Ansted is a town in Fayette County in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The population was 1,404 at the 2010 census. It is situated on high bluffs along U.S. Route 60 on a portion of the Midland Trail near Hawks Nest overlooking the New River far below.
Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is an American chemical company. UCC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume commodities and others are specialty products meeting the needs of smaller markets. Markets served include paints and coatings, packaging, wire and cable, household products, personal care, pharmaceuticals, automotive, textiles, agriculture, and oil and gas. The company is a former component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Pneumoconiosis is the general term for a class of interstitial lung disease where inhalation of dust has caused interstitial fibrosis. The three most common types are asbestosis, silicosis, and coal miner's lung. Pneumoconiosis often causes restrictive impairment, although diagnosable pneumoconiosis can occur without measurable impairment of lung function. Depending on extent and severity, it may cause death within months or years, or it may never produce symptoms. It is usually an occupational lung disease, typically from years of dust exposure during work in mining; textile milling; shipbuilding, ship repairing, and/or shipbreaking; sandblasting; industrial tasks; rock drilling ; or agriculture. It is one of the most common occupational diseases in the world.
Silicosis is a form of occupational lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust. It is marked by inflammation and scarring in the form of nodular lesions in the upper lobes of the lungs. It is a type of pneumoconiosis. Silicosis, particularly the acute form, is characterized by shortness of breath, cough, fever, and cyanosis. It may often be misdiagnosed as pulmonary edema, pneumonia, or tuberculosis. Using workplace controls, silicosis is almost always a preventable disease.
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
Hawk's Nest, the site of Hawks Nest State Park, is a peak on Gauley Mountain in Ansted, West Virginia, USA. The cliffs at this point rise 585 ft above the New River. Located on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike, many early travelers on this road stopped to see the view of the river below. In modern times, the Midland Trail carries U.S. Route 60 through the same general route. Ample parking at the overlook in the state park provides tourists with free access to the views. English writer Harriet Martineau, who passed through the area in the 1830s, found the view at Hawk's Nest nearly as moving as Niagara Falls. Martineau also reported the legend that John Marshall, as a surveyor in his youth, had been its first white discoverer.
A drywall mechanic is a skilled trade similar to wood carpenters, except they build everything out of light gauge steel studs all year round, regardless of weather conditions. Drywall mechanics erect various exterior and interior stud wall partitions. They also install metal door frames, window frames, a variety of acoustical ceilings, and precast moldings for columns and ceilings. In addition, they also install x-ray shielding, thermal and sound insulation and a variety of drywall panels and metal and vinyl trims.
Hawks Nest State Park is located on 370 acres (150 ha) in Fayette County near Ansted, West Virginia. The park's clifftop overlook along U.S. Route 60 provides a scenic vista of the New River, some 750 feet below. The hydro-electric project tunnel that passes underneath nearby Gauley Mountain was the scene of the Depression-era Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster.
Black lung disease (BLD), also known as coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or simply black lung, is an occupational type of pneumoconiosis caused by long-term inhalation and deposition of coal dust in the lungs and the consequent lung tissue's reaction to its presence. It is common in coal miners and others who work with coal. It is similar to both silicosis from inhaling silica dust and asbestosis from inhaling asbestos dust. Inhaled coal dust progressively builds up in the lungs and leads to inflammation, fibrosis, and in worse cases, necrosis.
Progressive massive fibrosis (PMF), characterized by the development of large conglomerate masses of dense fibrosis, can complicate silicosis and coal worker's pneumoconiosis. Conglomerate masses may also occur in other pneumoconioses, such as talcosis, berylliosis (CBD), kaolin pneumoconiosis, and pneumoconiosis from carbon compounds, such as carbon black, graphite, and oil shale. Conglomerate masses can also develop in sarcoidosis, but usually near the hilae and with surrounding paracicatricial emphysema.
Occupational lung diseases comprise a broad group of diseases, including occupational asthma, industrial bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchiolitis obliterans, inhalation injury, interstitial lung diseases, infections, lung cancer and mesothelioma. These can be caused directly or due to immunological response to an exposure to a variety of dusts, chemicals, proteins or organisms. Occupational cases of interstitial lung disease may be misdiagnosed as COPD, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or a myriad of other diseases; leading to a delay in identification of the causative agent.
Glen Ferris is a census-designated place (CDP) on the western bank of the Kanawha River in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States. It is situated approximately one mile south of the town of Gauley Bridge and adjacent to Kanawha Falls. The sole highway linking Glen Ferris to the area is U.S. Route 60, known also as the Midland Trail. As of the 2010 census, its population was 203; the community had 104 housing units, 87 of which were occupied. The village is roughly a mile and a half in length. Glen Ferris is home to two churches, one Apostolic and one Methodist. A railway owned by Norfolk Southern runs parallel to US Route 60 through the village.
Chalicosis is a form of pneumoconiosis affecting the lungs or bronchioles, found mainly among stonecutters. The disease is caused by the inhalation of fine particles of stone. The term is from Greek, χάλιξ, gravel.
Hubert Skidmore (1909–1946) was an American writer. His twin brother was novelist Hobert Skidmore, and he was married to the novelist Maritta Wolff, writer of Whistle Stop and a fellow student at the University of Michigan, in 1942. He died in a house fire in 1946. He is best known for his social protest novel Hawk's Nest, an account of the disaster at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia during the Great Depression.
Falls View is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States. Falls View is located 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of Gauley Bridge, on the north bank of the Kanawha River. As of the 2010 census, its population was 238. Falls View was established in the early 20th century as a residential village for managers from the Electro Metallurgical Co., part of the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation. Electro Metallurgical operated four ferroalloy plants in the area, powered by hydroelectricity generated at the dam on Kanawha Falls.
Hawk's Nest is a novel written by West Virginia author Hubert Skidmore, published in 1941. A fictionalized account of one of America's greatest industrial disasters, it is an account of the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster in which hundreds or thousands of men were sickened and died as a result of silicosis they contracted while digging the tunnel under unsafe conditions. The novel follows the lives of many representative characters as their health begins to fail, and as their health complaints are ignored by Union Carbide, the contractor which dug the tunnel and installed the hydroelectric plant.
Mine safety is a broad term referring to the practice of controlling and managing a wide range of hazards associated with the life cycle of mining-related activities. Mine safety practice involves the implementation of recognised hazard controls and/or reduction of risks associated with mining activities to legally, socially and morally acceptable levels. While the fundamental principle of mine safety is to remove health and safety risks to mine workers, mining safety practice may also focus on the reduction of risks to plant (machinery) together with the structure and orebody of the mine.
The NIOSH air filtration rating is the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)'s classification of filtering respirators. The ratings describe the ability of the device to protect the wearer from solid and liquid particulates in the air. The certification and approval process for respiratory protective devices is governed by Part 84 of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Respiratory protective devices so classified include air-purifying respirators (APR) such as filtering facepiece respirators and chemical protective cartridges that have incorporated particulate filter elements.
The Fayette Tribune is a newspaper serving Oak Hill, West Virginia, and surrounding Fayette County. Published on Thursday, it has a circulation of 1,093 and is owned by Community Newspaper Holdings.
The Book of the Dead is a long narrative poem written by Muriel Rukeyser, appearing in her collection US 1. Published in 1938, the poem deals with the Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster, also known as the Gauley Tunnel Tragedy, in which predominately poor, migrant mine workers in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia succumbed to death caused by the occupational mining disease known as silicosis.
