Coal miners getting new protections from silica dust linked to black lung disease
WASHINGTON — Miners will be better protected from toxic silica dust that has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of miners from a respiratory disease commonly known as “black lung disease,” the Department of Labor said Tuesday as it issued a new federal rule on “black lung disease” ‘. safety.
The final rule, announced by Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, halves the allowable exposure limit for crystalline silica for an 8-hour shift.
Miners, community advocates and elected officials from Appalachian states have pushed for a stricter rule, noting that health concerns have increased in recent years as miners dig through more and more layers of rock to access coal seams while deposits become denser have long remained hidden near the surface. psycho. Increased drilling generates deadly silica dust and has caused severe forms of pneumoconiosis, better known as black lung disease, even among younger miners, some in their 30s and 40s.
“It is unreasonable that our country’s miners have been working without adequate protection against silica dust, despite it being a known health hazard for decades,” Su said on Tuesday. “Today we are making it clear that no job should be a death sentence, and that every worker has the right to come home healthy and safe at the end of the day.”
In Central Appalachia, an estimated one in five permanent miners has black lung disease. The condition shortens their life expectancy by an average of 12 years and makes it a “struggle to make a phone call or play with their grandchildren without losing their breath,” Su said in a speech in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where she was working with her performance. Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, and other union leaders.
“For too long we have accepted this as the way things are for people who work in the mines,” Su said. “They have had to work without the same protection from silica dust as people in other industries, even though we have known about the harmful effects of silica dust since Frances Perkins, who was Secretary of Labor in the 1930s and 1940s.
The election year rule shows “what it looks like to have the most pro-labor, pro-union president in history,” Su said, a political commentary referring to Democratic President Joe Biden.
Rebecca Shelton, policy director at the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, which pushed for stricter rules to protect miners, said the group was closely reviewing the rule to ensure that regulators at the Mine Safety and Health Administration took into account comments from health workers, lawyers and miners who have been working on the rule for years.
“There are too many lives at stake to get this wrong, and we will do everything we can to ensure this rule provides the protections miners deserve,” Shelton said.
Democratic senators from Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia applauded the new rule, saying it will play a vital role in protecting miners.
A spokesperson for the National Mining Association said the group was reviewing the rule but supports the lower limits. The mining lobby has pushed to allow the use of administrative controls and personal protective equipment to meet safety standards. “Unfortunately, those recommendations were not included in the final rule,” spokesman Conor Bernstein said.
Vonda Robinson, whose husband, John, was diagnosed with black lung a decade ago at age 47, said she was hopeful as officials considered the rule changes. But she was skeptical about how the rule will be enforced.
Robinson, who lives in rural Nickelsville, Virginia, near the Tennessee border, said the mine safety agency does not have enough staff or resources to adequately protect workers and their families.
“You can have rules, but if you don’t enforce them, they mean nothing,” she said in an interview. “If they want to issue these rulings, you have to hire more people.”
The White House requested an increase in the mine safety agency’s budget by $50 million for the current year, most of which would be earmarked for more inspectors and enforcement. Congress rejected the proposal and kept the budget at $388 million for 2023.
Vonda Robinson said her husband struggles every day. John Robinson worked in the mines for almost three decades. Two years ago, the couple met with a doctor about a lung transplant.
“Until you see it and live with it, you don’t understand it,” Vonda Robinson said. “And knowing what we’re looking at now – miners are diagnosed at age 32 – they will probably never see their children graduate or have grandchildren. It really upsets me.”
The Labor Department rule lowers the allowable exposure limit of respirable crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air for a full-shift exposure calculated as an 8-hour average. If a miner’s exposure exceeds the limit, mine operators must take immediate corrective action.
The rule is consistent with exposure levels imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for the construction and other non-mining industries. And it’s the standard that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended back in 1974.
The Department of Labor began studying silica and its impact on workers’ health nearly a century ago, but the focus on stopping workplace exposure largely ignored miners. Instead, the regulations focused on coal dust, a separate hazard created by crushing or pulverizing coal rock that also contributes to black lung.
In the decades since, silica dust has become a major problem as miners in the Appalachians cut through layers of sandstone to reach less accessible coal seams in mountaintop mines where coal has long been tapped closer to the surface. Silica dust is twenty times more toxic than coal dust and causes severe forms of black lung disease even after a few years of exposure.