JPG Magazine: Stories: Photo Essay: When mother earth trembled

When mother earth trembled

By !!glenn!! !!capers!!

27 February 2008

The Black Mesa Mining shipped five million tons of coal annually to the Mohave Generating Station near Laughlin, Nevada. The suspended operations in 2005 following the Mohave decision to shut down open face mining. Peabody Western continues working with the tribes to identify coal-related opportunities that would allow the Black Mesa Mine to resume operations. Regardless how Navajo people feel from past operations that lived in the areas out side of the actual mining of coal.

The impact of the land is still felt and continues to heal from the scars of mining.

The impact to the land and to the people that have contracted black lung disease.

Black lung results from inhaling coal dust over a long time. Although coal dust is relatively inert and does not provoke much reaction, it spreads throughout the lungs and shows up as tiny spots on an x-ray. Coal dust may block the airways.

The coal dust collects around the small airways (bronchioles) of the lungs. Every year, one to two percent of people with simple black lung develop a more serious form of the disease called progressive massive fibrosis, in which large scars develop in the lungs as a reaction to the dust. Progressive massive fibrosis may worsen even after exposure to coal dust stops. Lung tissue and the blood vessels in the lungs can be destroyed by the scarring.

Caplan's syndrome the rare disorder that can affect coal miners who also have rheumatoid arthritis, large round nodules of scarring develop quickly in the lung. Such nodules may form in people who have had significant exposure to coal dust, even if they do not have black lung.

Black lung usually does not cause symptoms. However, many people with this disease cough and easily become short of breath because they also have an airway disease, such as bronchitis or emphysema, and these are more likely to occur in smokers. The severe stages of progressive massive fibrosis, on the other hand, cause coughing and often disabling shortness of breath.

Prevention is crucial because there is no cure for black lung. Black lung can be prevented by adequately suppressing coal dust at a work sites. However in the desert where the winds can blow hard and carry the loose coal dust that is impossible to be contained in the air. Prevention can only be looked at as a fractional containment in relation to the size of the open mining operation. When the hot dry weather comes and strong winds and storms begin it is impossible to contain a coal dust storm.