“I’m in no pain, but don’t know how long the air will last,” wrote George Hamner, while trapped in West Virginia’s Sago Mine. He and 11 other coal miners died in the mine on Jan. 2.

Nineteen miners were killed in the United States in the first five weeks of 2006 alone.

These accidents raise questions about mine safety and regulation, the consequences of a coal-powered economy and the history of mining and mine safety. Is the federal government doing enough to protect miners? Are mining accidents par for the course?

Whenever environmental stories like the Sago Mine disaster or Hurricane Katrina hit the front pages, it is journalists’ job to look to history for perspective, to hold government accountable for its failures or successes.

To that end, hidden deep in the National Archives waits a little-known treasure of environmental history called Project Documerica.

Created by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1971 — when the mass environmental movement coalesced — Documerica hired dozens of photographers to comb the country recording the state of the environment and efforts to improve it.

Among the more than 81,000 photographs are images of coal mining culture in West Virginia and Mississippi River flooding in Louisiana, profound images that remind the world that “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

The strongest 22,000-plus images were catalogued and made available to publications nationwide. They began showing up in textbooks, newspapers, magazines and filmstrips. The exhibit “Our Only World,” a Smithsonian Institution display of 113 Documerica images, toured the country to record audiences and rave reviews. But by 1977, funding for the project was cut, and its unique record of cultural and environmental history disappeared into the National Archives.

Now, 30 years later, Project Documerica is fulfilling its original mission as an historical archive of environmental history. Environmental journalists can use the photography archive to give their readers perspective on just how far we’ve progressed in the 40 years since the start of the environmental movement.