01-05-2025
If not now, then when? Silica dust has been a problem for decades
Hawk's Nest Tunnel during construction in 1930. Workers had to drill through rock that contained high levels of silica, making workers sick within months. (National Park Services photo)
As the West Virginia Legislature wound up its less than stellar session this year, the titled words to this commentary, rooted in the teachings of Hillel the Elder, a Jewish sage who lived in the first century CE, echoed in my mind, reaching an even greater, fevered pitch knowing that JFK and John Lewis were known to echo the phrase often in the context of political and social activism. The power in those five words resounds loud and clear to each of us — at least we can hope they do.
While state legislators were tasked with a number of vital pieces of legislation, I honed in on the continued and shameful disregard for the certain and necessary protections of West Virginia's coal miners whose lives continue to be threatened from the inhalation of silica dust particles, which is the leading cause of black lung disease, along with lung cancer, kidney disease, COPD and cardiovascular illnesses.
In learning that a federal appeals court issued a temporary stay on the implementation of what advocates have called a long overdue industry rule that would have limited how much silica dust coal miners are exposed to, I recalled one of the nation's worst industrial tragedies — the building of the Hawks Nest Tunnel in Fayette County, West Virginia, in the early 1930s, when an economic depression plagued this country. Stop for a minute to consider the incredulity of a period of time fighting the same issue that spans nearly one hundred years. It's outrageous.
In the fall of 1990, shortly after completing my graduate work, I wrote a piece for Goldenseal titled, 'Hawks Nest, the Novel.' Since my graduate thesis focused on the history of early West Virginia authors, it would not have been complete without a discussion of Hubert Skidmore's controversial work. Still, after all these years, the same threat to every coal miner's life continues. It's unfathomable that this is still an issue. In fact, it's obscene. The silica rock that the builders of the Hawks Nest Tunnel drilled through — completely unprotected — is being breathed by Appalachian coal miners today, in 2025.
The tunnel workers developed horrendous coughs and had trouble breathing, ending their shifts covered in a thick blanket of dust. Some died and were buried in unmarked graves in a field in Summersville, often before their families were informed of their death. The only time the dust was abated was when the foreman announced the arrival of the mine inspector and turned on the water to keep the dust down. Once the mine inspector left, the water was turned off and remained off. A reviewer for the New York Times reported in 1941, 'It is a story of crass injustice to make the reader's blood boil.'
Fast forward decades later and the problem persists. Why? The answer is simple — money. Imposing regulations in order to keep the related diseases caused by the breathing of silica dust at bay cost money, and coal operators/owners don't want their bottom lines (i.e., profits) affected negatively. Valuing profits over people's lives is incomprehensible. How can basic, decent concern for your fellow man, the very men who risk their lives to line your pockets with even more profit, be ignored?
Yes, we are a country that is divided at every turn, wrestling with politicians who, on one side, fight for the worker and who, on the other, quite simply don't. Corporate profits versus tighter safety measures for coal miners has a long history, none more obvious than in West Virginia.
Are we going to be writing this same story in yet another decade from now? Are we going to leave it to the next generation to tackle? At what point are we going to say, 'Enough!'
Theodore Roosevelt issued these resounding words: 'There can be no life without change, and to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life.'
I don't think it's inherent in the human spirit to belittle the worker and be concerned only with corporate greed. I think that the latter is a conscious choice that must certainly plague the conscience of those who choose to put their own interests above everything that is inherently decent and good about mankind. I often wonder what events, experiences led someone to toss aside respect and decency and concern for their fellow man and prioritize only their own agenda. I guarantee there is a reason, for to suggest that the workers' concerns are irrelevant is a clear example of pure disregard for those who built this country, brick by brick and shovel by shovel, asking only that they be protected as they reaped enough to provide the basic necessities for their families, while the industry barons rode their backs all the way to the banks, not feeling the least bit responsible for the price paid by the workers. It was unacceptable then, is now, and always will be unacceptable. Yet still, it continues.
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