.
To make those savings, they’ve looking to save by externalizing costs: Leaving communities to clean up their environmental mess, and miners to live, or not, with the results of doing their jobs.