At the time I wrote a blog disputing that claim based on my
own empirical evidence.
Five and one-half years of my youth (grades 7 through 12)
were spent in southern West Virginia where coal was king. There was no natural gas available; some of
the bigger businesses used heating oil, and a few homes burnt wood; everything
else was powered or heated by coal.
All electricity was generated by coal and the Norfolk &
Western railroad operated massive (2-6-6-4) articulated steam locomotives that
burnt coal by the tons.
Our home was located at the beginning of a very long grade
where the coal trains required two locomotives at the front and a third
locomotive at the rear of the train. They would haul 100 or more 90 ton coal cars
per train.
Under those conditions, the locomotives were belching thick
clouds of heavy black smoke as they ascended the mountain.
The result was that it was a rare day, usually mid-summer,
when you did not smell the unmistakable aroma produced when bituminous coal is
burnt.
From late Fall through early Spring, in the early mornings you
to could see a heavy smoke cloud hanging over every valley. From October to February that cloud could be
several hundred feet thick. On sunny
days, a few hours after Sunrise, the cloud seemed to dissipate somewhat, but the
smell of burning coal was just as strong.
We don’t have any scientific measurements telling us the
exact amount of exposure to coal-fire-particulates the population was exposed to,
but it was at a bare minimum, 1000 times greater than the levels that the EPA
reports claimed was fatal!
If the EPA report had even a semblance of truth, 25% to 50%
of the entire county’s population would have died from exposure every
year. The rest of the people would have
been hospitalized.
However, in reality, there were not any masses of people
dying from lung disease there were few people, perhaps three in my entire
high-school, suffering from asthma.
We now know that the EPA spent $600 million in taxpayer
money to generate false studies about the effects of coal
particulates. The reason for these
studies were not for improved health but because the EPA wanted to end coal
mining.
In fact it was the long term goal of the EPA to end all
mining in the United States.
An investigation must be made to find who authorized and
carried out this shameful abuse of power and illegal use of funds. Those parties should be criminally charged.
Let us hope that the Trump administration replaces the
agenda driven pseudo-scientists at the EPA with real scientists that rely on
facts.