History of Occupation Safety and Health

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Throughout history, there have been several workplace tragedies that helped to shape the field of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) as we know it today. For this assignment, you will choose one significant workplace tragedy.

To complete the assignment, you will need to address the following items:

Summarize the tragedy selected and how this event helped to improve workplace safety and health today.

Compare and contrast the safety and health regulatory environment existing at the time of the tragedy with that of the

current day.

Identify existing OSH regulatory and/or consensus standards that have likely helped to prevent a recurrence of the tragic

event.

Your paper should be at least three pages in length, not including the title and reference pages. A minimum of two sources (see below)

must be used, one which may include the textbook. Your paper must be in APA style format.


https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/the-hawks-n...


http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster-

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2/8/2018 The Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster: Summersville, WV - New River Gorge National River (U.S. National Park Service) National Park Service(/) INFO ALERTS MAPS CALENDAR RESERVE 3 The Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster: Summersville, WV https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/the-hawks-nest-tunnel-disaster-summersville-wv.htm 1/3 2/8/2018 The Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster: Summersville, WV - New River Gorge National River (U.S. National Park Service) Throughout the years, West Virginia has suffered many tragedies that left hundreds of workers injured or dead. These tragedies are the result of disasters occurring in our coal mines, on our railroads and at industrial facilities like the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel incident. This disaster became one of the worst industrial tragedies in the history of the United States.1 In 1930, construction began on a three-mile tunnel through Gauley Mountain located between Ansted and Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. When finished, the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel would divert water from the New River to a hydroelectric plant downstream. The water would be used to produce electricity for Union Carbide’s metals plant at Alloy, West Virginia. In order to build the tunnel through solid rock, hundreds of unemployed men were recruited for construction jobs on the project. At least two-thirds of these workers were African Americans. As the men drilled and blasted a 32-36 inch tunnel through the mountain, they drilled through rock that contained high levels of silica. The dry drilling technique that was used released large amounts of silica dust into the air. This made working in the tunnel very dangerous. Black diggers emerged from the hole in the mountain covered with layers of white dust. The interior of the tunnel was a white cloud of silica, impairing vision and clogging the lungs of workers.2 Because the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel was licensed as a civil engineering project, even the most modest forms of safety were not applied.3 Workers labored in confined spaces with poor ventilation, a lack of dust control, and limited use of personal breathing protection. Within months, workers became sick from breathing silica dust. They showed signs of a lung disease called silicosis but were treated for a new disease called “tunnelitis”. Silicosis is a disease that infects the lungs leading to a shortness of breath and eventually death. Silicosis cannot be cured. The length of employment in the tunnel rarely lasted more than a year. The dangerous working conditions and silica dust rendered many of the men unable to work. Excavation of the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel lead to the greatest death toll ever from silicosis in the United States. Of the approximately 5,000 men that worked on the project, an estimated 2,900 worked inside the tunnel. Of these men, silicosis claimed the lives of at least 764 workers. A majority of the dead were African Americans. In the years after the project was completed, many more would die due to their exposure to silica dust while working in the tunnel. With the death of so many black workers, the problem of where to bury them became an issue. There was no burial sites nearby for black workers.4 To solve the issue, a funeral parlor in Summersville, West Virginia located an open field on Martha White’s farm. This field became the burial grounds for many of the African Americans who died working on the tunnel project. Owen Symes remembers the cemetery like this: https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/the-hawks-nest-tunnel-disaster-summersville-wv.htm 2/3 2/8/2018 The Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster: Summersville, WV - New River Gorge National River (U.S. National Park Service) “I used to rabbit hunt over there on the Martha White farm out in the fields before Rt. 19 came through here. I could see the graves. They were little soft mounds of dirt with grass over them. If you were not careful, you could step on one and it would cave in. They were in rows right up and down the fence line. They moved a lot of them when the highway came through. Dug up the graves and took what was left down by Hughes Bridge on the Gauley River to bury them again." Today, the tunnel continues diverting water from the New River to produce hydro-electricity for the Alloy plant. Silicosis has been designated as an occupational disease with compensation for workers. However, tunnel workers at Hawk’s Nest were not protected by these laws.5 This memorial on Highway 19 was established to remember and honor the many victims of the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel tragedy. 1. Martin G. Cherniack, "Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 04 June 2015. Web. 2. Betty Dotson-Lewis, Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy, Sept 2009 3. Martin G. Cherniack, "Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 04 June 2015. Web. 4. Betty Dotson-Lewis, Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy, Sept 2009 5.Ibid Last updated: February 9, 2017 CONTACT THE PARK Mailing Address: P.O. Box 246, 104 Main Street Glen Jean, WV 25846 Phone: (304) 465-0508 (//www.nps.gov) National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/the-hawks-nest-tunnel-disaster-summersville-wv.htm 3/3 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today MENU  SEARCH LOG IN REGISTER INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] Sandy Smith | May 20, 2014         START SLIDESHOW › http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 1/8 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today It’s been called America’s worst industrial disaster. The construction of a three-milelong tunnel to carry the New River through Gauley Mountain in West Virginia cost as many as 2,000 workers their lives. At least 764 of the 1,213 men who worked underground at Hawk's Nest for at least two months died within five years of the tunnel's completion, having contracted silicosis as the result of drilling through miles of rock to build a hydro-electric plant for Union Carbide, which owned the tunnel. Some 5,000 men worked on the project from March 1930 to December 1931, earning 25 cents an hour and working 60 hours a week. Many of the workers were AfricanAmerican, and came to West Virginia to work on the project. As they began getting sick with what company doctors called “tunnelitis,” they were unable to return to their homes and those who didn’t die in their beds in the company-owned worker camps were driven out of town to die in nearby towns or were put on trains and sent home. According to Dr. Helen Lang, an associate professor of Geology at West Virginia University, 60 percent of the men worked less than two months, 80 percent less than six months and 90 percent less than a year. The average length of work was 15 weeks for a black worker and 16 weeks for a white worker. “Why did so many work less than the total duration of the project when jobs were very scarce and pay was relatively good?” asked Lang. Silicosis usually was thought of as a slow-moving disease but the Hawk's Nest workers quickly became sick with acute silicosis “caused by massive overexposure to freshly fractured, high-silica dust,” she said. The mountain rock contained extremely high levels of silica, wet drilling techniques were not used to keep dust levels down and the workers were given no masks or respirators. These factors all contributed to worker deaths, some of which occurred after as little as two months’ exposure in the tunnel. http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 2/8 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today Many of the workers were local. Shirley Jones was 18 when he died of silicosis. His father, uncle and brothers worked in the tunnel with him and all of them died of silicosis. Union Carbide offered death benefits to his mother of $800 for each of her three sons and $1,000 for her husband. The families of the African American workers were offered $400 for a son and $600 for a husband. Racism and Jim Crow laws were rampant in the area. The African American workers who died could not be buried in the “white” cemeteries. A few were buried in a nearby slave cemetery, while others were buried in unmarked graves on private property. Local residents claim that some workers were buried along the roads near the tunnel, their bodies covered in rock dug from the mountain. Roosevelt Singleton was 31 when he died on May 14, 1931. His last work shift was May 2. Although his cause of death was listed as pneumonia, it likely was silicosis. He was buried on a farm owned by the family of local undertaker Hadley White in Summersville, W. Va., in an unmarked grave, along with dozens of other workers. Union Carbide paid White to bury the tunnel workers who died as a result of “pneumonia” or “tunnelitis” who did not live locally or whose families did not claim the bodies. The bodies in that makeshift cemetery were moved several miles away to unconsecrated ground in 1972, when the state of West Virginia decided to widen U.S. 19. The new burial site in Summersville became a dumping ground for old appliances and highway crews disposing of road kill until local residents Charlotte and Charles Neilan made it their mission to find the graveyard, which they did with the help of West Virginia State University Professor Richard Hartman. Several groups helped clear debris, build a fence and steps to the cemetery and apply for funding for a historic marker. On Sept. 7, 2012, the names of the dead buried in the cemetery were read and the ground was consecrated in a service performed by three ministers. “It's important because they were treated so shabbily during their lives. These poor http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 3/8 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today men had a horrible life and they were treated no better in death,” Charlotte Neilan told the Charleston Daily Mail. For more information about the memorial, visit Hawk’s Nest Worker’s Memorial. Hawk's Nest Tunnel Tragedy 1930s  TAGS: START SLIDESHOW SAFETY › OSHA 4 COMMENTS http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 4/8 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today RELATED Pump or No Pump – That Is the Question Jeffrey Miller Named New Chairman of the American Board of Industrial Hygiene JAN 26, 2018 JAN 11, 2018 8 Ways to Avoid Carbon Monoxide Poisoning [Photo Gallery] 5 Ways to Reduce Legionnaires’ Disease Risk JAN 11, 2018 JAN 08, 2018 RSS Privacy Policy Sitemap Terms of Service Newsletter Contact Us Follow us:  © 2018 Informa USA, Inc., All Rights Reserved http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 5/8 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 6/8 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 7/8 2/8/2018 The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Tragedy: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Worst Industrial Disaster [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/hawk-s-nest-tunnel-tragedy-forgotten-victims-america-s-worst-industrial-disaster- 8/8
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Running head: HISTORY OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, and HEALTH

History of Occupational Safety, and Health
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HISTORY OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, and HEALTH

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History of Occupational Safety, and Health
Description of Hawk Nest Tragedy
Hawk’s nest tunnel was constructed through Gauley Mountain between the years 1930 to 1931, to
convey New River for a hydroelectric power plant at Union Carbide. Gauley Mountain was majorly
composed of high-level silica-containing rocks (Campbell, 2008; Smith 2014). This project is considered
the worst industrial disaster to have ever happened in the history of United State of America (Smith,
2014; Thomas & Kelley, 2010). The Hawk’s Nest Tunnel workers were working in conditions that
exposed them to silica dust which then led them to contract silicosis which claimed a lot of lives.
According to Smith (2014), a total of 2000 of workers died from Silicosis during, and within the 5 years
of the tunnel’s completion.
The workers worked under poor conditions with little pay (25 cents per hour), and without
medical cover. As a result, the workers could not access medication, therefore opting to die in the camp
while others were driven out of the city to die in other towns (Smith, 2014). As noted by Thomas, and
Kelley (2010), although the workers worked under poor conditions they could not complain as they could
easily be replaced, since jobs were s...


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