Roberts was referring to the recent 500- mile "Widows Walk" from Charleston, West Virginia, to Washington, D.C., carried out by Linda Chapman and Phyllis Tipton. The action by the two women helped to publicize the plight of miners’ widows who seek to secure black lung benefits. Rallies were organized for the walkers in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The conference of more than 70 people was attended by clinic workers from throughout West Virginia, plus a number of clinic staff from neighboring states. Also in attendance were members of the Black Lung Association, including its president Lewis Fitch and Linda Chapman.

At the luncheon, UMWA leaders spoke to some of the ongoing struggles that black lung activists face. Joe Main, UMWA health and safety director, highlighted the need to win support for the bill introduced to Congress at the end of the widows walk. Main explained that this legislation would restore automatic eligibility for widows.

Main also spoke out against the $4.7 million budget cut slated for 2003 for the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) coal enforcement program that includes eliminating the jobs of 65 full-time employees. The Miner’s Choice x-ray program is also being axed. Main explained that this program is preferable to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) screening program in which the coal operators select where the screening will take place. The MSHA program allows miners to make that choice. So far, two years of the five-year program aimed at covering miners throughout the country have elapsed.

Black lung does not always show up on x-rays. At the conference, Dr. Robert Cohen stated that 30 percent of black lung cases may not show up on x-rays. But the Miner’s Choice program helps to bring the disease to the attention of individual miners. It documents the ongoing dust problems in coal mines and the fact that miners are still getting black lung today.

A NIOSH representative reported on the results of x-ray screening by NIOSH and MSHA from 1999–2002 of more than 30,000 underground and surface miners. Nearly 3 percent of underground and 2 percent of surface miners had indications of black lung.

Other data confirming that miners continue to contract black lung include a 1998 MSHA survey in Kentucky where MSHA reported 9.2 percent of underground miners and 6.8 percent of surface miners showed signs of black lung. In 2000, at one longwall mine in northern West Virginia, 26 out of around 400 miners were diagnosed with black lung disease.

Another confirmation of the continuing dust problems faced by coal miners was the grand jury indictments recently handed out to bosses at Robert Murray–owned KenAmerican Resources in Kentucky. The indictment charged four bosses with falsifying safety records and manipulating equipment used to monitor coal dust controls.  
 
Increasing fatalities in the mines
Main also pointed to the increase in mine fatalities, with 2001 being the third year in a row marked by a rising number of deaths on the job. Main told the UMWA Journal that "more lives will be lost unless MSHA strengthens safety and health enforcement and improves the inspection process." Main led the UMWA investigation into the Brookwood mine disaster, which claimed the lives of 13 miners in September 2001. It was the worst mine disaster since the Wilberg fire of 1984.

UMWA general counsel Grant Crandall reviewed developments around new regulations concerning black lung benefits. He reported that more than 10,000 new claims have been filed since the regulations went into effect last year and that the initial number of approvals by the Labor Department was double the previous level. He also reported on the continuing 150 different challenges to the new regulations by the National Mining Association. Crandall said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the outcome of the challenges. "But it won’t end, it’s going to be fought every single time."

Informal discussion at the conference touched on many of the questions being debated in the coalfields, including recent flooding and the impact of mining and logging operations, and weight limits for coal trucks.

Anthony Warlick from eastern Kentucky told the Militant of the impact of strip mining operations in Pike and Lechter counties by TECO Energy, a Tampa-based electric power generator. He said over the last year and a half houses in the town of Roberts were hit by three times by water and mud after silt ponds had overflowed. The coal companies, he said, "are clear cutting the hillsides. When it rains there is nothing to hold it, and trees, rocks, and dirt come down." A residents organization held a protest after the latest flooding.

TECO’s Premier Elkhorn mine was the subject of a grand jury investigation last year where residents complained about the impact of blasting at the mine and flooding from the sediment ponds. One resident explained that "a trailer is nothing but cardboard so you can imagine what blasting will do to it."

Another resident told the paper that five feet of mud covered his yard when sediment ponds overflowed after heavy spring rains. Premier Elkhorn has been cited 243 times since 1993 by state environmental authorities for noncompliance with state regulations.

Tony Lane is a member of UMWA Local 1248 in southwestern Pennsylvania.  
 
 
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