Chapter: Rowan County

A new study has affirmed what most people in Floyd County already know: living in an area where there is coal mining is bad for one's health.

The study published last week in the Journal of Rural Health found that Floyd County residents were more likely to report higher incidences of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, illnesses involving multiple organs, and general illness than residents in non-mining communities. Residents also reported more serious illness and cancer deaths in family members.

The Rowan County chapter has been raising public awareness about the debt the coal industry owes to eastern Kentucky and the voice citizens should have in making decisions that affect local residents.

On February 26, members of the chapter had published two substantial commentaries in The Morehead News that urged residents to take control of the resources and processes that are rightfully theirs.

Responding to an editorial that erroneously claimed that “Kentucky coal has taken a beating from the federal government and environmentalists and, as a result, statewide production is down sharply,” Sue Tallichet rightly countered that the production of relatively cheap natural gas, the depletion of “‘economically recoverable’ coal in central Appalachia,” and the abundance of “surface-mined coal from the West’s Powder River Basin” have all “resulted in a sharp decline in the  demand for central Appalachian thermal coal used for generating electricity."

Instead of worrying how the “last gasp of eastern Kentucky’s coal mining” benefits the industry and its “friends,” Tallichet argued, we should be focusing on the people and the land that will remain long after the companies have gone.