The AP’s Vicki Smith has the jump this morning on the results of the final portion of the legislatively mandated study of coal-slurry injection practices in West Virginia.
I’ve posted Vicki’s story on our Mining the Mountains site, and you can read the final report from West Virginia University researchers here.
Here’s the bottom line:
The process for development of analyses of what is known about water contamination from coal slurry injection and known, probable, or potential effects upon human health involves a comparison of the known toxicity of coal slurry components “downstream” (either riverine or underground) water contamination, compared to known or suspected human toxicities from the peer-reviewed literature. There are innumerable considerations in this process, and no effort can be complete. For example, the current state of science measures inorganic compounds and elements better than organics, and provides a much richer data base on their health consequences. This is one of many immutable “data gaps” that we identified in this investigation. The absence of sufficient data implies a need to learn; it does not necessarily imply the absence or presence of a problem or a means to do assessments in the absence of data.
Vicki put it this way in her story:
Legislators have waited 31/2 years and spent more than $220,000 to learn whether coal slurry pumped into abandoned underground mines is dangerous to people who live nearby. The answer? No one knows.
A new 418-page report by researchers at West Virginia University concludes that while the wastewater from cleaning coal could potentially affect water supplies, wells and public health, there’s no proof it has or will.
Coal industry officials and their politician friends will no doubt seize on this statement from the report:
No public health problem, attributable only to coal slurry, can be documented from available data.
But let’s home they also read this:
However, the important limitations of the statement stem from the sparse quantity of available data, as well as the clear temporal limitations of available data.
Don’t forget the previous Coal Tattoo post, WVDEP’s ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on coal slurry, which documented that while WVDEP said it didn’t have enough information to say if coal slurry was a problem, agency officials also had historically not required the type of monitoring that would generate that important data.
As the report explained:
The absence of sufficient data implies a need to learn; it does not necessarily imply the absence or presence of a problem or a means to do assessments in the absence of data.
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Ken
I find it interesting that you don’t highlight and bold the disclaimer statements about the lack of data in the Hendryx or Downstream studies. Seems like all you blog about in those studies are the “Blockbuster” grandstanding statements they make. Just an observation.
Concerned Miner,
Can you give me a couple examples?
I don’t believe I referred to the Hendryx papers or Downstream Strategies reports as “blockbusters,” but I did say that the Downstream Strategies stuff was a “must-read.”
Ken.
I think it is really important that the data gaps are mentioned here – at the public hearings held on this WVU study, coalfield citizens were very concerned about the lack of crucial data, and the scientists explained that they only had a limited amount of time and money for the study.
It’s frustrating (but typical) that the legislature didn’t provide the amount of money that was needed for a thorough study; and that DEP made sure the study started so late that the researchers were scrambling for time to get done what they could.
It feels to me that this study was inconclusive by design – I don’t mean to disparage the researchers, they could only do what they were given the funding and the time to do.
The amount of work that went into the report deserves respect and apprciation.
The report is “inconclusive” on the issue of whether coal slurry “alone” is responsible for impaired drinking water.
Is that “alone” issue the issue the Legislature wanted addressed? I don’t think so. Anyhow, I agree with Senator Kessler that the slurry injection moratorium needs to stay in place.
As to the form of the report — if I were grading it as an exercise in in effectively discussing and addressing the groundwater pollution issues posed by coal slurry, so that policy makers can see their options, I would give it a D+. Get those researchers an editor, pronto!
I look at this whole “study” as something that achieved its desired goal. The citizens demanded action. The legislature finally responded by ordering a study. Insufficient resources were allocated to answer the key question. In the end, a study was produced, which could then be shoved at said citizens.
The problem with this study is that, like most environmental studies, it can’t answer THE question it was asked to – is coal slurry, and ONLY coal slurry, a public health problem? No study, no matter how thorough, could ever hope to answer that question!
It’s kind of like a pistol. Sitting on a shelf, unloaded, a pistol is not a threat to anyone. If you pick it up, and hold it in your hand, then, technically, you could hurt someone with it – you could club them. But is that a public health threat? Add bullets to the mix. Put them in your other hand. Is that a greater threat? Maybe a greater potential threat, but only a potential threat. Now load the pistol. It’s still only a potential threat – a researcher could argue that they don’t have enough information about your intent to judge whether or not the loaded pistol is a public health threat because you are not pointing it at anyone. If you cock the pistol, it is still only a potential threat; if you cock it, aim it and someone, and tell them point blank you are going to shoot them, it is still, from a scientific standpoint, only a potential or hypothetical public health threat.
Of course, once the bullet drills a hole in the other person, then the results are quantifiable. But until that time, it’s all just theoretical and hypothetical. Is this a silly comparison? Perhaps.
But I have seen this same game played too many other times. People get sick. Studies are done. Results are inconclusive. People keep getting sick. Industry says, If you can point to a specific release of a substance from our plant that caused a specific problem in a specific person, on a specific day, then maybe there is something we can talk about – otherwise, it’s just all hypothetical, unscientific speculation.
Monty — your analysis seems sound.
But — the questions of whether coal slurry injection is in at least some instances (1) contributing to polluting groundwater, and (2) contributing to polluting drinking water supplies, should be able to be answered without too much effort.
It sort of looks like the researchers did not make a very focused effort to answer these questions, but the report’s language is so convoluted as to make it hard to tell.
Maybe ace reporter Ken Ward will call up the researchers and ask them to explain. He obviously has time on his hands —
!
Or maybe one of the researchers will post here. That would be cool.
Part of the problem in this sort of study is that it’s not done in a lab or under controlled conditions etc. It’s completely unethical to conduct experiments involving ingesting potentially deadly substances on people without their knowledge or consent. As a solution, I suggest that a certain population of DEP volunteer to drink the questionable water, study them, etc. But that process still takes too long. People are sick and dying now. If we are to err, let’s err on the side of human health, not company profits, and take real measures now.
The researchers will be presenting the findings of this study before a Legislative Committee Monday Aug 9 at 11am in Room 215E of the State Capital building.
They will be taking questions from legislators and presumably explaining more about what the report says and how they arrived at their (non)conclusions.
I have lived and worked with many community people whose water is polluted.
Many of them are miners or have family that are miners. They do not wish to cause anyone harm but they would like to at least be given the benefit of being believed. Anyone who does not think this is happening to mining communities and families all you have to do is talk to your neighbors, friends and co-workers.
I just read today about a man who worked in the mines for years and is in stage 5 kidney damage. He desperately needs a kidney transplant and has to have dialysis 3 times a week. I ask that you stop and think for a minute how you would feel if this were your loved one? It’s not about blame but at the same time these illnesses will not stop until something is done to assure communities their water supplies are safe.
Which brings up another question…..how many of us in WV have had abundant, good well water for years? How much is a life’s worth of water worth? How much is one’s health worth?
This must stop and will not until mining families come together and realize they shouldn’t have to chose between supporting their family and their health. Remember the elderly and the youth are the most at risk from pollution.
So I ask that you come together and ask if chemical companies have to be responsible for disposal of their waste why doesn’t the coal industry?
Talk to the prep plant workers, ask questions about what chemicals are used to clean the coal. Ask if they are having health problems. Talk to your fellow miners and seek the truth for yourselves.
Remember the next child that dies could be yours!