Soul Full of Coal Dust

Soul Full of Coal Dust PDF Author: Chris Hamby
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316299499
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
In a devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down. Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to virtually eradicate black lung disease and provide fair compensation to coal miners stricken with the illness. Today, however, both promises remain unfulfilled. Levels of disease have surged, the old scourge has taken an aggressive new form, and ailing miners and widows have been left behind by a dizzying legal system, denied even modest payments and medical care. In this devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby traces the unforgettable story of how these trends converge in the lives of two men: Gary Fox, a black lung-stricken West Virginia coal miner determined to raise his family from poverty, and John Cline, an idealistic carpenter and rural medical clinic worker who becomes a lawyer in his fifties. Opposing them are the lawyers at the coal industry’s go-to law firm; well-credentialed doctors who often weigh in for the defense, including a group of radiologists at Johns Hopkins; and Gary’s former employer, Massey Energy, the region’s largest coal company, run by a cantankerous CEO often portrayed in the media as a dark lord of the coalfields. On the line in Gary and John’s longshot legal battle are fundamental principles of fairness and justice, with consequences for miners and their loved ones throughout the nation. Taking readers inside courtrooms, hospitals, homes tucked in Appalachian hollows, and dusty mine tunnels, Hamby exposes how coal companies have not only continually flouted a law meant to protect miners from deadly amounts of dust but also enlisted well-credentialed doctors and lawyers to help systematically deny much-needed benefits to miners. The result is a legal and medical thriller that brilliantly illuminates how a band of laborers — aided by a small group of lawyers, doctors and lay advocates, often working out of their homes or in rural clinics and tiny offices – challenged one of the world's most powerful forces, Big Coal, and won. A deeply troubling yet ultimately triumphant work, Soul Full of Coal Dust is a necessary and timely book about injustice and resistance.

Soul Full of Coal Dust

Soul Full of Coal Dust PDF Author: Chris Hamby
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316299499
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book Here

Book Description
In a devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down. Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to virtually eradicate black lung disease and provide fair compensation to coal miners stricken with the illness. Today, however, both promises remain unfulfilled. Levels of disease have surged, the old scourge has taken an aggressive new form, and ailing miners and widows have been left behind by a dizzying legal system, denied even modest payments and medical care. In this devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby traces the unforgettable story of how these trends converge in the lives of two men: Gary Fox, a black lung-stricken West Virginia coal miner determined to raise his family from poverty, and John Cline, an idealistic carpenter and rural medical clinic worker who becomes a lawyer in his fifties. Opposing them are the lawyers at the coal industry’s go-to law firm; well-credentialed doctors who often weigh in for the defense, including a group of radiologists at Johns Hopkins; and Gary’s former employer, Massey Energy, the region’s largest coal company, run by a cantankerous CEO often portrayed in the media as a dark lord of the coalfields. On the line in Gary and John’s longshot legal battle are fundamental principles of fairness and justice, with consequences for miners and their loved ones throughout the nation. Taking readers inside courtrooms, hospitals, homes tucked in Appalachian hollows, and dusty mine tunnels, Hamby exposes how coal companies have not only continually flouted a law meant to protect miners from deadly amounts of dust but also enlisted well-credentialed doctors and lawyers to help systematically deny much-needed benefits to miners. The result is a legal and medical thriller that brilliantly illuminates how a band of laborers — aided by a small group of lawyers, doctors and lay advocates, often working out of their homes or in rural clinics and tiny offices – challenged one of the world's most powerful forces, Big Coal, and won. A deeply troubling yet ultimately triumphant work, Soul Full of Coal Dust is a necessary and timely book about injustice and resistance.

Best Practices for Dust Control in Coal Mining

Best Practices for Dust Control in Coal Mining PDF Author: Jay Colinet
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781493568659
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
"Respirable dust exposure has long been known to be a serious health threat to workers in many industries. In coal mining, overexposure to respirable coal mine dust can lead to coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP). CWP is a lung disease that can be disabling and fatal in its most severe form. In addition, miners can be exposed to high levels of respirable silica dust, which can cause silicosis, another disabling and/or fatal lung disease. Once contracted, there is no cure for CWP or silicosis. The goal, therefore, is to limit worker exposure to respirable dust to prevent development of these diseases. The passage of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 established respirable dust exposure limits, dust sampling requirements for inspectors and mine operators, a voluntary x-ray surveillance program to identify CWP in underground coal miners, and a benefits program to provide compensation to affected workers and their families. The tremendous human and financial costs resulting from CWP and silicosis in the U.S. underground coal mine workforce are shown by the following statistics: 1. During 1970-2004, CWP was a direct or contributing cause of 69,377 deaths of U.S. underground coal mine workers. 2. During 1980-2005, over $39 billion in CWP benefits were paid to underground coal miners and their families. 3. Recent x-ray surveillance data for 2000-2006 show an increase in CWP cases. Nearly 8% of examined underground coal miners with 25 or more years of experience were diagnosed with CWP. 4. "Continuous miner operator" is the most frequently listed occupation on death certificates that record silicosis as the cause of death. In light of the ongoing severity of these lung diseases in coal mining, this handbook was developed to identify available engineering controls that can help the industry reduce worker exposure to respirable coal and silica dust. The controls discussed in this handbook range from long-utilized controls that have developed into industry standards to newer controls that are still being optimized. The intent was to identify the best practices that are available to control respirable dust levels in underground and surface coal mining operations. This handbook provides general information on the control technologies along with extensive references. In some cases, the full reference(s) will need to be consulted to gain in-depth information on the testing or implementation of the control of interest. The handbook is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the health effects of exposure to respirable coal and silica dust. Chapter 2 discusses dust sampling instruments and sampling methods. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 focus on dust control technologies for longwall mining, continuous mining, and surface mining, respectively. Finally, it must be stressed that after control technologies are implemented, the ultimate success of ongoing protection for workers depends on continued maintenance of these controls. NIOSH researchers have often seen appropriate controls installed, but worker overexposures occurred because of the lack of proper maintenance of these controls." - NIOSHTIC-2

Miners' Lung

Miners' Lung PDF Author: Mr Arthur McIvor
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409479617
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Arthur McIvor and Ronald Johnston explore the experience of coal miners' lung diseases and the attempts at voluntary and legal control of dusty conditions in British mining from the late nineteenth century to the present. In this way, the book addresses the important issues of occupational health and safety within the mining industry; issues that have been severely neglected in studies of health and safety in general. The authors examine the prevalent diseases, notably pneumoconiosis, emphysema and bronchitis, and evaluate the roles of key players such as the doctors, management and employers, the state and the trade unions. Throughout the book, the integration of oral testimony helps to elucidate the attitudes of workers and victims of disease, their 'machismo' work culture and socialisation to very high levels of risk on the job, as well as how and why ideas and health mentalities changed over time. This research, taken together with extensive archive material, provides a unique perspective on the nature of work, industrial relations, the meaning of masculinity in the workplace and the wider social impact of industrial disease, disability and death. The effects of contracting dust disease are shown to result invariably in seriously prescribed lifestyles and encroaching isolation. The book will appeal to those working on the history of medicine, industrial relations, social history and business history as well as labour history.

Coal Mine Dust

Coal Mine Dust PDF Author: Patrick Fitzhugh
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers
ISBN: 9781624170973
Category : Coal dust
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Book & CD. Coal mine dust is one of the most serious occupational hazards in the coal mining industry, and overexposure can cause coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) and a number of other lung diseases, collectively referred to a black lung disease. CWP has been the underlying or contributing cause of death for more than 75,000 coal miners since 1968. This book provides an overview of key studies, background history and health reviews on occupational exposure to respirable coal mine dust.

Black Lung

Black Lung PDF Author: Alan Derickson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801471540
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In the definitive history of a twentieth-century public health disaster, Alan Derickson recounts how, for decades after methods of prevention were known, hundreds of thousands of American miners suffered and died from black lung, a respiratory illness caused by the inhalation of coal mine dust. The combined failure of government, medicine, and industry to halt the spread of this disease—and even to acknowledge its existence—resulted in a national tragedy, the effects of which are still being felt.The book begins in the late nineteenth century, when the disorders brought on by exposure to coal mine dust were first identified as components of a debilitating and distinctive illness. For several decades thereafter, coal miners' dust disease was accepted, in both lay and professional circles, as a major industrial disease. Derickson describes how after the turn of the century medical professionals and industry representatives worked to discredit and supplant knowledge about black lung, with such success that this disease ceased to be recognized. Many authorities maintained that breathing coal mine dust was actually beneficial to health.Derickson shows that activists ultimately forced society to overcome its complacency about this deadly and preventable disease. He chronicles the growth of an unprecedented movement—from the turn-of-the-century miners' union, to the social medicine activists in the mid-twentieth century, and the black lung insurgents of the late sixties—which eventually won landmark protections and compensation with the enactment of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act in 1969. An extraordinary work of scholarship, Black Lung exposes the enormous human cost of producing the energy source responsible for making the United States the world's preeminent industrial nation.

Screening and Surveillance of Workers Exposed to Mineral Dusts

Screening and Surveillance of Workers Exposed to Mineral Dusts PDF Author: Gregory R. Wagner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789241544986
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
A comprehensive guide to the establishment of screening and surveillance programmes as a strategy for protecting the health of workers exposed to respirable crystalline silica containing dust, coalmine dust, and asbestos dust. Addressed to health planners as well as specialists in occupational health, the book covers both the general principles of effective screening and surveillance and the specific approaches, methodologies, tests, and examinations useful for detecting diseases induced by exposure to mineral dust. Recommended approaches and practices reflect the consensus reached by an international group of experts. Background information is provided in the opening chapters, which explain differences in the aims and methods of screening and surveillance programmes, offer advice on the selection of appropriate medical tests, and discuss essential programme components. Against this background, the most extensive part offers detailed guidance concerning which diseases should be monitored and which tests should be performed. All the major diseases associated with mineral dust exposure are reviewed, emphasizing knowledge about causes, pathological characteristics, manifestations, latency period, the advantages of early diagnosis, and the effectiveness of available interventions. On the basis of this review target diseases for screening and surveillance are identified. The next chapter discusses the uses and limitations of each test commonly used to detect diseases related to mineral dust exposure. Tests are discussed in the categories of conventional chest radiography, additional imaging techniques, measures of lung function, and questionnaires. The final chapter sets out recommendations for the periodic screening and health surveillance of workers.

Black Days, Black Dust

Black Days, Black Dust PDF Author: Robert Armstead
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9781572331761
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Armistead retired from the coal mines in 1987, and died in 1998. Here he recounts his experiences and those of his father, who was also a coal miner, so that this engaging memoir also stands as a rich historical document portraying the evolution of the industry. Armistead told his story to S.L. Gardner, a former teacher and librarian who has written about coal camps for the Times West Virginian. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Work and Faith in the Kentucky Coal Fields

Work and Faith in the Kentucky Coal Fields PDF Author: Richard J. Callahan
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025300070X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Exploring themes of work and labor in everyday life, Richard J. Callahan, Jr., offers a history of how coal miners and their families lived their religion in eastern Kentucky's coal fields during the early 20th century. Callahan follows coal miners and their families from subsistence farming to industrial coal mining as they draw upon religious idioms to negotiate changing patterns of life and work. He traces innovation and continuity in religious expression that emerged from the specific experiences of coal mining, including the spaces and social structures of coal towns, the working bodies of miners, the anxieties of their families, and the struggle toward organized labor. Building on oral histories, folklore, folksongs, and vernacular forms of spirituality, this rich and engaging narrative recovers a social history of ordinary working people through religion.

Mine Ventilation

Mine Ventilation PDF Author: Purushotham Tukkaraja
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000464253
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
This volume contains the proceedings of the 18th North American Mine Ventilation Symposium held, on a virtual platform, June 12-17, 2021. This symposium was organized by South Dakota Mines, Rapid City, South Dakota, in collaboration with the Underground Ventilation Committee (UVC) of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME). The Mine Ventilation Symposium series has always been a premier forum for ventilation experts, practitioners, educators, students, regulators, and manufacturers from around the world to exchange knowledge, ideas, and opinions. This volume features fifty-seven selected technical papers in a wide range of topics including: auxiliary ventilation, case studies of mine ventilation, computational fluid dynamics applications in mine ventilation, diesel particulate control, electric machinery in mine ventilation, mine cooling and refrigeration, mine dust monitoring and control, mine fans, mine fires and explosion prevention, mine gases, mine heat, mine management and organization of ventilation, mine ventilation and automation, occupational health and safety in mine ventilation, renewable/alternative energy in mine ventilation, ventilation monitoring and measurement, ventilation network analysis and optimization, and ventilation planning and design.

Advanced Mine Ventilation

Advanced Mine Ventilation PDF Author: Pramod Thakur
Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
ISBN: 0081004583
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Advanced Mine Ventilation presents the reader with a unique book providing the theory and applications for designing mine ventilation with computers, controlling respirable coal dust and diesel particulate matter, combustible gas control and, mine fire management. The book summarizes the latest knowledge created in the past 40 years in these areas. Authored by an expert in the field with 50 years' experience, the book is a great combination of theory and applications. The mine ventilation section provides computer programs (both FORTRAN and C++) to calculate not only air quantities and pressure losses but also the concentration of any pollutant in all junctions and branches of the mine network. Small particle mechanics and dust control is covered in the second section of the book. The third section on combustible gas control discusses all aspects of mine gases from origin to control. The last section on mine fire control discusses spontaneous combustion, frictional ignitions, mine explosions, and mine sealing and recovery. The book is not only a very good reference book but also an excellent textbook for two graduate level courses in Mining Engineering. - Provides the latest knowledge on the four related topics of mine environment control; that is, ventilation, dust, gas, and fire in a single volume - Computer simulation of mine ventilation in both FORTRAN and C++ - State-of-the-art respirable dust control - Mine degasification and methane production from a coal lease - Mine fire management