Obama Labor Department Tightens Black Lung Rules Decades In The Making
WASHINGTON -- On Wednesday the Labor Department announced new rules that will tighten the standards protecting U.S. miners from black lung disease, a move that's been decades in the making and eagerly awaited by mine safety advocates.
Among the most significant changes, the new rules will lower the level of coal dust that mine operators are legally allowed to have in the atmosphere of the mine. Prolonged exposure to coal dust is what leads to coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung.
The rules will also equip miners with what's known as a personal dust monitor, or PDM. The technology will allow miners to see in real time how much coal dust exposure they are experiencing. Experts say the PDM will be instrumental in letting miners know how healthy or unhealthy the atmosphere is in which they're working.
The changes have been discussed and scrutinized for years, and will now begin to go into effect in phases.
"This is a rule for coal miners at the end of the day, and it's been a long time coming," Joe Main, the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the Labor Department agency that enforces mine safety law, said in an interview with The Huffington Post. "This is a rule that will give those who are working today a better shot at a career without ruining their lungs."
After years of steady decline, many pockets of Appalachia have recently seen a resurgence in black lung, a miserable disease that leaves miners to live out their days with coughing fits and chronic shortness of breath. From 1967 to 2007, the disease played a role in at least 75,000 U.S. deaths, according to the Center for Public Integrity. There's also been a spike in the most severe forms of the disease since the late 1990s. Autopsies following the 2010 disaster at Upper Big Branch, which claimed 29 lives, turned up disturbingly high levels of black lung in miners as young as 30 years old.
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