/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>58351688
It's not, sadly. Black lung became much more common in the mid 20th century with the advent of the continuous miner, where miners would work close to the face while the CM was tearing up coal. This continues with longwall mining, which became big around the 1980s.
Jets of water spray from the CM or longwall shear onto the coal face to suppress dust, and there is a lot of airflow at the face too, to get rid of harmful gases and dust. But black lung is still around. It's best to wear a respirator when working some positions.
Before continuous mining, coal miners used conventional mining methods, which consist of blasting (shooting, in miner terminology) the face, waiting for the dust to settle, and then collecting the chunks of coal. Black lung was far, far less common with that method of mining from the 1940s and earlier.