EDITORIAL |
 Charleston Gazette, August 16, 2009 |
| Tragedy Industrial horror |
| Anita Cecil, a disability evaluator for the state Rehabilitation Division, has deep family roots in West Virginia, but her folks are haunted, because her grandfather and three uncles all died prematurely in agony from silicosis they contracted as diggers in the notorious Hawks Nest Tunnel. Charlotte Yeager-Neilan, publisher of the weekly Nicholas Chronicle, discovered unmarked graves on the hill behind her Summersville home, and others beside U.S. 19 -- hasty burial sites for tunnel victims who died wheezing. Through the county historical society, she asked the state Humanities Council for a grant for a memorial to honor these casualties of ruthless work operations. The Hawks Nest tragedy -- America's worst industrial disaster -- still burdens West Virginia, seven decades afterward. It happened during the Great Depression, when millions of American men were jobless and desperate for any work they could find. A Virginia contractor offered 25 cents an hour for laborers on a mammoth project: drilling a three-mile tunnel through Gauley Mountain, to divert the New River down to turbines to supply electricity for Union Carbide's Alloy smelter. |
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Workers came from several states, to live in shantytowns and slave 60 hours a week inside the mountain. About two-thirds of them were black. Here's how their nightmare unfolded: Silica (silicon dioxide) is the most abundant compound in Earth's crust, forming the basis of most rock and sand, as well as crystals like quartz, flint, opal, agate, onyx, etc. As the drillers bored through Gauley Mountain, they found large quantities of pure silica, which was valuable for Carbide's smelter. The tunnel was enlarged and the silica was mined as a byproduct. At that time, public health experts knew that fine airborne silica dust lodged in workers' lungs, giving them deadly silicosis. For that reason, most drills in quarries and tunnels used water sprays to prevent dust from flying. But the Virginia contractor, with Carbide engineers overseeing, insisted on dangerous "dry drilling" because it was faster and cheaper. The tunnel interior was a cloud of white dust that obscured vision and made diggers look like ghosts when they emerged. Workers weren't told of the hazard and were given no breathing masks. But company officials and inspectors wore ventilators when they went inside. |
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With deadly swiftness, laborers developed breathing trouble and sickened. A company doctor gave them worthless pills. The men began dying by dozens, scores, hundreds. Black corpses were banned from local cemeteries, so they were buried furtively on a farm. Many men became too sick to work and returned to their out-of-state homes, where an unknown number died. Death toll estimates vary widely from a few hundred to 2,000. Nobody knows an accurate count. Congressional hearings were held. The Legislature toughened West Virginia's workers compensation law. Lawsuits were filed, but victims' families got pittances: from $400 for a single black man to $1,000 for a married white one. The Virginia contractor went out of business. The tragedy is back in the news because Morgantown psychologist Dwight Harshbarger just published a book, "Witness at Hawks Nest," recounting the horror. This ugly chapter of West Virginia history must be remembered as a painful warning to be on guard against cold-blooded industrial practices. |
