Latest study of mountaintop-removal effects shows link to higher rates of death and poverty

Mountaintop-removal coal mining has been linked to higher mortality rates and poverty rates in the latest study by researchers exploring potential links between mountaintop removal and various health factors, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports.

Michael Hendryx, associate professor in West Virginia University's Department of Community Medicine, collected poverty, mortality and mining statistics for counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia and compared the data to determine if poverty and death rates were higher in communities with mountaintop-removal mining.

"Mountaintop-mining areas had significantly higher mortality rates, total poverty rates and child poverty rates every year," Hendryx wrote in the paper published in the current issue of Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice, noting that the study was adjusted for other possible factors. "Both poverty and mountaintop mining were independently associated with age-adjusted mortality rates."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited Hendryx's work in issuing its final "guidance" to reduce pollution downstream from large-scale mining operations in Kentucky and West Virginia. "Possible human health impacts from coal mining activities have also been documented, including peer-reviewed public health literature that has preliminarily identified associations between increases in surface coal mining activities and increasing rates of cancer, birth defects, and other health problems in Appalachian communities," Ward notes.