Chapter 21 Exercises: Black Lung, Cave-Ins, and Sago — The Human Cost of Coal

Exercise 1: Reading the Numbers — Mine Disaster Data

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) maintains a database of mine fatalities at msha.gov. Using this resource (or secondary sources that compile the data), answer the following:

a) How many coal miners were killed in mine accidents in the United States in each of the following years: 1907, 1920, 1940, 1960, 1970, 1990, 2010, 2020? Present the data in a table or graph.

b) Describe the overall trend. What factors contributed to the decline in annual mine deaths? Was the decline steady, or were there periods of acceleration?

c) The chapter notes that major legislative action (the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969) followed major disasters. Identify at least three mine disasters that prompted legislative or regulatory changes. What does this pattern — where reform follows catastrophe — tell us about how safety regulation works in practice?

d) Compare the annual mine death toll to the death toll from other dangerous occupations — logging, commercial fishing, construction. How does coal mining compare? Has the relative danger of coal mining changed over time?

Exercise 2: Primary Source Analysis — The Denial of Black Lung

Read the following excerpt from a 1965 speech by a spokesman for the National Coal Association (the coal industry's lobbying group):

"It is the position of the National Coal Association that there is no scientific evidence that the inhalation of coal dust, as distinguished from silica dust, causes any disabling disease of the lungs. Coal dust is relatively inert, and the so-called 'black lung' is not a disease recognized by the medical profession. The respiratory complaints of coal miners are attributable to the same causes as respiratory complaints in the general population: tobacco smoking, air pollution, and the normal aging process."

a) Identify the specific claims made in this statement. For each claim, evaluate whether it was accurate based on the medical evidence available in 1965. (You may need to conduct additional research on the state of occupational health science in the mid-1960s.)

b) The statement distinguishes between "coal dust" and "silica dust." Why was this distinction important to the industry's argument? What was the actual medical relationship between the two types of dust?

c) The statement attributes miners' respiratory complaints to "tobacco smoking, air pollution, and the normal aging process." Why would the industry want to redirect attention to these alternative causes? How does this strategy of redirecting blame compare to strategies used by other industries (for example, the tobacco industry denying the link between smoking and lung cancer)?

d) This statement was made four years before the 1969 wildcat strike and the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. How might a miner dying of black lung in 1965 have responded to this statement? Write a 300-word response from the miner's perspective.

Exercise 3: Mapping Mine Disasters

Using the information in this chapter and additional research, create a map of major mine disasters in the Appalachian region.

a) Mark the locations of the following disasters: Monongah, WV (1907); Sago, WV (2006); Upper Big Branch, WV (2010); Farmington, WV (1968). For each, note the death toll and the primary cause.

b) Research and add at least three additional mine disasters from the Appalachian coalfields. For each, note the location, date, death toll, and primary cause.

c) Are the disasters concentrated in specific geographic areas? If so, what might explain the concentration? (Consider geology, the type of mining, the regulatory environment, and the political influence of the coal industry in those areas.)

d) Add a timeline along the margin of your map showing the passage of major mine safety legislation. How does the timing of legislation correspond to the timing of major disasters?

Exercise 4: The Costs of Cheap Energy — An Accounting Exercise

This exercise asks you to think about the concept of "externalities" — costs that are borne by people other than those who produce and consume a product.

a) List all the human costs of coal mining described in this chapter. Include: deaths from mine accidents, deaths and disabilities from black lung, the costs borne by widows and families, the medical costs of treating occupational disease, the emotional and psychological costs to communities.

b) For each cost you listed, identify who pays it. Is it the coal company? The miner and his family? The government (through disability payments, healthcare, etc.)? The general public?

c) Now consider who benefits from the coal that is mined. The coal companies earn profits. Utility companies use the coal to generate electricity. Consumers pay utility bills and receive electricity. How are the benefits distributed compared to the costs?

d) The chapter asks: "Who pays for cheap energy?" Write a 500-word response to this question, drawing on the specific evidence presented in the chapter.

Exercise 5: Oral History — Voices of Black Lung

If possible, locate and listen to or read oral history interviews with coal miners or their family members about the experience of black lung disease. (Sources include the Appalachian Oral History Project, the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at WVU, the Southeast Kentucky Oral History Project, and Appalshop's archive.)

If you cannot access oral histories directly, use the excerpts provided in the chapter and in Case Study 1.

a) How do the miners and family members describe the onset of the disease? What were the first symptoms? When did they realize something was seriously wrong?

b) How do they describe the response of company doctors? Were they told the truth about their condition? If not, what were they told?

c) How do they describe the experience of fighting for compensation? What obstacles did they face? How long did the process take?

d) What emotion dominates the oral histories — anger, grief, resignation, defiance? How do the speakers understand their experience in relation to the larger history of coal mining?

Exercise 6: Regulatory Failure — Analyzing the Sago and Upper Big Branch Investigations

Using the investigation reports (available online through MSHA and the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training), compare the two disasters:

a) How many safety violations had been cited at each mine in the years preceding the disaster? What types of violations were most common?

b) What were the fines assessed for these violations? Calculate the average fine per violation at each mine.

c) Both investigation reports concluded that the disasters were preventable. What specific conditions — that were known before the explosion — caused or contributed to each disaster?

d) What changes in regulation or enforcement were recommended after each disaster? Were those recommendations implemented? If so, have they been effective?

Exercise 7: Then and Now — Black Lung in the Twenty-First Century

The chapter describes a resurgence of black lung disease among young miners in the twenty-first century.

a) Research the NIOSH studies on the resurgence of CWP (particularly the work published after 2010). What are the key findings? How severe is the resurgence?

b) The chapter identifies "thin-seam mining" and increased silica dust exposure as causes of the resurgence. Explain why mining thinner coal seams produces more silica dust. Why are the thinnest seams being mined now, when they were not mined in earlier decades?

c) The dust monitoring system — designed to prevent dangerous levels of dust exposure — has been found to be flawed. What specific problems have been identified with dust monitoring? Who is responsible for monitoring, and what incentives do they have to report accurately?

d) If the 1969 Act was supposed to prevent black lung, why is the disease returning? Is the problem inadequate law, inadequate enforcement, or both? What reforms would be needed to actually prevent black lung in the twenty-first century?

Exercise 8: Community History Portfolio — The Human Cost in Your County

Building on previous portfolio entries, investigate the human cost of coal in your selected county.

a) Were there mine disasters in your county? Document the date, location, death toll, and cause of each.

b) What is the known prevalence of black lung disease in your county? Are there coal miners currently receiving black lung benefits? Are there black lung clinics or treatment facilities?

c) Find and document at least one personal story — from an oral history, a newspaper account, a family history, or a cemetery record — of a miner who died in a mine accident or from black lung in your county.

d) Are there memorials, monuments, or community observances in your county that honor miners who died? If so, describe them. If not, consider what form such a memorial might take, and write a 300-word proposal.