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Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Study: Surface coal miners more exposed than underground miners to silica dust that causes lung disease

Appalachian coal miners who work at surface mines are consistently overexposed to the silica dust that causes a form of black-lung disease, and dust from surface coal mines contains more silica than dust from underground coal mines, according to new research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The research shows that, while much attention has been paid to the risk of black lung among underground miners, surface miners are similarly at risk.

"The research is the first to specifically analyze long-term data on exposure to toxic silica dust for workers at surface mines," Sydney Boles reports for Ohio Valley ReSource. "Black lung disease has been identified in coal miners in every coal-mining state at both surface and underground mines. NIOSH researchers were specifically interested in surface miners’ exposure because those mines produce the most coal and, in 2017, twice as many miners worked at surface mines compared to underground mines."

The researchers analyzed more than 50,000 surface mine coal dust samples from between 1982 and 2017, and found that about 15 percent of those samples had too-high levels of silica dust. Silica dust, which comes from quartz in the rock near coal seams, is much more harmful to the lungs than coal dust. Lead researcher Brent Doney told Boles that, while exposure to coal dust declined over time, silica exposure didn't drop.

That could be why black-lung disease has seen a resurgence among coal miners—especially in Central Appalachia—for the past twenty years, after decades of successful reduction in the disease through mining safety regulations, Boles reports. That's straining the already underfunded federal Black Lung Disability Trust Fund and hurting rural Appalachian mining towns.

"Unfortunately, I’m not sure this is a particularly novel finding," NIOSH epidemiologist Scott Laney told Boles. "The evidence is very clear. We know that silica and mine dust are toxic, and we have the technology to suppress it, and yet coal miners are still exposed to way too much of it. So from a public health perspective, there’s ample evidence to suggest that further safeguards are necessary."

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