Human Health and Windblown Coal Dust: I of 4

It has been long known and thoroughly documented that aquatic life is endangered by silt, selenium, sulphates, nitrates and heavy mineral contaminants leached from open-pit coal mines into polluted waterways stretching long distances from the source. This massive water quality problem continues to draw intense attention from neighboring provinces and across international boundaries. 

More recently, an alarming new front in the detection and identification of toxic chemicals in windblown fugitive dust, many of them carcinogenic, was revealed in research reports by Environment and Parks, Government of Alberta; and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta. The research establishes another key conclusion that must be addressed by governments and mining operators alike. Air quality involves much more than "watering the roads to keep the dust down around the immediate mine property." 

Colin Cooke et al in a 2022 paper concluded:
"Mining activities (e.g. blasting, coal processing, rail loading), exposure of coal deposits, and winds, all serve to generate fugitive dust. Emissions of fugitive dust result in poor air quality on and off site and expose mine workers and mining communities to pollutants associated with particulate matter (PM) such as polycyclic aromatics compounds (PACs). [Additionally,] "Fine PM" with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less can be transported atmospherically hundreds, even thousands, of kilometers away from the emission source. Yet extra-regional transport and deposition of fugitive dust and associated pollutants emitted during mountaintop removal coal mining [remain largely] unknown."

Also from this paper:
"... a sediment core from pristine Window Mountain Lake [in Alberta], about 10 km east of the Elk View Mine and along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, documents since about 1970 [when underground mining was replaced] a roughly 30-fold increase in PAC concentrations, and a compositional profile that matches closely with coal mined in the Elk Valley BC. Selenium concentrations have also increased, paralleling a rise in the Elk River, which drains the coal mines. The source of these contaminants is fugitive coal dust, emitted during mining and carried atmospherically across the continental divide from Pacific to Atlantic drainage basins." 

"The size of dust particles is directly linked to their potential for causing serious health problems, especially in children, older adults and minority populations, because they can penetrate deep into the tiny sacs of the lungs where gas exchange with the bloodstream occurs. Cardiovascular, lung and other organ health effects may take years to manifest and are often irreversible." 
Regrettably, neither federal nor provincial governments currently require mines to monitor and report atmospheric emissions of PACs. Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) maintains only "Total Particulate Matter" data (Total PM), the sum of "Coarse PM" and the dangerous "Fine PM" of diameters less than 2.5 microns. In spite of this, the Alberta researchers found another way to reach a second and very significant conclusion: not only had the annual "Total PM" increased more than 10-fold over a five-year study period, paralleling the increase in coal production; but also the windblown atmospheric "Fine PM" accounted for fully 83% of the total, road dust accounting for only 17%. [link https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestlett.2c00677]
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The danger of windblown fine particle coal dust is real. 

Reference: Cooke, C. A.; Drevnick, P.E. Transboundary Atmospheric Pollution from Mountaintop Coal Mining.  Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2022, 9 (11), 943-948.