According to Hendryx, the data show that people in coal mining communities

• have a 70 percent increased risk for developing kidney disease.
• have a 64 percent increased risk for developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) such as emphysema.
• are 30 percent more likely to report high blood pressure (hypertension).

"We’ve considered that chronic illness might be prevalent in these areas because rural West Virginians have less access to health care, higher smoking rates and poorer economic conditions," Hendryx said. "We’ve adjusted our data to include those factors, and still found disease rates higher in coal-mining communities."  Science Daily and Charleston Gazette. 

People living in the vicinity of mountaintop removal operations are exposed to a host of assaults on their health.  As mountains are blasted, “fly rock” fires off the mountaintops and lands on private property.  In 2005, a 3-year-old boy in Virginia was killed by a loosened boulder that rolled down the mountainside, through his wall, and crushed him to death.  (see article here)

Along with the blasting comes an enormous amount of anxiety.  Residents describe it as living in a war zone, never knowing when the blast will come and if it is safe to be outdoors.  And the chemicals in the explosives have at times formed toxic yellow clouds that descend on people’s homes.

Flooding is a more common event due to the stripping of vegetation and topsoil at the tops of the mountains.  Health effects from flooding include the destruction of septic systems, poisoning of surface and ground water, anxiety, homelessness and loss of life.

• In these comments on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on MTR you will find a number of personal testimonials about the effects of MTR.  More about the EIS in the next section on MTR and the Environment.

The air in coal mining regions is frequently filled with coal dust from trucks and trains, as well as ozone and particulate matter from the many coal-fired power plants that are within the region or only slightly upwind.

Dirty Water

The most egregious heath effects of coal mining come from polluted water.  Mountaintop removal operations have containment ponds that are part of a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System.  They feed into streams throughout the region.  In addition, coal slurry impoundments and injection of slurry into underground mines leak into ground water.  The result is drinking water contaminated with arsenic, iron, lead, selenium, barium and many other metals, plus dangerous organic compounds and chemicals used in the washing process.  The health risks of exposure to these chemicals are tremendous, and can travel downstream for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles.