West Virginia coal miners and advocates spoke out this week in support of new silica dust exposure standards at a public hearing held in Beckley.

Sam Petsonk, a labor and employment law attorney, said miners inhale fine silica dust when cutting into rock, and noted he has represented miners in their 30s and 40s with advanced black lung disease and progressive massive fibrosis.

He contended the condition has become more common over the past few decades, largely due to lack of worker protections, and added while the new standards are an improvement, there is little oversight or enforcement written into the proposed rule.

"Although this rule purports to lower the exposure limit, it does not require coal mine operators to conduct routine sampling, and it does not set forth any monetary penalty for violating the dust limit," Petsonk outlined. "It also does not require miners to be removed from dusty areas."

The proposed rule would require operators to limit miners' exposure to respirable crystalline silica to levels at or below 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air for a full eight-hour shift exposure. Anyone can submit public comments online at the federal rule making portal, through Sept. 11.

Gary Hairston, president of the National Black Lung Association, said he hopes the rule will lead to further protections for miners.

"We've been trying for years to try to get something done, but it always depends who's in office," Hairston acknowledged. "I believe if we don't get nothing done within the next two years, then we may get nothing done."

Willie Dodson, central Appalachian field coordinator for the group Appalachian Voices, argued without strict enforcement of the rule, miners will be forced to work in high dust areas and told to wear respirators, contributing to more cases of black lung.

"It's unfair to put the onus on individual workers, and respirators just won't work," Dodson asserted. "Any miner will tell you that it's not practical to wear respirators in the mines and get your job done."

Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows modern-day coal miners are at greater risk of respiratory disease than their predecessors, likely driven by the silica coal mine dust inhalation.

Bipartisan legislation that proposes the installation of solar panels in schools across Pennsylvania awaits a vote in the state Senate.

The Solar for Schools bill aims to combat climate change and invest in education. Fewer than 2% of Pennsylvania's nearly 7,000 schools are powered by solar energy.

Mick Iskric is superintendent of Steelton-Highspire School District, which has a 42-acre urban school campus that serves more than 1,300 students from low-income families. He explained that, after partnering with McClure Company to install solar panels, the district now sees a monthly credit on its electric bill.

Iskric is convinced the legislation would be a game-changer for school districts in the Commonwealth.

"And then ultimately, all that savings, what we're trying to do is get more funding to offset our expenses and get more programming for students," Iskric said. "So, the more money I save, the more support I can get directly into the classroom."

According to Iskric, the district has achieved 100% reliance on solar power for its electricity, and will save an estimated $1.6 million over the next 20 years.

In the meantime, the Inflation Reduction Act offers access to clean-energy tax credits, with an emphasis on reaching disadvantaged populations and communities with environmental-justice concerns.

Iskric also noted the district has recently received seven electric school buses through the EPA's Clean School Bus Grant Program, which will be in the fleet for the 2024-2025 school year. He asserted that Steelton-Highspire is the only district in the country which transports students with 100% electric buses, charged with solar energy.

"We're looking to expand if this bill comes through," he posited, "and I'd really love for some community solar to come through along with it or down the road, so that homeowners can offset their electric bills -- really try to tie the school to the community, community to the school."

Iskric also suggested a prospective plan to assist teachers in the region by offering free electric car charging for district employees, and implementing other incentives to attract new talent. He acknowledged that, while innovation is a driving force behind these initiatives, it is also a necessity to address staffing challenges.

The Pennsylvania State Senate is set to reconvene Dec. 11.

This story was based on original reporting by Audrey Carleton for Capital & Main.

Scientists in rural New England are working to better monitor and manage tick populations as climate change helps fuel their dramatic increase.

Cases of tick-borne illnesses have skyrocketed in the region, while new tick species have expanded their range further north, posing risks to both humans and wildlife.

University of New Hampshire Clinical Associate Professor David Needle said scientists will collaborate on data collection as well as education and public outreach on how to stay safe.

"General thought is," said Needle, "the number of cases and impacts from tick-borne diseases are grossly underestimated by what we actually see and what's been tested."

Needle said the data collected could also serve as a warning system for farmers and vets to better protect livestock by knowing when to utilize protective chemicals, potentially saving not only the animals lives but preventing financial losses for rural communities.

Increasingly mild winters in New England have helped ticks to thrive at a time when they are normally dormant. And that is altering the regional ecosystem - causing a dramatic die-off of moose calves, for example.

Needle said as tick populations increase, scientists need to better understand their patterns and where diseases could emerge next in both wildlife and humans.

"At the very least," said Needle, "we're going to be generating data and real information about where pathogens are and where ticks are and the data will hopefully provide opportunity for intervention at the public health level."

The two-year project involves scientists with the Universities of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Needle said he hopes the data can provide a baseline for scientists to follow in the future.





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Indiana is losing wetlands even as the state has made some effort to protect them. Wetlands provide wildlife habitat, purify and recharge groundwater for drinking, and reduce flood risks by storing water. However, Indiana has lost up to 90% of its wetlands. The legislature provided some protection for the rest in 2021, but last year, a special task force found that shrinking wetlands are having significant negative effects on the environment.

Indra Frank, director of environmental health and water policy at the Hoosier Environmental Council says lawmakers should be doing more.

"Now we have data showing that our state's wetlands law is not doing much in the way of protection. So, the Indiana General Assembly certainly could make changes," Frank said. "They could also make changes to provide incentives for landowners who preserve or who restore wetlands."

Indiana has about 800,000 wetland acres, down from more than 5 million 200 years ago - and has no statewide plan to manage them. A poll by the Audubon Society

found more than half the people surveyed in Indiana said they would prioritize protecting water sources and habitats over landowners' and developers' rights.

Frank contends another governing body of 'tossing the ball' rather than protecting wetlands. This spring, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricted which bodies of water can be protected under the federal Clean Water Act. She said the decision dropped the amount of Indiana wetlands with federal protection from 80%, to 20%.

"Now we're in a position where Indiana's remaining wetlands have very little federal protection and very little state protection," Frank continued. "The Supreme Court's decision basically said that the fate of the wetlands is up to the states."

Since then, attempts have been made in the Indiana General Assembly to make wetlands protection even harder. But the Audubon Society poll also found almost 75% of residents surveyed would have a "less favorable" impression of a state lawmaker who voted to relax wetland protections.


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