Mountaintop removal has long led to poor health in Appalachia, researcher says at lecture - Entrepreneur Generations

By Tim Mandell
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Michael Hendryx

No apparent health disparity exists in Appalachia except in areas where mountaintop removal is occurring, said Michael Hendryx, professor at the School of Public Health at Indiana University, during a lecture Thursday at the University of Kentucky. Hendrix's lecture, "Mountaintop Mining and Public Health," examined scientific research—conducted by him and others—into health effects in Appalachia since mountaintop removal was introduced in the 1990s. Hendrix, who was part of a 2010 study that called for an end of mountaintop removal, conducted the majority of his research in West Virginia.

Hendrix presented data comparing Appalachian areas with mountaintop removal with Appalachian areas without the practice, finding lung cancer, heart, lung and kidney disease, cardiovascular and respiratory disease and birth defects are all typically more common in areas with mountaintop removal. Also, air and water pollution—consisting of both well water and public water—are usually higher in mountaintop removal areas.

Hendryx said politicians have stood in the way of eliminating mountaintop removal, despite plenty of scientific evidence of its negative impact on public health. "It's surprising the political and economic power that the coal industry still has," he said. "It doesn't produce the jobs that it used to. It's clearly in decline. Yet it seems to me that politicians will still fall all over each to see who's more pro coal, and that still seems to influence voters."

While some have called the move toward clean energy a "war on coal," Hendryx argues that coal-depressed communities can find other ways to improve local economies. "Some of the regions have coal; some don't," he said. "They're hilly, they're forested, they're rural . . . the places that didn't have coal developed other ways for people to make a living . . . If you look at the data, it's clear that the areas that have the heaviest mining have the highest unemployment rates, the highest poverty rates, the lowest income levels. The other areas that didn't have coal developed better alternatives to generate better economies."

Hendryx cited the coal severance tax in West Virginia as an example of political inaction to help struggling coal economies. Despite the state's relying heavily on money from the taxes, he said he has seen no serious effort to come up with a plan to combat the decline in coal severance taxes.

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/1nbZnmx Mountaintop removal has long led to poor health in Appalachia, researcher says at lecture - Entrepreneur Generations

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