Dec 20, 2016 3 min read

Ken Hechler sounds like the kind of guy anyone would have loved sitting next to on a long plane ride.

The former West Virginia congressman, who died earlier this month after logging a full 102 years – with full being the operative word – was a speechwriter for President Harry Truman; marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala.; wrote the World War II novel “The Bridge at Remagen,” which was subsequently adapted for the big screen with E.G. Marshall and Ben Gazzara in starring roles; and was a professor at Marshall College in Huntington, W.Va.

Hechler was a man of the world but, from all accounts, did not want for the common touch or lose sight of the everyday concerns of his constituents. During his time on Capitol Hill and as West Virginia’s secretary of state, he was an advocate for coal miners and was a supporter of Joseph Yablonski, the reformer from Clarksville who was murdered in 1969 after he sought the presidency of the United Mine Workers. Hechler also turned a bright light on black lung disease, which many industry leaders once denied even existed. In the same year Yablonksi was murdered, the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act made its way through Congress, with Hechler as one of its key backers. It strengthened safety standards, increased inspections, curtailed coal dust and offered compensation for miners afflicted with black lung disease.

It’s a bittersweet coincidence that Hechler’s life is being recalled and celebrated at the some moment when black lung disease is making something of an unwelcome comeback. According to an Associated Press story that appeared in the Observer-Reporter Saturday, the number of miners who are suffering from the most severe variety of black lung disease is on the rise. Though steps have been taken to tame the amount of dust that miners can inhale, some are now breathing in dust that contains silica because of the thinner coal seams of Appalachia, and silica is particularly damaging to the lungs.

Cases of black lung have increased tenfold this decade, according to data from black lung clinics in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia. Scott Laney, an epidemiologist with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, explained that “the current numbers are unprecedented by any historical standard. We had not seen cases of this magnitude ever before in history in central Appalachia.”

To offer some perspective on how pernicious this current form of black lung disease is, the Associated Press talked to Mackie Branham, a 39-year-old miner in Kentucky whose black lung disease is already more advanced than his father’s, who is also afflicted.

What can be done? New coal dust limits were recently put in place by the Mine Safety and Health Administration, along with a requirement that miners wear dust monitors and that they undergo more frequent medical check-ups. This should help. But a frequent complaint that has been leveled over the years is the MSHA is relatively toothless, sometimes not levying fines against offenders, other times imposing fines that amount to pocket change, and then allowing malefactors to take their time paying up. Others say that there has been a general lack of urgency when it comes to confronting dust and other safety issues.

Unless more attention is, in fact, paid, there will undoubtedly be more miners facing lives circumscribed by disability and premature death.