West Virginia officials had asked for the study after scientists described increased risks of cancer and birth defects near surface coal mining operations.
The National Academies said it is ready to resume its mountaintop mining health risks study “as soon as the Department of the Interior review is completed.” Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Phil McKenna reports for Inside Climate News:
The Trump administration has ordered a halt to an independent study looking at potential health risks to people living near mountaintop mining sites in Appalachia.
The U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement sent a letter to the National Academy of Sciences on Friday instructing it to cease all work on the study.
The study had been launched at the request of two West Virginia agencies, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and Bureau for Public Health.
The agencies sought federal assistance with a research review after several dozen scientific papers found increased risks of birth defects, cancer and premature death among residents living near large-scale surface coal mines in Appalachia. The Office of Surface Mining had committed $1 million to the study under President Obama in 2016.
The letter calling for an end to that study stated that the Department of Interior “has begun an agency-wide review of its grants and cooperative agreements in excess of $100,000, largely as a result of the department’s changing budget situation,” the National Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
The Interior Department has drawn criticism for moves seen as muting scientific expertise. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke froze several science advisory boards earlier this year, and a prominent Interior Department climate scientist blew the whistle on the department last month, alleging that he and dozens of other scientists had been arbitrarily reassigned. A group of senators subsequently called for a probe to investigate the reassignments.
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