Deaths At West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety

MONTCOAL, W.Va. — Rescue workers began the precarious task Tuesday of removing explosive methane gas from the coal mine where at least 25 miners died the day before. The mine owner’s dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, left federal officials and miners suggesting that Monday’s explosion might have been preventable.

In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the Upper Big Branch because of dangerously high methane levels, according to two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a Democrat whose district includes the mine, said he had received similar reports from miners about recent evacuations at the mine, which as recently as last month was fined at least three times for ventilation problems, according to federal records.

The Massey Energy Company, the biggest coal mining business in central Appalachia and the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine, has drawn sharp scrutiny and fines from regulators over its safety and environmental record.

In 2008, one of its subsidiaries paid what federal prosecutors called the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry after pleading guilty to safety violations that contributed to the deaths of two miners in a fire in one of its mines. That year, Massey also paid a $20 million fine — the largest of its kind levied by the Environmental Protection Agency — for clean water violations.

It is still unclear what caused Monday’s blast, which is under investigation. But the disaster has raised new questions about Massey’s attention to safety under the leadership of its pugnacious chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, and about why stricter federal laws, put into effect after a mining disaster in 2006, failed to prevent another tragedy.

Kevin Stricklin, an administrator with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, said the magnitude of the explosion — the worst mining accident in 25 years, which also left four people missing, including a woman working as a mining operator — showed that “something went very wrong here.”

“All explosions are preventable,” Mr. Stricklin said. “It’s just making sure you have things in place to keep one from occurring.”

Mr. Rahall said that even veteran rescue workers, some with decades of experience, had told him they were shocked by what they saw inside the mine. They said they had never witnessed destruction on that scale, Mr. Rahall said, or dealt with the aftermath of an explosion of that magnitude.

“It turned rail lines into pretzels,” Mr. Rahall said. “There seems like there was something awfully wrong to make such a huge explosion.”

Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and members of Congress said state and federal officials would begin investigating the explosion.

In an interview with the Metronews radio network in West Virginia, Mr. Blankenship said that despite the company’s many violations, the Mine Safety and Health Administration would never have allowed the mine to operate if it had been unsafe.

“Violations are unfortunately a normal part of the mining process,” Mr. Blankenship said.

“There are violations at every coal mine in America, and U.B.B. was a mine that had violations,” he added, referring to Upper Big Branch.

“I think the fact that M.S.H.A., the state and our fire bosses and the best engineers that you can find were all in and around this mine, and all believed it to be safe in the circumstances it was in, speaks for itself as far as any suspicion that the mine was improperly operated,” Mr. Blankenship said.

The Massey Energy Web site also contains a defense of the company’s safety record. It says 2009 was the 17th year out of 20 that the company had scored above the industry average in safety.

But miners and other workers in the mine took issue with Mr. Blankenship’s reassurances.

“No one will say this who works at that mine, but everyone knows that it has been dangerous for years,” said Andrew Tyler, 22, an electrician who worked on the wiring for the coal conveyer belt as a subcontractor at the mine two years ago.

Mr. Tyler said workers had regularly been told to work 12-hour shifts when eight hours is the industry standard. He also said that live wires had been left exposed and that an accumulation of coal dust and methane was routinely ignored.

“I’m willing to go on record because I am a subcontractor who doesn’t depend on Massey for my life,” Mr. Tyler said.

In March alone, the Mine Safety and Health Administration cited the Upper Big Branch mine for 53 safety violations.

Last year, the number of citations issued against the mine more than doubled, to over 500, from 2008, and the penalties proposed against the mine more than tripled, to $897,325.

 Article Source: http://www.informationbible.com/article-deaths-at-west-virginia-mine-raise-issues-about-safety-635.html

 Article Tags: explosions, mines and mining, accidents and safety, coal, deaths fatalities, massey energy co, west virginia

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