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Clean Water Wanted: Contaminated Wells and the Legacy of Fossil Fuel Extraction
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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“You seen that one with the tombstone up there?” seven-year-old Timothy Easterling asks, looking toward the grass just uphill from his home. “That’s my papaw.” Timothy’s grandfather Chet Blankenship died… Read More
Black Lung Benefits Fund in Deepening Debt as Epidemic Surges
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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A new study from the Government Accountability Office finds that the federal fund supporting coal miners with black lung disease could be in financial trouble without congressional action. As NPR… Read More
Lung Transplants Rise Amid Region’s Black Lung Epidemic
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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The Appalachian coalfields are in the midst of an epidemic of severe black lung disease. The debilitating and even deadly disease has recently begun to affect miners as young as… Read More
Eastern Kentucky Prison Moves Forward As Opponents Consider Challenge
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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The Bureau of Prisons has issued a record of decision signaling that it is moving ahead with plans to build a federal prison on the site of a former strip mine in… Read More
Amid Black Lung Surge, Kentucky Changes Benefits Process For Miners
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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William McCool is a 64-year-old former coal miner from Letcher County, Kentucky, with an advanced form of black lung disease. Health experts say the condition is entirely preventable with dust… Read More
Changing Course: Coal Country Students Working For A Power Switch
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Arlie Boggs Elementary sits between Kentucky’s two tallest mountains in a remote area that once had a booming coal economy. Ten years ago there were over a thousand coal miners… Read More
Help On Tap For Troubled Water System In Coal Country
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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A water system in eastern Kentucky that was on the verge of collapse could soon get much needed improvements. Many Martin County, Kentucky, residents were without water for long periods… Read More
Living With Black Lung: Coal Miners Caught In A Surging Epidemic
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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The central Appalachian coalfields are in the middle of an unprecedented epidemic of severe black lung disease. In a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association federal researchers released… Read More
Changing Course: Federal Grant Fills Gaps In Rural School Funding
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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A group of students from South Floyd Middle School had seen the nearby elementary school suffer damage from floods year after year. When they joined the school’s newly formed engineering team,… Read More
Burned By Coal: Coalfield Communities Facing Electricity Price Hikes
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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One evening this past November, angry customers and public officials filled a high school auditorium in Hazard, Kentucky, and took turns pleading with three members of the state’s public service… Read More
Mine Health Expert Concerned About Review Of Coal Dust Rule
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget has announced a review of an Obama-era rule that protects coal miners from exposure to the dust that causes black lung disease. That has… Read More
Changing Course: “Tiny House” Project Tackles Big Problems In Coal Country
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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The sound of power tools blends with teenage chatter as students clamber around, under, and over a trailer bed that they’re busy turning into a home. They’re part of a… Read More
Striking Migrant Farm Workers Win Settlement
By: Benny Becker | Ohio Valley ReSource
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After about three weeks on strike, a group of migrant workers employed at a tobacco farm in Gerrard County, Kentucky have reached a settlement with the farm’s owner. The workers came… Read More