A recent edition of Environmental Health has an article by Nathaniel Hitt and Michael Hendryx reviews the issues of mountaintop removal mining. These researchers examined the relationship between human cancer mortality in West Virginia and the ecologic integrity of nearby stream ecosystems.
Researchers found people living near the most biologically impoverished streams, as represented by the types and numbers of bottom-dwelling macroinvertebrates living there, had the highest cancer rates. This was even after adjusting for known risk factors such as smoking, income level, and urbanization.
Additional analyses of these results also found more cancers in areas where more coal mining occurred.
Their results suggested that proximity to coal surface mines can potentially lead to adverse effects in both aquatic and human communities.
Ashley Judd, actress, in childhood a resident of Appalachia, is an outspoken opponent of mountaintop removal mining.
Anne Cockrell of Danville, A reader of GoDanriver.com, made this comment not long ago in the reader opinion section that seems to correspond with these issues.
"Per the article, “Mining the Mountains,” in the January 2009 issue of Smithsonian magazine: “West Virginia is the nation’s third-poorest state, above only Mississippi and Arkansas in per capita income, and the poverty is concentrated in the coal fields ... .”
Considering this recent study’s findings, it’s not an unjustified leap of concern to question the possible impacts to public health and the environment should uranium mining and milling ever be allowed in Virginia."
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