Do people in the Central Appalachian coalfield have more health problems and shorter lives because of mountaintop-removal mining? That hasn't been proven, but a West Virginia University researcher says he has found several correlations that suggest cause and effect. Michael Hendryx discussed and defended his work in a lecture last week at Morehead State University in Kentucky, near the coalfield's western edge.
"Hendryx said factors that have the most impact on public
health are really basic things, including education, income and poverty. In
Central Appalachia, which includes Eastern Kentucky, upper East Tennessee, the
southern half of West Virginia and southwest Virginia, those factors are all
lowest in places where the heaviest mining occurs," reports Ivy Brashear of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
"His initial analysis found
that mortality rates in the coal-mining region of Central Appalachia are 97
percent higher than in the rest of the region. Among the obvious causes are
high rates of poverty, smoking, diabetes and obesity, but Hendryx said he and his research team found that 'There’s
something left over that’s unique to mining environment' after controlling data
for those other factors. High rates of chronic heart, lung and kidney disease, and
some types of cancer, 'are concentrated most in those areas where mining takes
place, especially mountaintop mining,' Hendryx said. The same patterns are seen with birth defects."
Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Bissett said in an email, “Dr. Michael Hendryx is an anti-coal ideologue who is
masquerading again as an ‘objective researcher’.” (Read more)
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