The benefit payments miners sick with black lung disease receive are not keeping pace with the cost of living, a new analysis showed.

Current monthly benefits for a miner and one dependent in 2024 are around $1,100, more than $3,000 lower than the average cost of living for a two-person household.

Quenton King, federal legislative specialist for Appalachian Voices, said lagging benefits are especially troubling when miners are increasingly developing black lung at younger ages, largely due to exposure to toxic silica dust.

"Younger miners are getting diagnosed with stage-three black lung, and they're having to quit mining in their 30s or 40s," King observed. "They're losing possibly 20 years, 30 years of work history, and they're unable to draw down that retirement fund."

Around 16% of the nation's coal workers are living with black lung, and after decades of improvement, the number of cases is on the rise again, according to the American Lung Association.

One National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study found modern coal miners, particularly those in Central Appalachia, are more likely than their predecessors to die from coal worker's pneumoconiosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer.

King pointed out although the coal industry in on the decline, thousands of coal miners and their families living in Appalachian communities are affected daily by the disease.

"Something I hear from people in the Black Lung Association, one of the heartbreaking things for me is that they're not able to play with their grandchildren, because they are on oxygen tanks," King noted.

Appalachian advocacy groups sent a letter to Congress asking for budget legislation prioritizing investments in curbing black lung and supporting miners already living with the disease. Proposed federal legislation, known as the Black Lung Benefits Improvement Act, would tie benefit levels to cost-of-living adjustments, rather than the federal pay scale.


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Environmental groups in Texas are backing a proposed global plastics treaty set to be finalized by the end of the year.

The treaty aims to minimize plastic's effect on the environment and make manufacturers responsible for managing plastic waste. The treaty also encourages the use of reusable options, such as single-use bags, straws and utensils.

Cheyenne Rendon, senior policy officer for the Society of Native Nations, said supporters need to focus on the people the treaty will serve.

"The United States has already conveyed that they're not willing to operate out of current existing laws," Rendon pointed out. "Although their approach is, they are for the global plastics treaty, it's at the lowest denomination of a treaty as possible. So that's why we have to lead with this with a human-based approach. How are we going to take care of not only our planet, but our people?"

Texas is one of the largest producers of fossil fuels and plastic in the nation, with most coming from the Houston Ship Channel. It is the second-largest petrochemical complex in the world and surrounded by low-income communities of color. People in the area have life expectancies up to 20 years shorter than those in white communities just 15 miles away.

Amnesty International recently deemed the Houston Ship Channel a "sacrifice zone," meaning residents suffer devastating physical and mental health consequences, along with human rights violations from living in pollution hotspots.

Yvette Arellano, founder of the group Fenceline Watch, said they have promoted environmental change at the local and state levels for years. They argued by backing the plastics treaty, they are taking their concerns nationally and globally.

"We're in collaboration with over 300 other organizations, from grassroots to academics and legal organizations," Arellano explained. "Trying to uplift the severe human rights violations that petrochemical companies and the fossil fuel industry, along with false solutions they're bringing along."

Arellano added there is no way for people living in the area to escape the poison.

"Whether we are at home, outside gardening or spending leisure time with family, whether we're at school at the grocery store, at the post office," Arellano outlined. "We're consistently and continuously being poisoned with full and free license to, on behalf of our regulatory agencies."

The groups will testify at the United Nations later this year.


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Hurricane season is here, and conservationists are shining a light on the role salt marshes play in protecting coastal North Carolina communities.

Studies find that salt marshes absorb flood waters and wave energy, reducing property damage in nearby areas by an average 20%.

Charlie Deaton, a habitat protection biologist at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, explained what salt marshes do to help areas build climate resilience.

"They're good at helping us actually mitigate some of the carbon we've released into the atmosphere, and they are good for community resilience, too," he said. "They protect landward shorelines from erosion, and salt marshes' larger scales can actually reduce the impacts of storm surge and reduce flooding from that."

North Carolina has about 220,000 acres of salt marshes, but the protections they offer are dependent on their health and preservation. Coastal development, pollution and climate change all pose threats to these ecosystems. Deaton said plans are in place to help restore them. The South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative aims to save 1 million salt-marsh acres, from North Carolina to Florida.

As hurricane activity is projected to increase in frequency and intensity, the role of salt marshes in protecting coastal communities becomes even more critical. Deaton said the evidence is clear that restoring these landscapes is urgent if we want to keep them.

"And if we start to lose our salt marshes," he said, "we're going to start to lose our nursery areas, and that's going to have negative impacts on our fish stocks and our fishing communities that depend on them, not to mention the direct community resilience benefits of preventing erosion and reducing storm surge."

At the state level, North Carolina also has a Salt Marsh Action plan to enhance and rejuvenate salt marshes. Deaton emphasized the importance of coupling these efforts with others that reduce pollution to safeguard coastal communities.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.


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Summer temperatures are one more reason for concern by environmental groups about the nuclear waste stored along the Great Lakes.

There are three nuclear power plants in Michigan and 23 in the Great Lakes watershed. Many of the facilities store their hazardous waste outdoors, in dry-cask storage along the waters in Michigan and Canada. Environmental groups said about 80,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste now rest near the Great Lakes.

Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist for the nonprofit Beyond Nuclear, said proximity to major freshwater sources is just one issue.

"The dangers are, you have to 'radiation field' this stuff constantly, because exposure to a person at close range can deliver a fatal dose of radiation within a matter of minutes," Kamps explained. "You also need to contain it and isolate it from the environment."

The Michigan group Citizens' Resistance at Fermi II is working with other local and national organizations to find solutions. They include promoting renewable energy and demanding authorities such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission enforce what's known as "hardened" on-site storage, which they believe can more safely secure nuclear waste.

DTE Energy, the operator of Fermi II, responded to the concerns in a statement, saying in part "Fermi's used fuel is stored in hardened canisters, protected per strict federal guidelines and constantly monitored."

Jesse Deer In Water, community organizer for Citizens Resistance at Fermi II, said many people are under the impression there are no radiation leaks from the dry-cask storage fuel ponds but his organization disagrees.

"Because it's still hot fuel inside of it," Deer In Water asserted. "It's still highly unstable and for it to be just completely contained without any venting causes it to, like, build up, like a radioactive gas inside of it that can, like, catch on fire and explode."

DTE Energy also noted the canisters "undergo rigorous testing and analysis to ensure they can safely hold up through natural disasters."