How safe is coal mining?
That s like asking how safe it is to be a police officer. If you re patrolling a shopping mall in Beverly Hills, you probably don t have much to worry about. If you re working on an undercover drug sting in the Bronx, you had better be ready for anything. Similarly, driving a haul truck in a big strip mine in Wyoming s Powder River basin is no more dangerous than any other job involving heavy machinery. But if you re cutting coal in a small, underground mine in Appalachia miners call them “dogholes” the odds that you ll be hurt or killed increase dramatically. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, mining is still one of the most dangerous jobs in America, and working in a small underground mine is one of the few jobs that is nearly as dangerous as commercial fishing in Alaska. In addition, hundreds of miners still die each year from black lung a devastating disease that should have been eradicated long ago. What is “clean coal”? It s a promotional slogan designed to help
