The Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster - History and Legacy Adjunct Professor of Community Medicine, West Virginia University and Senior Fellow, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies This presentation will describe the worst – yet least known – industrial disaster in American history. Over 5,000 men worked in the 1930 – 1931 construction of Union Carbide’s Hawks Nest tunnel, 2,400 of them underground. Two-thirds of the underground workers were black. The 3.6-mile-long 46-ft-in-diameter tunnel passed through Gauley Mountain’s virtually solid sandstone, over 96 – 99% pure silica. Men worked in air laden with silica dust and were provided no respiratory protection. Within months, men began to become ill and die of acute silicosis. Within 5 years, at least 764 men, and possibly double that number, died as a result of working in the tunnel. Many were buried in unmarked graves near Summersville. A dam was constructed across the New River and once completed the river was diverted into the tunnel. At the tunnel’s downstream end, 162 feet below its upper end, the river turned turbines that produced electricity for Union Carbide factories. Extracted silica rock, a valuable ingredient in aluminum alloy production, was shipped to Carbide’s Electro-Metallurgical Company 10 miles downstream. The social and economic conditions at the time of the tunnel, the tunnel’s construction, and litigation and political consequences that followed completion of the project will be described. (Javascript is required to view Mediasite content)