I have lived 24 years in the hills of eastern Kentucky, and for a good portion of those 24 years, I have known that if I were to have children, I’d want to raise them in the hills where I grew up.
Now, I’m not so sure about that because a recently released study shows that birth defect rates are higher where mountaintop removal coal mining occurs, which encompasses the entirety of eastern Kentucky.
It’s not that this finding necessarily surprises me. I’ve suspected for years that MTR mining was the cause of higher rates of cancer, heart disease and lung conditions like asthma among those living in the hills. So, really, this new study, which clearly outlines the newest assault on the health of Appalachians, is nothing to be shocked about.
I’m not even shocked at the complacency with which this study was received by the coal industry, mainly because when you’re in the business of pollution, deflecting the truth about the detrimental effects of said pollution comes as second nature.
In fact, I’m quite positive no one living in the mountains that read the media reports about this study was one bit surprised or shocked by its findings.
The most troubling aspect about this report and the reaction to it is that almost everyone – most especially the owners of coal operations in the mountains – knows these studies about the health impacts of MTR mining are most likely 100 percent accurate, yet they chose to do nothing to change the status quo.
All anyone living in Appalachian Kentucky has to do to know the results are truthful is look around their hollers at all the cases of rare cancers, heart troubles, kidney disorders, lung diseases and yes, even birth defects.
But this new round of study results does not concern the already living. Those people have at least some small choice in where they live, the water they drink and the air they breathe.
The unborn, however, have no choice. Though I know no one asks to be slowly poisoned with carcinogens and heavy metals from the land, air and water, it just seems completely and unbelievably criminal for coal companies to stunt Appalachian Kentuckians health before they are even born.
Not only does the health of Eastern Kentucky babies suffer, but their choices in life are becoming increasingly limited because of the disabilities they may inherit from a legacy of environmental degradation upheld by a greedy and pollution-laced industry.
This is an outrageous reality. But what truly enrages me the most is the knowledge that every coal company currently operating in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky is completely aware of the amount of pollution they are dumping into the air and water. They are also completely aware of the true effects on human health those pollutants will cause. I will never be convinced otherwise, especially after a coalition of environmental groups discovered over 20,000 blatant violations of the Clean Water Act committed by the two largest MTR coal producing companies in the state.
I know coal production is on the decline in Kentucky and throughout Appalachia – even the coal industry agrees to this fact. But it seems that until the coal runs out, there’s always going to be a troubling and disturbing undertone beneath the mining and burning of coal – an undertone that we as people of the region can no longer condone, excuse or ignore.
There are alternatives to mining and burning coal. The technologies for renewable energy production free from high levels of produced pollution do exist and are viable alternatives to coal.
We must advocate for options in how our energy is produced; we must fight to save our land and water from the daily deluge of poison-dumping created by the coal industry; and we must support a diversified economy in the mountains that will help us break the shackles placed around our good health by the coal industry.
We need healthy babies to help us create a bigger and brighter future for our region in which coal is no longer king, and if we don’t stand up for ourselves, then we must stand up for future generations, whom we now know are being attacked and assaulted by the coal industry before they are even born.
I will have to make a lot of important choices in my life, but of all the major choices I will have to make, wondering whether or not it’s safe to have my future babies in my homeland of Eastern Kentucky should not even have to register on that list. I, nor any other young woman who wishes to have children in the place of their own birth, should ever have to think about the ramifications which our future children might have to endure simply from living where our families have lived for generations.
The coal company forcing that decision upon us is just plain wrong.
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