#the current silica exposure limit for miners - whose occupational safety falls under the purview of the MSHA - is double what it is
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The proposed crackdown on silica follows a fraught history of the mine safety agency's decades of failure to protect miners from the toxic dust. The proposal also overlooks a history of overexposure at coal mines.
Again, this downplays the need and justification for action.
The rule notes that 93% of silica dust samples have been in compliance with existing silica dust limits since 2016. But the remaining 7% of samples amount to 5,300 instances of excessive exposure to the dust based on the newly proposed limit, according to MSHA data analyzed by Louisville Public Media and Public Health Watch.
In the 30 years leading up to 2016, agency data analyzed by NPR and Frontline found 21,000 excessive silica dust samples based on the existing limit. More than twice that many dust samples — 52,000 — exceeded the newly proposed limit.
This means that coal miners worked amid dangerous levels of silica dust — which is easily inhaled, easily lodges in lungs and can lead to severe disease and death — tens of thousands of times in 30 years.
During those three decades, the risk of silica dust exposure increased, as mining consumed the thickest coal seams, leaving thinner seams embedded in rock. Cutting those thinner seams generated more fine silica particles.
Also, during that period, the agency did not respond effectively to the threat.
#black lung#industrial dust inhalation disease#there are as you might expect also massive issues with mine operators cheating on dust samples :D#the current silica exposure limit for miners - whose occupational safety falls under the purview of the MSHA - is double what it is#for every other american worker; OSHA has also lagged behind here - there wasn't a substantial silica standard until 2016#meanwhile coal operators & their doctors spent the 1910s insisting that coal wouldn't make you sick Not Like Silica! so this isn't news#& dust exposure is worse now! both smaller seams & more mechanized mining!#the article is good & you should read it but it's going to call complicated black lung/PMF “incurable”#& i want to be clear: no version of dust disease is curable. once the silica is in it doesn't come out except with a lung transplant#the real problem here is that for various reasons MSHA has undercounted how many people this regulation would protect;#there is substantial opposition from the coal operators & the spineless congressmen they pay;#& we are at best months out from getting a legal standard confirmed - possibly much longer - & if it's not done before 1/25#this regulation will very likely get axed if b/den doesn't get reelected. stupid terrible process!!#every time this comes up i am like. you know the original black lung act in 1971 was meant to end black lung?#it's endable. we know how. we literally know exactly how. but here we are.
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