Trump administration halts strip-mining health study across Central Appalachia

The Trump administration has put the brakes on a high-level scientific study looking at health impacts to people living near strip mines across Central Appalachia, including eastern Kentucky, officials said Monday.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine confirmed that the Interior Department told the sciences advisory group to stop work on the study during a budget review. The study is meant to get to the bottom of concerns that living near surface mining may contribute to a variety of health problems. It was launched by funding from the former Obama administration.

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Two meetings by the scientific panel in Kentucky — one Monday night in Hazard and another on Tuesday in Lexington — will proceed as planned, officials said. Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet Secretary Charles Snavely and other state officials are scheduled to speak.

Cabinet spokesman John Mura said Snavely said he will reserve any comment on the announcement until then.

"The National Academies believes this is an important study and we stand ready to resume it as soon as the Department of the Interior review is completed," the academies said in a written statement. "We are grateful to our committee members for their dedication to carrying forward with this study."

Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Interior's Office of Surface Mining budgeted more than $1 million to the study, which was launched last year after a request West Virginia, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Officials in that state wanted federal assistance sorting through several dozen scientific papers that had linked mountaintop removal to increased risks of birth defects, cancer, and premature death among residents living near large-scale surface coal mines in Appalachia, the Gazette-Mail reported.

The mining industry has claimed some of the studies were biased.

In Kentucky, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth has also called for more clarity on the issue.

“We have a public health crisis in Appalachia that is the direct result of mountaintop removal mining," Yarmuth said in a written statement. "The fact that mountaintop removal permits have been approved when there has never been a federal study on the health effects of mountaintop removal mining is shameful enough. To now prevent this study from being completed would be reprehensible.”

Reach reporter James Bruggers at 502-582-4645 and at jbruggers@courier-journal.com.