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Halt Ordered on Study of Health Threat From Surface Mines

trouble13 said:
Yeah yeah yeah, you guys bore me with this lil game you play. Adress my point or move along with you kindergarter tactics.

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The contention that people, usually in poor, rural areas, can just 'move away' is idiotic and not based in reality.

Sorry you're not able to face it.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Halt Ordered on Study of Health Threat From Surface Mines

Federal mining regulators have told the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to halt their study of the health risks for people living near Central Appalachia surface coal mines.....



When science bumps up against White House political policy, simply defund the science and pretend all is well.


Related: Coal Mining Health Study is Halted By Interior Department
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How does stopping one study mean the Trump Administration wants people living around West Virginia coal mines to die?

Could you provide evidence that is the Trump Administrations intent?
 
Tanngrisnir said:
The contention that people, usually in poor, rural areas, can just 'move away' is idiotic and not based in reality.

Sorry you're not able to face it.
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please cite the law that prevents people from moving

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trouble13 said:
please cite the law that prevents people from moving

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Have you and your family ever moved and relocated that you had to pay for it yourself? I would imagine many of the coal miners or others living in rural areas may not have the funds to just move.

Back to the OP. I did a quick search and there seems to be quite a bit of information regarding mining and health issues. I am not sure another study is needed. For me, it does not take much to conclude living downwind to a open coal mine may not be all that healthy. As far as that goes, living next to a garbage dump, oil refinery, etc. may not be the best for ones health. No study needed.
 
poweRob said:
Does that count long term deaths from black lung and whatnot or is that just stats from on the job accidental fatalities?
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Not sure about that, Rob. Good point though. Maybe those reports might not include deaths related to illness. :shrug:
 
MrPeanut said:
We could be allowing coal companies to cause cancer to potentially thousands of residents in the general area of their mining operations. Not trusting outside experts to research this sort of thing seems to be a bigger risk to me than the possibility of someone attempting to manipulate a study because of some nefarious anti-coal agenda. And that is just when it comes to cancer. You don't need an expert to tell you that when a settling pond spills out and turns your water source orange it is probably dangerous.
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Everything causes cancer best I know, that is not the test, the test is do the benefits outweigh the costs. Yes I say we need to know the costs as best we can, which is why the experts must be both good and honest, which is not the case far too often. I am going to assume for now that the new administration looked into what had been done by the last administration and found the work to be crap, crap work that those doing it expected to be passed off as good work by Clinton Corp when finished, because the ends justify the means.
 
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mike2810 said:
Have you and your family ever moved and relocated that you had to pay for it yourself? I would imagine many of the coal miners or others living in rural areas may not have the funds to just move.

Back to the OP. I did a quick search and there seems to be quite a bit of information regarding mining and health issues. I am not sure another study is needed. For me, it does not take much to conclude living downwind to a open coal mine may not be all that healthy. As far as that goes, living next to a garbage dump, oil refinery, etc. may not be the best for ones health. No study needed.
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I do not dispute that it might be fincially impracticle for somebody to move. Lets be honest about it though.

1. We build very few new coal plants where one did not exist before so the example being brought up is an extreme one

2. Communities are free to block zoning permits that allow a coal plant being built near them and in the cases where a coal plant does get approval its not like they are built over night. you have a good 10yr window to move before a coal plant project is completed and as you yourself point out its not rocket science to realize your not gonna like living close to a coal plant.

Some people may get stuck living next to it due to their own limitations but the number is very few and thats not really the coal companys problem. If enviromentalists had their way we would outlaw all industry and everyone would be forced to live as the american indian lived hundreds of years ago.

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Beaudreaux said:
Water is dangerous. If you drink too much water, it can kill you. If you submerge your head under it, water can drown you. If you spend a long time in the rain and get wet, you can get pneumonia and die. If you are holding an electrical appliance and step in water, you can die.

The study being done had but one purpose, to justify an already determined outcome. As I've shown above, we can come up with numerous reasons to determine that pretty much anything is dangerous to our health, and should be outlawed or regulated into non-existence.

That said, regulating to lessen the negative impacts of surface mining, open mining, or strip mining was done a long time ago (see video below), and the closed mines look like pristine forest or golf courses now. The study in the OP was focused on one thing, allowing the Progressives to justify killing the open mining of coal.

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Shutting it down happened for one reason: to line the pockets of mining company boards and their shareholders.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Halt Ordered on Study of Health Threat From Surface Mines

Federal mining regulators have told the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to halt their study of the health risks for people living near Central Appalachia surface coal mines.....



When science bumps up against White House political policy, simply defund the science and pretend all is well.


Related: Coal Mining Health Study is Halted By Interior Department
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Washington and our entire political system serves the corporate "job creator" class.
 
trouble13 said:
First of all I would be mad that my community zoning board would allow dirty pollution type industry to build close enough to residental zones to cause ill effects. If however the zoning board did fail to serve my best interests, I would move.

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So when you go to sell your property how do you think the values will have held up? Do you even believe you could even find a buyer?
 
Phys251 said:
Because apparently some people (not you, but they're out there) need to be reminded of it. Or will come up with lame excuses as to why data that is more than X months old somehow doesn't count. Etc. The excuses for keeping citizens and workers away from clean air and water are a mile high.
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Correct ..I don't. The question is- what to do about it.


There's always a trade off between clean air and clean water and jobs. Most people choose jobs. Often not the best decision but that's reality. The facts of life, as always, are conservative
 
Beaudreaux said:
Water is dangerous. If you drink too much water, it can kill you. If you submerge your head under it, water can drown you. If you spend a long time in the rain and get wet, you can get pneumonia and die. If you are holding an electrical appliance and step in water, you can die.
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That's a really awful argument. We know that smoking causes all kinds of bad health effects because of studies. Using this logic, we'd have defunded all those, and studies on the health effects of lead, mercury, and all the other poisons we used to release into the environment with no restrictions at all. We now heavily regulate mercury and lead, for example, because studies informed us that even tiny amounts in the environment cause lifelong health problems, in the case of lead, mental retardation, especially when ingested by children. Your argument is nothing more than "ignorance is bliss!"

The study being done had but one purpose, to justify an already determined outcome. As I've shown above, we can come up with numerous reasons to determine that pretty much anything is dangerous to our health, and should be outlawed or regulated into non-existence.
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LMAO. You showed no such thing. :roll:

That said, regulating to lessen the negative impacts of surface mining, open mining, or strip mining was done a long time ago (see video below), and the closed mines look like pristine forest or golf courses now. The study in the OP was focused on one thing, allowing the Progressives to justify killing the open mining of coal.
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Now you've changed arguments entirely and conceded that surface mining causes problems, but somehow all the negative effects were addressed long ago, and we can now forget about the issue. Problem solved!! How do you know this? How do you know that residents downwind or downstream of a surface mine face no ill health effects caused by mining activity? You just feel it in your gut, and that's good enough?

And, no, pretty pictures of reclaimed areas with a layer of soil sufficient to grow grass isn't actually evidence of your point.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Sure, and it is important to know these things, preferably before we do them. But see when the so-called experts can no longer be trusted because they are found too often pushing agendas rather than the truth we dont know squat.
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OK, assuming that's true (and you've presented no evidence that on this topic it is true) then the solution is what? Halt all studies because ignorance is preferable? That makes no sense at all, and it's nothing but a copout - 'we can't trust the data because so-called experts cannot be trusted, so let's choose instead no data at all, or alternatively, ignore the conclusions based on the data, but only when we don't agree with those conclusions!'

In the absence of specific information that the conclusions about surface mining (or whatever is the topic under discussion) are misstated, that reasoning is an all purpose excuse to ignore EVERYTHING (you) we don't like.
 
KLATTU said:
Correct ..I don't. The question is- what to do about it.

There's always a trade off between clean air and clean water and jobs. Most people choose jobs. Often not the best decision but that's reality. The facts of life, as always, are conservative
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I reject that false choice. I believe that we can move toward a green economy that grows careers, not just jobs, while giving us a cleaner, greener planet.
 
JasperL said:
OK, assuming that's true (and you've presented no evidence that on this topic it is true) then the solution is what? Halt all studies because ignorance is preferable? That makes no sense at all, and it's nothing but a copout - 'we can't trust the data because so-called experts cannot be trusted, so let's choose instead no data at all, or alternatively, ignore the conclusions based on the data, but only when we don't agree with those conclusions!'

In the absence of specific information that the conclusions about surface mining (or whatever is the topic under discussion) are misstated, that reasoning is an all purpose excuse to ignore EVERYTHING (you) we don't like.
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The solution is for the elites to do better work, and for them to be more honest, to regain the trust of the people.

Contrition for their past sins would help.
 
Beaudreaux said:
I don't believe that businesses have a right to cause harm to anyone, whether they work for them or not. I have no idea why you felt you needed to say that about yourself, except to imply that I did.

There are laws in place now, environmental, health and safety, tort liability, and so on, that prevent a business from doing harm to others and on the chance that harm is done anyway, those laws provide a remedy for those that do get harmed by setting liability on the business that did the harm. It basically comes down to simply proving criminal negligence: 1) was there a duty, 2) was there a failure to perform the duty, 3) was there a harm, and 4) is there a causal relationship between the failure to perform the duty and the harm? The current laws define the duty of businesses.
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First of all, it can't be a defensible argument that so long as a business complies with current laws, they have no other duty to prevent harm to others. Thankfully, our laws allow for those harmed to sue and collect for damages even without proving criminal wrongdoing.

If they do not comply, then they have failed to perform their duty. If a person is harmed, and it can be shown that the harm occurred due to the failure of the business to perform the duty, then the business is criminally and civilly liable. There are no laws that can guarantee that no one will break the law. All we can do is put laws and regulations in place, and then enforce those laws and regulations.
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The standard at least should be "if their actions harm others" the the business should pay damages commensurate with that harm. "If they comply" with current laws is absurdly tilted to the polluters, and just means that as long as they buy off the right politicians and regulators, the polluter can do an unlimited amount of harm with no criminal OR financial penalty. I don't think you believe it, but that's the result of your standard.

Which brings me back to the water. If we expect the government to remove all potential hazards in our life, then the government will be required to outlaw water, or regulate it so tightly that no reasonable person would ever drink water or take a bath ever again.
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Straw man!!

No one expects the government to remove all potential hazards in life. Workers comp laws are a good example. Nothing can make roofing safe for workers, but what the laws require is a roofing company pay the damages WHEN one of its employees falls off and is paralyzed or breaks 12 bones and can no longer work.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
The solution is for the elites to do better work, and for them to be more honest, to regain the trust of the people.

Contrition for their past sins would help.
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But the solution you are I think defending on this thread is to shut down the work entirely.

And what evidence do you have that "the elites" who study the environmental impact of surface mining have done shoddy work or are dishonest?

Not to mention "elites" just means people you don't like. The mining company CEOs are part of the elite, as are Trump and every single person in his administration. So in the debate about mining and health effects we have dueling elites. How can you evaluate who to believe without information? The elites in the Trump administration friendly to the mining interest elites want to shut down the flow of information, which will benefit the mining interest elites.

And since when have mining companies show contrition for their past sins? When have they on the front end said, "you know, we are doing a lot of damage, we should clean up after ourselves at the old mines, install scrubbers at the coal fired plants, and responsibly get rid of the toxic waste all this produces!!" Never, which you know. It's the elites on the environmental side who document the harm done by, e.g., allowing mercury and lead and sulfur into the atmosphere, and passed laws opposed at every step by elites in the coal interests whose only concern is maximizing profits.
 
GDViking said:
So when you go to sell your property how do you think the values will have held up? Do you even believe you could even find a buyer?
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Do you think all investments are garunteed to make a profit?

I dont mean to sound callous but just because you buy a piece of property does not mean it was a good investment. Some people may get more than what the property is worth because the plant needs the land should they defer thier profits over to guy that is taking a loss on his because he held on too long?

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Phys251 said:
I reject that false choice. I believe that we can move toward a green economy that grows careers, not just jobs, while giving us a cleaner, greener planet.
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Nice happy talk, but not very practical .

We are growing towards that. It's inevitable. But in the meantime, we have an economy to run...TODAY.... and tradeoffs have to made.
 
It's just sheer coincidence and providence that federal regulators are terminating a health study regarding a dying industry ... a dying industry that Trump [pro-coal administration] promised to resurrect.

But hey, why allow science, facts, and mortality rates to muck up a Trump campaign promise. You'll never ever see a Trump golf course anywhere near the coal-scarred topography of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.


Mountaintop Mining Consequences - The University of Maryland

Mountains of Evidence: Study Underway of Mountaintop Removal Mining - Ohio Valley ReSource

Why Study Problems When You Can Simply Ignore Them?
 
Hawkeye10 said:
The solution is for the elites to do better work, and for them to be more honest, to regain the trust of the people.

Contrition for their past sins would help.
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Elites like your boy Donny?
 
KLATTU said:
Nice happy talk, but not very practical .

We are growing towards that. It's inevitable. But in the meantime, we have an economy to run...TODAY.... and tradeoffs have to made.
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That's the false choice that Big Oil and Big Coal want us to make.
 
Phys251 said:
That's the false choice that Big Oil and Big Coal want us to make.
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How is that a false choice? Renewable sources of energy aren't any where near ready to supply the country's energy needs.
Therefore we need Big Oil, Big coal ( and Big Fracking) . Make those prohibitively expensive and the economy suffers big time.

It's a fact of life and as always, the facts of life of conservative.
 
KLATTU said:
How is that a false choice? Renewable sources of energy aren't any where near ready to supply the country's energy needs.
Therefore we need Big Oil, Big coal ( and Big Fracking) . Make those prohibitively expensive and the economy suffers big time.

It's a fact of life and as always, the facts of life of conservative.
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Your argument is circular reasoning: "Renewable energy doesn't meet our energy needs yet, therefore we shouldn't invest in it, therefore it doesn't meet all our energy needs."

Good thing we didn't try that philosophy when phasing out of the horse-and-buggy industry a century ago.
 
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