Opencasting of Coal and it's Effect on Health

Opencasting of Coal and it's Effect on Health

by Dr D Van Steenis

My work has been peer reviewed by authorities in the UK and USA and describes the health damage and cumulative effects caused by opencast mining.For over four and a half years I have been researching industrial air pollution (including opencasting) and its consequential health damage of illness and premature deaths. Published and recent (to be published) research confirms that opencasting of coal, especially if toxic waste is present due to known or unknown tipping, CAUSES new cases of asthma to develop in children and adults as well as exacerbating those who already have it. There will also result an increased incidence of heart deaths, depression, generalised premature deaths, plus other conditions from any toxic waste contaminating the site which would include cancers, hormones disorders, birth defects, skin rashes, eye inflammation, nausea etc., all due to individual pollutants such as organic compounds, heavy metals, dioxins (rife in North East Derbyshire), even radio active matter.Studies in NE Derbyshire (1994-1998) comprising school medical records, school asthma inhaler use, microscopy of dust outside and within buildings, and PM 2.5 monitor readings with filter analysis, all confirm a rise in asthma to affect 33% of primary school children living within one mile, a cumulative rise to 21% at two miles and even 12% or so, at three miles. Welsh Office studies at Gwaun Cae Gurwen also discovered 33% of children in three schools to have developed asthma at one mile, based on peak flow readings. West Glamorgan studies found coal particles plus diesel particles at 2km in the PM10 filters upwind of the opencast, over the top of a large mountain. Peakflows and asthma inhaler use worsened as particulate levels rose in direct proportion, and this happened irrespective of home conditions and social factors. A Lanarkshire study (1998) proved that hospital admissions for asthma rose with opencasting of coal, again within three miles or so, with cumulative rises year after year, falling when opencasting ceased.A Liverpool University study even showed a rise in asthma in schools within 2km of moving coal at the docks, irrespective of smoking habits and unemployment. Hospital admissions for asthma in the Tinsley area since opencasting began at Orgreave, have risen to 11 per 1000 population as against 3 per 1000 at Sheffield City Centre and 1 per 1000 in Worcestershire. All three areas have motorways. G.P.’s in the area of SE Sheffield, namely Handsworth area etc., have noted a large rise in asthma incidence in their area since Orgreave opencasting began. They are clear of the M1. The rise at Tinsley is not confined only to asthma, also diabetes, probably due to dioxins. In London 0.5 miles away from the millennium dome site, the asthma incidence has risen from 11.9% of school children in early 1996 to some 50% in November 1998, with the only change being the opencasting of that waste site at Greenwich, which contained nickel etc.Findings of microscopy and particle analysis, presented at the Royal Microscopical Society in London in July 1998, revealed that the asthma caused by opencasting is due to three factors:a) Cut quartz particles of which 36% were found to be less than PM0.3, which are second to asbestos in terms of serious effects on the lungs. The body has to wall off these particles, causing fibrosis, which was called silicosis in underground miners, but which equally applies above ground.b) Coal particles around PM1 in size that cause an inflammation in the lungs lasting about seven days after each dose. Repeated doses also lead to fibrosis, called pneumoconiosis in miners. That is why it only needs a weekly dose of ultrafine coal dust from the workings to keep asthma active in the population living within three miles. That is just one day a week, with the weather and wind, determining who breathes the dust.c) Fuel emission particles of acidic carbon with heavy metal contaminants of the fuel, especially nickel sulphate, cause a lung inflammation lasting seven days (maximum effects arising on the fourth day) plus heart problems and even deaths from upsetting the heart’s electrical system, plus cancers years later, of lung, colon, etc. Two organic compounds emitted in the exhaust fumes are also carcinogenic. The particles leaving the engine are as small as PM0.02, and then group together to PM0.2, and some of these further group to PM2 size, all absorbed in the depths of the lung. Even healthy human volunteers revealed significant increases in white cells, histamine etc, in the lungs at 6 hours after inhaling diesel exhaust, with increased white cells and platelets in the peripheral blood. The fuel used by such heavy equipment in the UK is often industrial diesel which contains toxic waste oils and solvents. The solvents can cause brain damage and the heavy metals cause cancers. Contaminants are also carcinogenic. A single earth moving machine could release as many as 145 million billion ultra fine particles per minute, equivalent to some 900,000 Volvo V70 petrol cars.Young babies die of the inflammation set up by raised PM2.5 levels. An American study involving x-rays annually for twenty years, showed 55% of opencast workers had developed lung damage, proven by x-ray by year twenty. The UK government in 1999 will be paying compensation to above ground miners for this same lung damage caused by coal dust inhalation.Local government departments who ignore this evidence could be sued by victims developing asthma who are within a three mile radius of an opencast site. Villages in NE Derbyshire such as Killamarsh, Clowne, Grassmoor, etc are currently implicated.At a public inquiry in early 1997, concerning Shortwood Farm, Nottingham my evidence was tampered with and rewritten with different conclusions in the inspectors' report from the document agreed and accepted when I gave evidence. Furthermore RJB Mining had illegally been allowed to insert in their submission in the inspectors' report an allegation about my map being concentric, which had not been brought up when I was cross examined and hence was added after the inquiry, as admitted by their barrister at the Hoodcroft public inquiry. In fact in the Dolk Report in the Lancet 1998, the graph revealed a concentric critical distance of 3 mile radius around waste sites for a rise in birth defects. The inspector recommended approval of the opencast and public footpath applications, but in early 1999 at a high court challenge, the DETR admitted that decision was incorrect, overturned the approval, and offered costs to the councils involved.All my medical evidence concerns PM2.5 particles and below. These are man-made, and the ones that enter the lung. PM10 printouts in the UK cannot be relied upon to provide actual raw data figures. The DETR has admitted that the figures are massaged down and are not accurate. This is confirmed by the Environment Agency who also admits in their latest document, that their data is not always “accurate, complete, up-to-date or valid.” If PM10s are an issue, then note that Professor Harrison’s latest survey (1998) shows a contribution from the continent of Europe reaching the UK, of PM10s around 1ug/M3 only, certainly regarding NE Derbyshire. Also note that PM10s recorded in January 1997 for this area, showed figures between 46 and 60ug/M3. Later months cannot be relied upon for reasons given. The highest PM10 figures in the UK have been not from the highway traffic but from sites such as the opencasting of brownfield land in Tyne and Wear, at Paddington railway station, around the Castle Cement plant at Clitheroe, Lancashire (recordings of up to 485ug/M3 were found in a school playing field). Health studies undertaken around the last site mentioned, show a sharp rise in asthma, standardised mortality and other conditions.Experience gained at Arkwright proves that the alleged ability to control dust by opencasters is a fallacy. I was present when the television filmed the emissions at Arkwright with separate clouds of coal-dust and vehicle emissions. PM2.5s can rise in the air over 2000 feet, and can stay suspended in the air for up to one week, totally dependent on the weather as to where and when they land to ground level where they may be inhaled into the lungs. Motorways nearby increase the problem, by adding more vehicle emissions and generating heat, which keeps the particles suspended for a longer period, facilitating spread. The alleged developers mitigation measures are almost irrelevant as they do not resolve the real problem. The PM2.5 dust cannot be controlled by opencasters.PM2.5 measurements in the latter half of September 1998 have revealed higher levels at Grassmoor and Hasland, Derbyshire some 2.1 miles from Arkwright opencast than at Tupton and Wingerworth at about 3.1 miles from Arkwright. Levels at Grassmoor were as high as 42.5ug/M3 which is 4.25 times the WHO and US EPA recommended maximum levels. Peaks of PM2.5s in October 1998 reached 80ug/M3 in the Hasland area. This confirms the cause of the higher asthma incidence at Grassmoor and one could now expect those exposed to that sort of level, to have their lives shortened by some six years. Interestingly those in Surrey live some six years longer. Analysis of the filter heads confirmed that coal dust was the main ingredient.The NHS simply has to pay the bill. With cost limited frozen budgets now unified between hospital and GPs, which patients will be denied treatment to pay for those made ill or who die, through opencasting?What knowledge of medicine and toxicology has a Mineral Planning Authority got? What training has an environmental services department in medicine and toxicology? What postgraduate tuition in toxicology have public health directors received and from whom? The government is paying out vast sums of money to miners for compensation. Will named councillors and public health directors who pass unsafe applications be forced to compensate the NHS and new victims of planning decisions.Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention can be used in the courts in the UK from 1 January 2000 to force disclosure of raw pollution data and relevant health authority data, in consideration of public health risks of imposition by government agencies.The evidence is real and proven and I suggest you heed the above revelations.

Copyright 1999Dr D Van Steenis: 2 July 1999

References and data were obtained from Dr D Williams, Mr P Ordidge, Royal Microscopical Society Conference July 1998, Epidemiology July 1995, West Glamorgan HA, Lanarkshire HA, Ken Coates MEP, English Partnerships (and CPL data), USEPA Research, Harvard School of Public Health Research and Respiratory Morbidity in Merseyside School Children exposed to coal dust and air pollution; in Archives of Disease in Childhood 1994;70:305-312 etc. Doctor Salvi et al AM J RESPIR CRIT CARE MED 1999; 159: 702-709.I have also discovered a recent article in Proc R Coll Physicians Edinb 1999; 29;11-15 entitled Health Effects of Respirable Dust from Opencast Coal Mining by doctors Munro and Crompton. This article backs up my research. What Car magazine of June 1999 contains an article analysing vehicle particle emissions from PM0.01 to PM1, which reveals the scale of the problem just from ULSD. How much worse it must be with industrial vehicles using lower quality diesel.