You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August, 2007.
by Celeste Monforton
Yesterday in “MSHA Spokesman Parrots Bob Murray,” I wrote about MSHA’s rejection of a request by the families of the six trapped Crandall Canyon miners to have the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) serve as the miners’ representative during MSHA’s investigation of the disaster. As usual for me, about two hours after hitting the “print post” button, I realized I should have said this and I should have said that. Oh the glories of blogging! Here’s what came to me after hitting the “print post” button:
I was irked by MSHA’s spokesman Dirk Fillpot saying the agency had spent ‘untold hours’ briefing the families of the missing miners. Your point is?
Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock alerted me that today is the third annual Blog Day, which “was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest.” To participate, bloggers link to five new blogs – and I’m going to interpret “new” as meaning “a blog I discovered fairly recently and suspect most readers don’t know about yet.” So, here are my five blog links for Blog Day 2007:
- The Nata village blog provides an up-close view of the battle to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in one village in Botswana.
- Epidemix covers “trends, technologies and other contagions in medicine and health” (via Technology, Health & Development).
- The Neighborhood Toxicologist reports on chemical contaminants that affect our daily lives.
- FarmPolicy.com gathers all the U.S. farm policy info in one place (via Gristmill, which will tell you why you should care about farm policy).
- Peter Suber, Open Access News champions the movement to make peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature freely available (via Coturnix, who is collecting blogospheric reactions to the PR offensive some major publishers are mounting against open access).
Use the Technorati tag BlogDay2007 to identify a Blog Day post or find others. Happy Blog Day!
In recognition of the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum at The Intersection provide a series of posts about the lessons from this disaster. At Gristmill, Joseph Romm explains why Hurricane Katrina busts the myth that humans can adapt to climate change.
Elsewhere:
by Susan F. Wood, PhD
Today’s Washington Post writes about one more instance where women’s health and children’s health were a lower priority than the interests of a powerful group. In this case, it was breastfeeding vs. the formula industry.
Marc Kaufman and Christopher Lee write:
In an attempt to raise the nation’s historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples.
Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.
The ads ran instead with more friendly images of dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream scoops, to dramatize how breast-feeding could help avert respiratory problems and obesity. In a February 2004 letter, the lobbyists told then-HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson they were “grateful” for his staff’s intervention to stop health officials from “scaring expectant mothers into breast-feeding,” and asked for help in scaling back more of the ads.
by Celeste Monforton
Max Follmer of The Huffington Post reports that MSHA has rebuffed a request from the Crandall Canyon families to designate the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to serve as their representative during MSHA’s formal accident investigation.
“In a statement e-mailed to The Huffington Post, MSHA spokesman Dirk Fillpot defended the agency’s actions, saying federal officials have spent ‘untold hours’ briefing the families of the missing miners. We are disappointed that the UMWA is trying to use a law enforcement investigation for its own purposes.”
Hmmm. Where have I heard this before?
Early on in the disaster, when the TV cameras couldn’t get enough of the Crandall Canyon operator, Mr. Bob Murray lambasted the miners’ union, along with Davitt McAteer and Tony Oppegard, and accussed them of trying to organize workers at the mine. (here) Now, MSHA’s spokesman Dirk Fillpot is using Murray’s script?? Could things get any worse for miners’ safety in this country?
By Liz Borkowski
Here in the U.S., people seem to like the idea of our government ensuring that we’ve got clean air, clean water, and healthy workplaces, and that our exposure to toxic substances is limited. However, we also keep electing politicians who make it hard for federal agencies to ensure these things.
We’ve written before about problems at OSHA, where workers suffer from preventable harm while officials emphasize voluntary compliance at the expense of standard-setting, and at FDA, where a rush to review new drug applications leaves post-market drug safety under-resourced. While presidential appointees heading these agencies deserve a share of the blame (a hefty share, in the case of OSHA’s Edwin Foulke), the legislation governing agency activities often erects hurdles that can slow progress to a crawl. A new report from Environmental Defense shows how this is happening at EPA with toxic chemical legislation.
By David Michaels
The media has been buzzing (see here and here and here) about the announcement by the Pop Weaver Company that they will soon be marketing a butter flavored microwave popcorn that doesn’t use diacetyl in the butter flavor. As readers of this blog know, diacetyl (a component of artificial butter flavor) has been implicated in dozens of cases of terrible lung disease in workers who manufacture, mix and apply flavorings. (We’d like to know if the chemicals that have replaced diacetyl are safe – but that will be the subject of a later post).
We still don’t know if exposure to diacetyl at home is dangerous. A year ago, we asked the EPA to release the results of a study of the airborne materials that are released when bags of microwaved popcorn are opened, but the agency has refused, although the agency acknowledged it has given the results to the popcorn industry. Now, it appears that the still secret findings helped convince Pop Weaver to drop diacetyl.
The Mountain Eagle’s Tom Bethell recounts a 1986 coal mining disaster in Queensland, Australia which involved an explosion in an abandoned, sealed area which caused the death of 12 miners. Its similarities to the 2006 Sago tragedy end there because, as Bethell writes:
In the wake of that disaster, the Australian government launched an innovative program to spur development of through-the-earth communication and tracking technology. Australian coal producers agreed to assess themselves a per-ton fee, with the revenues used by the government to support companies—mostly small entrepreneurial start-ups—whose concepts showed promise.
In his editorial “An Unnatural Disaster” he offers his experienced assessment of what’s wrong with our nation’s mine safety enforcement system and the coal industry.
More distressing news related to Ground Zero keeps coming out. A probe has been launched into the Deutsche Bank building fire that killed two firefighters on August 18th; community leaders are criticizing the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for hiring a demolition subcontractor with insufficient experience and numerous city and federal violations listed against it. The building pipe that was supposed to supply the firefighter with water had been turned off.
Also, findings released by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene show that Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers have developed asthma at a rate that is 12 times what would be expected for adults.
Elsewhere:
During one of Mr. Bob Murray’s endless television appearances, he was asked why his underground coal mine in Illinois had received more than 900 safety and health violations last year. In his “I’m just a humble coal miner” kind-of-way, he tried to explain that the public just doesn’t understand that getting written up by a mine inspector is commonplace, and most of those 900 violations were for trivial items like not having toilet paper in the restrooms.
Oh really? I reviewed all 975 violations cited in 2006 at Murray Energy’s coal mine in Galatia, Illinois, and only 3 of the 975 had anything to do with toilets or toilet paper. Instead, I identified more than 190 violations for having an accumulation of combustible material (i.e., piles of coal and coal dust), nearly 70 for electrical-system problems, and more than 50 for inadequate roof or rib control (i.e., to prevent cave-ins).
By Susan F. Wood, PhD
The Journal of Women’s Health published a special report and an editorial last month on the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health (FDA OWH) that provide information and insight into the multiple roles of such an office, and the importance of maintaining the scientific research funded there. The special report, “The Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health: Impact of Science on Regulatory Policy” identifies some of the major projects initiated by the FDA OWH, more than 100 studies costing more than $14 million over 10 years. This is a very small amount compared to NIH or to what the regulated industry funds (billions each year), but is focused on elucidating data that can help the FDA make regulatory decisions that affect the health of both women and men.
By Kristen Perosino
Congress is currently considering important legislation to improve drug and medical device safety and strengthen scientific integrity at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Both the House (H.R. 2900) and Senate (S. 1082) versions contain provisions that should be adopted in the final bill to better protect public health. One such provision is Title V Section 501 of the Senate bill regarding the right of FDA scientists to publish their research. This language, which amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, adds the following wording to the policy on the review and clearance of scientific articles published by FDA employees:
By David Michaels
Tort “reformers” have long contended (with little evidence) that fear of litigation has scared off vaccine manufacturers from developing new vaccines.
It has been more than twenty years since Congress established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The program was designed to ensure that anyone injured by a vaccine would be fairly compensated, while protecting vaccine manufacturers from liability. Even with this program, the pace of new vaccine development slowed to a crawl in the 1990s. Opponents of law suits, including President George W. Bush, regularly use the industry’s inability to develop new vaccines as a rationale for limiting the ability of victims to sue.
It turns out, not surprisingly, that these “reformers” were wrong. With no major change in the tort law, vaccine development, according to the New York Times, is “roaring back.” Times business columnist G. Pascal Zachary writes that
By the mid-1990s, however, innovation in vaccines had virtually come to a halt. Only a handful of companies even tried to develop new ones, compared with 25 in 1955.
But fear of liability, it seems, has had little to do with the failure of manufacturers to develop new vaccines. According to Zachary
in a stunning reversal, innovators today are chasing dozens of vaccines, stimulated by some recent high-profile successes. “People see vaccines as money makers,” says Paul A. Offit, chief of the infectious diseases section at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia… Read the rest of this entry »
by Susan F. Wood, PhD
The last week of August is full of anniversaries for me, both public and personal. On August 24, it has been one year since the partial approval of Plan B emergency contraception over-the-counter (OTC) for those over 18 years old. Two days later on August 26 is the 87th anniversary of the day that women got the right to vote, Women’s Equality Day. It also is the 2nd anniversary of the day that FDA leadership once again denied the approval of Plan B OTC despite all of the evidence and support within FDA for its approval. August 31st, just 5 days later, marks the two-year anniversary of my resignation from FDA as Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health in response to the Aug. 26th decision.
Four months ago, Mr. Dale Jones, 51 and Mr. Michael Wilt, 38 were killed in a massive highwall collapse at a surface coal mine near Barton, Maryland. The two miners were buried under 93,000 tons of rock, and it took rescue crews three days to recover the men’s bodies.
This week, MSHA assessed a monetary penalty of $180,000 against the mine operator Tri-Star Mining, Inc. (Their accident investigation report was issued six weeks ago.)
There are several issues this week that attracted multiple bloggers’ attention:
It might sound like a good idea for Medicare to stop paying to treat avoidable complications, but Chris Rangel at RangelMD, N=1 at Universal Health, and
Orac at Respectful Insolence have some concerns about the this rule change.
Matt Madia at Reg Watch alerts us to a proposed rule that will make it easier for companies to engage in destructive mountaintop-removal mining. Meanwhile, Gristmill is featuring reports from Gabriel Pacyniak and Katherine Chandler, who are traveling throughout southern West Virginia - and talking with residents, activists, miners, mine company officials, local reporters, and politicians - to report on mountaintop removal mining (Parts 2-4 here, here, and here). Over at Enviroblog, Jovana explains why the U.S. General Mining Law of 1972 needs to change.
A PLoS One paper entitled “HIV Denial in the Internet Era” by Tara C. Smith (of Aetiology fame) and Steven P. Novella attracted a lot of attention in the blogosphere this week. Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily and Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata share their reactions to it and encourage everyone to go read it – it’s open access, after all.
Elsewhere:
If you haven’t seen it yet, go read Edward Cody’s Washington Post article on a recent Chinese mine disaster. It begins with a description from a survivor:
XINTAI, China, Aug. 23 — The first sign of trouble was a stream of water that burst from a wall deep in the mine, Wang Kuitao recalled. Within minutes, he said, the water was everywhere, rushing down the shaft carrying tons of mud. Another disaster was on the way, Wang quickly concluded, one more in the cruel rhythm of China’s deadly coal fields.
By Liz Borkowski
Revere’s been keeping us up to date on the latest news about the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences – specifically, the stepping aside of Director Dr. David Schwartz for an NIH investigation, and the letter sent to NIEHS employees with the apparent goal of discouraging whistle-blowing. It seems like a good time to review some NIEHS happenings that had already attracted congressional scrutiny.
This time, it’s not an Act of God, but instead it just that Big, Bad Mountain. Owner/operator of the Crandall Canyon mine, Mr. Bob Murray said today:
“Had I known that this evil mountain, this alive mountain, would do what it did, I would never have sent the miners in here. I’ll never go near that mountain again.”
We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried. No wonder reporters were wondering where Mr. Murray has been over the last few days. (I had two calls on Monday wondering if I knew where to find him. )
They were craving a few more choice quotes from the guy. He didn’t disappoint.
These three men were killed while trying to rescue six miners trapped at Crandall Canyon in Utah:
- Dale Ray Black, 48, of Huntington, Utah (read more about him from the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News)
- Brandon Kimber, 29, of Price, Utah (read more about him from USA Today and the Washington Post)
- Gary Jensen, 48, of Redmond, Utah (read more about him from 9NEWS)
In other news:
The Mountain Eagle’s Tom Bethell pulls no punches in today’s editorial with an in-your-face critique of the coal industry and their investment (not!) in safety technology. He writes:
“Name five U.S. coal companies that have generously supported research to develop a two-way PED, hardened wireless two-way phone systems, and a tracking system capable of instantly locating miners. You can’t, because none has.“
“Worse yet, the coal industry isn’t spending a dime to help undercapitalized entrepreneurs move their promising products from bench-testing to mine-testing and then through the final MSHA- approval stage – a frustratingly slow, costly process that thwarts innovation. For the industry to sit on the sidelines is scandalous – and just a tad ironic, since the captains of the coal industry aren’t shy about proclaiming themselves champions of free enterprise.”
Cross-posted by Revere at Effect Measure
You wonder when they will ever learn — or IF they will ever learn. In the wake of yesterday’s announcement that the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Dr. David Schwartz, will step aside while NIH does an inquiry into allegations of turmoil at the institute and management irregularities, comes a letter sent to NIEHS employees — and as far as we know only NIEHS employees — asking for reporting of any contacts with Congress:
Mr. Eleazar Torres-Gomez, 46, was killed at an Oklahoma Cintas laundry plant on March 6, 2007, when he was dragged into an industrial dryer because of an unguarded conveyor. Federal OSHA investigated the fatality and, this week, proposed a $2.78 million penalty for, among other things, 42 willful violations of its lockout/tagout standard.
OSHA’s Asst. Secretary stated:
“Plant management at the Cintas Tulsa laundry facility ignored safety and health rules that could have prevented the death of the employee.”
In a McClatchy Newspapers article, Kevin G. Hall shows how China and the Bush administration have both undermined efforts to keep lead out of children’s products by opposing efforts to police Chinese imports. This description of the Bush administration’s role will sound familiar to regular readers of this blog (emphasis added):
Consumer advocates say the Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children’s products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.
Sounds similar to the shift from regulation and enforcement to compliance assistance that’s been observed at MSHA and OSHA, doesn’t it? The industry-friendly approach is harming children as well as workers.
By Liz Borkowski
Although work has begun on a fifth borehole into the Crandall Canyon mine, officials acknowledged yesterday that the six miners may not be found. This LA Times article describes the anguishing choice between leaving the miners underground – a notion “akin to soldiers leaving comrades on the battlefield” – and risking more fatalities in a rescue operation that’s already claimed three lives.
In today’s Washington Post, Karl Vick and Sonya Geis report that the focus has now shifted to determining the cause of collapse, and the retreat mining techniques being used are the first thing many people will examine. MSHA will also come under scrutiny, for a couple of reasons.
When MSHA’s Gary Jensen, 53, died last week in a rockburst at the Crandall Canyon mine, it had been 26 years since a federal mine inspector had died in the line of duty. Mr. Jensen joined MSHA in 2001 as an inspector. He had worked for nearly 30 years as a coal miner, and was especially skilled in roof control.
He is survived by a wife and four children, with one remarking that one of his father’s trademarks was putting himself before others.
Cross-posted by Revere at Effect Measure
In an email letter sent internally to all National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) personnel, its Director, Dr. David Schwartz, has announced he is temporarily stepping aside while the NIH Director, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, conducts an internal review of NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program (NATP), both of which have come under fire from congressional, internal and outside critics (see our posts, here, here and here). Here is the text of Dr. Schwartz’s email, as we received it:
For the first year on the job, a new underground coal miner wears a red-colored hardhat to signal to everyone on the crew that he (or she) is a rookie. These so-called “red hats” receive 40 hours of safety training before they are allowed to take on any mining duties, on topics ranging roof control, mine gases, evacuation procedures, and their rights provided by the Mine Act (1978). By tradition, after one year on-the-job, “red hats” earn a black hard hat. I’ve heard stories of some young miners keeping track inside their dinner buckets the number of days until they can shed their red hat for a black one.
When CNN’s Gary Tuchman accompanied mine operator Bob Murray into the Crandall Canyon mine, the reporter wasn’t wearing a red-hat, but a squeeky-clean looking one apparently preserved for visitors. A debate about whether it was wise to allow reporters underground during an ongoing rescue effort has played out in the Utah papers. It started with Ellen Smith, the managing editor of the Mine Safety and Health News, writing:
…as someone who has covered the health and safety side of this industry for 18 years…I could not believe what I was seeing on CNN news and reading on MSHA’s website: a television crew and accompanying reporters, and family members, being allowed inside the mine to view the rescue operations. I sat glued to the TV watching the CNN newscast—speechless. All I could think of was: “What was MSHA and mine owner Robert Murray thinking when they allowed these non-rescue personnel into the mine?” I was stunned.
Apparently, there’s something about a study involving cats and flame retardants that makes it irresistible blogging fodder. Lisa Stiffler at Dateline Earth was the first to alert us to the study, reporting that it linked cats’ PBDE exposure and hyperthyroidism. (PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, are flame retardants that have been banned in Washington state due to health concerns associated with them.) The Olive Ridley Crawl points out a logical fallacy regarding PBDE and reminds us that correlation is not causation. Eric DePlace at Gristmill and EvilMonkey at Neurotopia combine info on PBDEs with cat photos.
Elsewhere:
MSHA reports:
“At approximately 8:39 pm (EDT) Thursday night, a significant bounce occurred at the mine. Three rescue workers are confirmed dead, including one MSHA inspector. Six others remain hospitalized. At this time, all rescue efforts have been suspended.”
The MSHA inspector who was fatally injured in this latest coal-pillar rockburst was Mr. Gary Jensen, who worked out the MSHA’s Price, Utah office. Gary was a member of MSHA’s mine rescue team. Before joining MSHA, he worked as a coal miner for SUFCO Coal and had also been part of that company’s mine rescue team.
Another MSHA inspector from the Price, Utah field office, Mr. Frank Markosek, was also underground when the violent rockburst occurred. He was seriously injured. Both of these men, like nearly every MSHA employee, are committed to protecting the health and safety of miners. They were underground at the Crandall Canyon mine specifically to ensure that the Murray Energy coal miners digging through the collapse and setting roof and rib supports were working as safely as possible. Like coal miners across the world, they were part of a brotherhood, living by an unspoken promise to one another: “I’ve got your back.”
By Liz Borkowski
Aman at Technology, Health & Development reminds us that it’s World Water Week, and provides a great collection of water-related links for the occasion. Several of the articles are about a backlash against bottled water – apparently, a critical mass of people has just discovered that a) tap water is often as clean, if not cleaner, than bottled water and b) that buying bottled water is wasteful.
Now that we’re all quenching our thirst with tap water again, this might be a good time to look at a few concerns that have been arising about municipal water supplies.
Join an on-line chat at 1:00 pm today (8/16) on technology to locate trapped miners.
On day 11, the rescue efforts continue for the six trapped miners at a Utah coal mine. A third borehole (2″) punctured the mine workings yesterday afternoon to allow a camera to be lowered into the mine to scan for any sign of the miners. With each borehole drilled and each camera-search, the questions being repeated across the nation are “where are the miners?” and “why don’t we know more precisely where they are in the mine?”
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a third borehole has reached a cavity in the Crandall Canyon mine, but efforts to lower a microphone into it have failed so far. The Tribune has the most extensive coverage of the rescue efforts, and in a blog post yesterday Arianna Huffington contrasts its performance to that of the New York Times:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its preliminary numbers on 2006 fatal occupational injuries, and Katherine Torres at Occupational Hazards reports on what they show. The rate of fatal work injuries declined slightly, from 4 per 100,000 in 2005 to 3.9 in 2006, but some industries showed increases:
• The 47 coal mining fatalities, many of them from major disasters such as Sago, is more than double the 22 fatalities from that industry in 2005.
• The 415 aircraft-related fatalities represented a 44% increase over last year’s total of 149.
• Construction was the industry sector with the most fatal injuries: 1,226, a 3% increase from 2005.
Highway incidents remained one of the most frequent types of fatal work-related events, but the 1,329 fatal highway incidents represented that sector’s lowest annual toll since 1993.
In a statement regarding the figures, Assistant Secretary of Labor Edwin Foulke said, “Even one fatality is one too many. To end fatalities, injuries and illnesses on the job, nothing is more effective than prevention.”
In other news:
by Tom Bethell (Posted with permission from The Mountain Eagle, Whitesburg, KY)
As we go to press, six coal miners remain trapped in Murray Energy’s Crandall Canyon Mine, near Huntington, Utah. Nothing has been heard from them since a portion of the mine caved in on August 6, and the heartbreakingly slow efforts to reach them have yielded no sign of whether they are alive. We join with mining communities throughout the coalfields in praying for their rescue, even as time grinds away at the odds of achieving that outcome.
Meanwhile, everyone anxious about the fate of the miners has had to endure a week of watching the mine’s owner, Robert Murray, demonstrating why he doesn’t deserve to be trusted with the facts, let alone the lives of thousands of people who depend on him for their livelihoods.
In “Memo shows mine already had roof problems,” (Aug 12) the Salt Lake Tribune’s Robert Gehrke first reported on a history of rockbursts at the Crandall Canyon mine.* I first learned this on NPR’s Morning Edition (Aug 14) when Frank Langfitt reported that in March of this year, another severe rockburst occurred at the Crandall Canyon coal mine. Apparently, no miners were injured by that mining “bump,” which Langfitt described “like an explosion as the floor buckles and coal shoots out from the pillars that hold up the ceiling,” but the situation was severe enough, that Murray Energy hired a consulting firm to assess the conditions and provide recommendations.
My question: did the mine operator report this earlier rockburst to MSHA?
OSHA’s Area Office in Pittsburgh issued 46 citations, including 16 repeat violations and one willful against Shane Felter Industries, Inc. of Uniontown, PA. A proposed penalty of $166,400 accompanied the citations. OSHA’s Area Director Robert Szymanski said:
“Shane Felter Industries’ refusal to remove hazards ultimately threatens the safety and health of its employees. It is imperative that this employer correct these violations to prevent a potential tragedy.”
The company has 62 employees.
In Indiana on Friday, three men died from a 500-foot plunge down an air shaft being built at a coal mine:
Christopher Todd Richardson, 38, of Cedar Bluff, Virginia
Daniel McFadden, 66, of Greybull, Wyoming
Jarred A. Ashmore, 23, of Henderson, Kentucky
The Associated Press reports:
Ellen Smith, Managing Editor of Mine Safety and Health News reported at 5:30 pm (EST, 8/12) on the status of the operation to rescue the six trapped miners at the Crandall Canyon mine in Emery County, Utah. She wrote that MSHA Assistant Secretary Richard Sticker, said they are dealing with
“the most difficult ground conditions — ever”
and conditions are getting much more difficult.
by Ken Ward, Jr. (This item first appeared on Nieman Watchdog; posted with permission)
Often after accidents like the one at Crandall Canyon, Utah, mine operators claim their mines had relatively few violations. Even if that’s true—and often it isn’t—‘relatively few’ just isn’t good enough in a risky venture like coal mining. As I write this, the news out of Crandall Canyon, Utah, is not looking good. The Associated Press reports that a tiny microphone lowered deep into the earth early Friday picked up no evidence that six coal miners caught in cave-in four days ago were still alive.
The national, and international, media continue their watch over the effort to rescue the miners – and to fill the never-ending television and Internet news cycle. Media outlets of all stripes have turned mine owner Bob Murray into a household name. CNN got to pat itself on the back for getting its cameras into the mine. Reporters and scientists have dueled with Murray over whether an earthquake caused the mine collapse, or whether the mine collapse simply looked like an earthquake to the seismic detection systems.
But lost among the frenzy are some important questions. Well, maybe they’re not lost – but they’re not being asked and answered very bluntly. First and foremost, why is it acceptable for the coal industry to break the law?
In the last few days, we have all been in a state of shock over the situation in Utah. Like several of my colleagues, I have been praying for the trapped Utah miners and their families and friends. I have been tuning in to the press conferences with mine owner Bob Murray, and I have been refreshing CNN’s website over and over again to get the latest news on the rescue efforts.
Today, I walked passed a yellowed newspaper article from the Washington Post we hung on the side of a filing cabinet 20 months ago, in January 2006.
While we’re all sending our thoughts and hopes to the miners and their families at Crandall Canyon, we also owe it to all coal miners to highlight the conditions that make such mining disasters more likely and to pressure those in charge to correct them.
Tula Connell at Firedoglake delves into the mine’s citation record, mine owner Robert Murray’s political connections, and recent trends in mine safety. At Daily Kos, Devilstower explains (from experience) the tricky aspects of drilling down to trapped miners, and the mine’s use of retreat mining. David Roberts at Gristmill also criticizes Murray, then points out that we’re all complicit in the terrible toll that coal takes.
(And if you haven’t already read them, Celeste Monforton has posted on mine rescuers, lessons that should have been learned from Sago, and Sago victims’ message to Utah families.)
Elsewhere:
Marty Bennett was a coal miner with 29 years of experience, including work at operations that practiced “retreat mining.” He died at age 51 at the Sago mine in January 2006, along with 11 other coal miners. Today, his family organized a letter of support for the Crandall Canyon miners’ families from victim-families of previous coal mining fatalities. Their letter was published in the Salt Lake City Tribune. (Full text below)
The expert panel evaluating the chemical bisphenol A for the National Toxicology Program has “some concern” that BPA exposure causes neural and behavioral effects in developing fetuses, infants, and children. The panel has “minimal concern” or “negligible concern” that BPA affects the prostate or causes premature puberty or birth defects. (PDF draft meeting summary here)
Several scientists and health advocates have expressed far more concern about the effects of BPA, an estrogen-like compound that’s found in plastic and also in most of our bodies. Last week, 38 scientists published a consensus statement in the journal Reproductive Toxicology that concluded, “The wide range of adverse effects of low doses of BPA in laboratory animals exposed both during development and in adulthood is a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans.” (Living on Earth, which aired a segment on BPA last week, has posted a PDF of the statement.)
Marla Cone at the LA Times explains what the panel reviewed and why it characterized the risks as it did:
Jeff Lehr at the Joplin Globe reports that a new round of lawsuits has been filed against makers of an artificial butter flavoring used at a microwave popcorn plant in Jasper County, Missouri. Exposure to artificial butter flavoring – in particular, the chemical diacetyl – has been linked to severe obstructive lung disease, and the 44 plaintiffs in the two latest lawsuits allege that exposure to butter flavoring caused severe impairment of their lungs. Lehr explains:
Recent events remind us about the difficult and valuable work of rescue and recovery. Celeste Monforton has already taken a look at the mine rescue teams that respond to disasters like the collapse at the Crandall County mine in Utah. Meanwhile, divers are at work in the aftermath of last week’s bridge collapse. Dee DePass at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune follows the work of a Wisconsin dive crew as they face powerful currents, 82-degree water, and poor visibility that makes it hard to navigate around dangerous debris. In Time Magazine, Mitch Anderson describes the precautions divers have to take so they aren’t added to the disaster’s death toll.
Responding to disasters poses mental as well as physical challenges. Aimee Heckel at the Boulder Daily Camera looks at the psychological effects of humanitarian and relief work, citing a Pan American Health Organization estimate that two-thirds of relief workers exposed to trauma suffer moderate or severe distress that can cause symptoms for months or years if not treated.
In other news:
More than 1,900 miles separate the Sago Baptist Church in Buckhannon, WV and the Emery County Senior Citizens Center in Huntington, UT. But the cavalcade of feelings from fear and hope, to uncertainty and despair is something only those who’ve been in their shoes can understand. In January 2006, it was the families of 12 trapped WV miners who were waiting and praying; today it is six families at a Utah community center. The families in Buckhannon wanted 12 miracles, but there was only one: Mr. Randall McCloy. If we hear a joyful announcement ”They’re Alive,” I’ve no doubt that bells at the Sago Baptist church will ring in celebration and solidarity.
Meanwhile, what have the last two days demonstrated about lessons learned from the Sago disaster?
It no longer seems unusual to see an article in the Washington Post or the New York Times about Bush administration officials interfering with science for political reasons. Over the past week, though, two major news sources that reach a different audience have given this problem a lot of ink.
As I stay tuned for news on the fate of the six coal miners trapped at the Crandall Canyon mine in Emery County, Utah I’ve heard numerous tv and radio reporters say “hundreds of mine rescuers” have converged near the worksite to assist with the rescue operation. Who are these “mine rescuers”?
In today’s New York Times, Eric Lipton and Louise Story examine the problem of lead in inexpensive children’s jewelry. Inspections have found lead problems one out of five times when testing these products, suggesting that hundreds of thousands of contaminated jewelry items remain on the market. Here’s why jewelry is particularly problematic:
Jewelry is perhaps the most dangerous place for lead because children can swallow an entire ring or pendant, causing acute poisoning, which can cause respiratory failure, seizures and even death, whereas neurological damage and learning deficiencies are often associated with exposure to lead paint. Many children also tend to suck on jewelry or put it in their mouths, allowing lead to be absorbed into their bloodstream.
From 2000 to 2005, about 20,000 children turned up in emergency rooms after ingesting jewelry, according to a hospital surveillance program by the agency, though it is not know how many of those cases involved lead. These cheap products, made of lead because it is an inexpensive metal filler, also easily fall apart, making it even easier for a child to swallow a small part.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been working on the problem of lead in children’s jewelry since early 2005, and 17.9 million pieces of jewelry - 95 percent of them made in China - have been pulled from the market since then. These recalls haven’t solved the problem, though.
Most of us already know that climate change is shrinking glaciers, but two recent articles paint an alarming picture of how quickly glaciers are receding – and what that means for millions of people relying on them.
Back in April we reported that OSHA, facing scrutiny over its failure to protect food and flavoring workers from exposure to the butter flavoring chemical diacetyl, had announced a National Emphasis Program for the microwave popcorn industry. Last week, OSHA published a directive (PDF) to launch this one-year program.
OSHA’s effort will involve “inspection targeting, direction on methods of controlling chemical hazards, and extensive compliance assistance.” The most glaring hole in the program, as we noted earlier, is that it only covers microwave popcorn manufacturing.
There’s lots of pre-recess activity in Congress right now, and bloggers provide news and commentary:
- Joe at Climate Progress has been following CAFE standards in the House (here, here, and here) and has the latest on Senate climate legislation.
- Van Jones at Gristmill highlights the Green Jobs Act of 2007, which the media has largely overlooked.
- Ed Silverman at Pharmalot updates us on what’s happening with prescription drug legislation.
- Aimee Witteman at Gristmill and