Study links birth defects to mountaintop mining

Thursday July 14, 2011
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Birth defect rates are significantly higher in and around central Appalachian areas where there is mountaintop removal coal mining, according to a recent study that environmentalists say provides new reasons to curb the controversial mining practice.

The study, co-authored by Michael Hendryx, a West Virginia University professor, reviewed National Center for Health Statistics birth defect records from 1996 through 2003, and suggests links between mountaintop mining and elevated rates for six of seven types of birth defects that were studied in four states where mountaintop removal mining is done.

The study found that the "rates for any anomaly [birth defect] were approximately 235 per 10,000 live births in the mountaintop mining area versus 144 per 10,000 live births in the non-mining area."

Circulatory/respiratory birth defects in mountaintop mining areas were found to occur in 41 of 10,000 live births, compared to an incidence of 15.3 per 10,00 live births in non-mining areas and 20 per 10,000 live births in mining areas not using mountaintop removal techniques.

The links are stronger, especially for circulatory/respiratory and urinary and genital system defects, in the more recent study time period, 2000-03, when there was more mountaintop mining activity.

The study findings were highlighted by environmental organizations at a news conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C., in an effort to influence voting by the U.S. House on HR 2018, a bill that would weaken federal Clean Water Act provisions protecting stream quality and turn over regulation of those waters to the states.

The bill, supported by West Virginia's congressional delegation, was passed by the House later Wednesday. President Barack Obama has said he would veto the legislation.

"What more does it take to put the brakes on mountaintop removal?" Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said at a morning news conference in Washington. "There is already strong scientific evidence that this extreme form of strip mining harms people's health and the environment. Now we find out that unborn children may be victims too. This study is a huge red flag telling Congress to stop and look at the science."

Maria Gunnoe, of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, called on Congress to impose a moratorium on all mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies conduct a health effects assessment.

So-called "mountaintop removal" coal mining is a form of surface mining in which the mining company uses explosives and mammoth earth-moving machinery to remove vegetation, rock and soil from shallow seams of coal so they can be dug up and mined. The rock and soil are pushed or dumped into valleys adjacent to the mining operations, often leveling the formerly mountainous regions and covering miles of headwater streams.

More than 2,000 square miles of forested Appalachian ridges in southern West Virginia, Virginia and eastern Kentucky and Tennessee have been cleared by mountaintop mining operations.

The study, "The Association Between Mountaintop Mining and Birth Defects among Live Births in Central Appalachia, 1996-2003," which was published last month in the journal Environmental Research and builds on previously published research, states that mountaintop removal mining creates "large-scale impairment of surface water and ground water and significant disturbances in local air quality."

The explosives used contain ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel, according to the study, and the blasting produces coal dust and flyrock containing sulfur compounds, and fine particles including metals and nitrogen dioxide.

Groundwater near mountaintop mining sites has been found to contain elevated levels of sulfate, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate ions, selenium, and hydrogen sulfide. And, according to the study, slurry waste water produced from the coal washing process can contaminate surface and ground water with arsenic, barium, mercury, lead and chromium, and can lead to elevated concentrations in private well water.

Some of those contaminants, including mercury, lead, arsenic, thallium, selenium cadmium, chromium, ammonium nitrate, iron, manganese and certain hydrocarbons, are known to cause reproductive risks in animals and humans, the study said.

Birth defects occur in about 1 in 33 births in the U.S. and are the leading cause of infant mortality, according to the CDC. They can be caused by both genetic and non-genetic environmental factors or a combination of those.

The study noted that women in the mountaintop mining areas had less education, were more likely to smoke, were less likely to have prenatal care and were less likely to have consumed alcohol during pregnancy.

Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association in Washington, D.C., questioned the study's statistical data and findings, and said a 2002 report by West Virginia covering 1990-1999 found no such link between mining and birth defects. "On the face of it, it's an alarming study but as we delve into it the cited study raises more questions than answers," she said. "We think the state was looking at it in a more rigourous fashion."

Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.