Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship...

[Wild Cobra]

I would say where's there's smoke, there's likely fire. Of course, it's not set in stone that it's the company's fault, but that's the point of the courts! This is a message board, so I don't hold myself to the same high standards.

As long as you acknowledge that the accident was possible no fault of the company, then I can appreciate you having an opinion I think is wrong. I get so irritated at those who jump to conclusions that can be wrong, and say it's absolutely that way.

[RandomGuy]

I would be curious to know how many of those safety infractions were anything that could lead to such an accident.

How many people know of some of the stupid safety regulations? It can be a safety violation for example if you bruise yourself and not report it.

CNN reports that in 2009, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) proposed nearly $1 million in fines for more than 450 safety violations at the nonunion Upper Big Branch Mine, including penalties for

more than 50 “unwarrantable failure” violations, which are among the most serious findings an inspector can issue. Among those were citations for escape routes for miners and air quality ventilation.


According to ABC News, Massey was fighting the MSHA fines, including those for

57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow the ventilation plan. The federal records catalog the problems at the Upper Big Branch Mine….They show the company was fighting many of the steepest fines, or simply refusing to pay them.

In 2006, a fire at Massey’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine, also in West Virginia, killed two miners. Ultimately, Massey’s Aracoma Coal Co. subsidiary pleaded guilty to 10 criminal mine safety violations and paid $2.5 million in fines related to that fatal fire. According to ABC, the two miners “suffocated as they looked for a way to escape.”

Aracoma later admitted in a plea agreement that two permanent ventilation controls had been removed in 2005 and not replaced, according to published reports. The two widows of the miners killed in Aracoma were unsatisfied by the plea agreement, telling the judge they believed the company cared more about profits then safety.

Meanwhile, the Charleston Gazette reports safety officials are looking at methane that built up inside a sealed-off area or leaked through the seals as the cause of the blast. In 2006, methane from sealed-off areas caused the explosions at a Sago, W.Va., mine that killed 12 miners and also at the Darby Mine in Kentucky where two coal miners were killed.

The new mine safety rules passed after the Sago and Darby disasters called for increased monitoring of air quality in active and sealed sections of the mines to avoid methane build up. The new regulations also required mine operators to install stronger barriers between active and nonactive sections of mines.

Mine safety is a good example of an "externality" in economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

The mining company gets to earn a certain amount of extra profit from the avoided internal "costs" of safety, but then, when such a disaster happens, the families of the dead/injured are forced to bear losses in the form of all of the income that provider would have earned over his lifetime.

Insurance payouts on such workers rarely approach the value lost.

[RandomGuy]

As long as you acknowledge that the accident was possible no fault of the company, then I can appreciate you having an opinion I think is wrong. I get so irritated at those who jump to conclusions that can be wrong, and say it's absolutely that way.

As my previous post noted, no few of the violations of safety that the mine was cited were in the area of proper ventilation and monitoring of explosive gases, something that seems to me pretty likely to be the direct cause of the accident.

The chickens have come home to roost.

Hopefully we will get that tort reform you want, so that the coal company can force the miner's families to pay the coal companies court costs if they lose. Because, as we all know, those families can easily outspend Massey Energy over the course of ten years on lawyers.

That would keep all those pesky lawsuits from hampering the ability of Mr. Blankenship to make $12.9M per year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=mee

(not including the value of his yet unexercised stock options of course)

[Oh, Gee!!]

WC is the ultimate skeptic when it suits his purposes, and the ultimate conclusion-jumper when it suits his purposes. For example, consider the following post.

I agree, but remember, there are a minimum of two levels of coal dust we are dealing with. If you look at a MSDS for coal dust, you will find the flammable level is 50 grams per cubic meter. That's a whole lot of coal. However, the permissible exposure limit is only 2 milligrams per cubic meter. Huge difference.

VERSUS

I will offer the more likely proposal is the miners not wearing their respirators at the levels they are suppose to. This is a hard thing to control, and the probable violation.

You'll note that both quotes come from the same post and the same paragraph. In the first few sentences WC explains how he's not convinced that the a reported violation was actually a "dangerous" violation. Yet, in the next two sentences he offers an unsourced, unfounded account and assumes its truthy-ness.

[Wild Cobra]

WC is the ultimate skeptic when it suits his purposes, and the ultimate conclusion-jumper when it suits his purposes. For example, consider the following post.

That is your incorrect assumption. I do play skeptic often just to point out alternate possibilities. Devil's advocate if you will. I do this often when I haven't really developed my own opinion, and others do come to what I think are unfounded conclusions. I like to point out the lack of proper information at times.

You'll note that both quotes come from the same post and the same paragraph. In the first few sentences WC explains how he's not convinced that the a reported violation was actually a "dangerous" violation. Yet, in the next two sentences he offers an unsourced, unfounded account and assumes its truthy-ness.

What I either didn't explain well, or you misunderstood, was I was saying the coal dust was very unlikely the reason for the explosion. The point was made that coal dust levels were a noted safety violation. I was saying it was more likely a dangerous level for health purposes and workers not wearing respirators to get the safety violation rather than the levels being unsafe for a possible explosions.

I didn't believe that the explosion could be cause by coal dust. It falls out of the air too fast to maintain a rich enough level. The reported coal dust level violation I'm sure is too easily seen as the reason for the explosion if misunderstood.

[Oh, Gee!!]

I was saying it was more likely a dangerous level for health purposes and workers not wearing respirators to get the safety violation rather than the levels being unsafe for a possible explosions.

and I'm saying this is pure speculation on your part. I'm saying that you pass off pure speculation as fact when it suits your needs, and that you question sourced and credible facts as pure speculation when it suits your needs. In short, you're a fraud and a partisan hack.

[RandomGuy]

and I'm saying this is pure speculation on your part. I'm saying that you pass off pure speculation as fact when it suits your needs, and that you question sourced and credible facts as pure speculation when it suits your needs. In short, you're a fraud and a partisan hack.

I would note that double standards for sources and evidence is also a very striking charactristic of 9-11 truthers.

When a sciency sounding essay is published on a conspira-site that is the height of credible argument.

When an actual scientific paper is published on any other website, or the government actually does tests with actual data, that is simply "part of the cover up".

The same kind of double standards are applied by many "global warming deniers".

It is all part and parcel of the human tendency towards confirmation bias combining with what can best be described as dogmatic ideology to produce a new set of quasi-religions.

[boutons_deux]

In Week After Tragedy, 130 More Serious Safety Violations Found in Massey Mines



In the week following the biggest mining tragedy in the last 40 years, the Mine Health and Safety Administration has found a disconcerting 130 “significant and substantial” safety violations at dozens of other Massey mines. And while the Huffington Post announces this news by saying the safety violations are “skyrocketing” since the tragic explosion, that’s not exactly the case–it’s even scarier. Such an overload of violations is actually closer to par for the course for Massey.

Massey Energy, which owns the Upper Big Branch Mine where 29 employees lost their lives, has a distinct history of putting profits over mining safety, even more so in recent years. For instance, the operators of Upper Big Branch mine, where the accident occurred, had allowed thousands of unaddressed violations to ac ulated–there were 53 new violations the same month that the tragedy occurred.

Some of those violations concerned the improper ventilation that allowed flammable methane to collect in the mines–what many suspect led to the terrible explosion that caused the tragedy.

All this goes to say that gross negligence of safety regulations was par for the course before the accident–and that they were receiving numerous violations even them. But the Huffington Post is right, closer attention is now being paid, and violations seem to be pursued more vigorously:

The Mine Safety and Health Administration cited 130 “significant and substantial” violations at dozens of Massey’s mines from April 6 to April 14, according to a HuffPost analysis of MSHA records. That exceeds the number of violations found at those same mines for the entire month of March. Four of those violations involved ventilation plans which are intended to help prevent explosions and are designed “to control methane and respirable dust and shall be suitable to the conditions and mining system at the mine” — the Upper Big Branch mine was repeatedly cited for such violations and was penalized $136,142 in January.In total, the agency found 460 violations at Massey’s mines, which exceeds the 351 violations at those same mines in March. Such S&S violations are considered much more serious, because they present a direct risk to the health and safety of mine workers

But remember, the problem wasn’t mostly with the lack of violations issued, it was primarily Massey’s unwillingness to address them, and regulators’ failure in enforcing compliance.

Scrutiny is now being turned towards the man many are finding responsible for the negligence and downright unwillingness to address safety concerns: Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. Blankenship has a well do ented history of displaying hostility towards regulations and regulators, and his strategy has largely been to challenge safety violations in his mines, getting them hung up in court, instead of actually addressing the issues. Due to this dangerous negligence and decided noncompliance, Massey Energy shareholders are now calling for Blankenship’s firing.

Article printed from SpeakEasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...-massey-mines/

[Winehole23]

The buildup of flammable gases and coal dust in the mines is something Massey should have had under control. Maybe they'll be more focused on it now.

[Winehole23]

I wonder if Massey will settle with the survivors or fight them in court.

[admiralsnackbar]

I didn't believe that the explosion could be cause by coal dust. It falls out of the air too fast to maintain a rich enough level. The reported coal dust level violation I'm sure is too easily seen as the reason for the explosion if misunderstood.

Even if it turns out something else was the cause for the explosion, excessive coal dust that had settled to the ground would have been kicked up and multiplied the overall force and area of the blast.

[Wild Cobra]

In Week After Tragedy, 130 More Serious Safety Violations Found in Massey Mines


<snip>

Article printed from SpeakEasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...-massey-mines/

Another useless link. Uses big numbers to impress lib s. However, the only serious category listed was “to control methane and respirable dust and shall be suitable to the conditions and mining system at the mine” and said there were only 4 violations. What are the specifics of this? Couls all four be levels of dust beyond acceptable levels to breath only?

Details people, detail...

Without details, it is useless guessing.

Where are the details?

[boutons_deux]

"Where are the details"

If the captured/bought-off regulators/inspectors do their jobs, There Will Be Details.

I'm not optimistic. The mine, even all of Big Coal, has had so many violations that it should have been shutdown and Massey bankrupted long ago. Big Coal has $Bs to pay for lies that had their crimes against employees, the environment, and mining communities and neighbors.

Big Coal is just another corporate sector ing up America end-to-end.

[Wild Cobra]

If the captured/bought-off regulators/inspectors do their jobs, There Will Be Details.

If you have evidence of this, you need to go testify. So far, I have seen nothing they can pin the accident on.

[boutons_deux]

Here ya go, WC, A Climate of Safety Violations


The New York Times


April 22, 2010

2 Mines Show How Safety Practices Vary Widely in U.S.

By DAN BARRY, IAN URBINA and CLIFFORD KRAUSS

This article is by Dan Barry, Ian Urbina and Clifford Krauss.

Earlier this year, in the subterranean workplace of a southern West Virginia coal mine, methane kept building up because of a lack of fresh air. Odorless, explosive, this natural gas must be dispersed from where miners work, and yet it became such a familiar presence at the mine called Upper Big Branch that entire sections had to be evacuated four times this year alone.

Many of the miners suspected they knew a major source of the gas buildup: a coal shaft, unused for years, that passed down through several old mines before reaching theirs. According to a longtime foreman at the mine, who provided previously undisclosed details of its operation, the shaft was never properly sealed to prevent the methane above from being sucked into Upper Big Branch.

Instead, the foreman said, rags and garbage were used to create a poor man’s sealant, which he said allowed methane to permeate the mine, displacing much-needed oxygen.

“Every single day, the levels were double or triple what they were supposed to be,” said the foreman, whose account of the shaft was corroborated in part by records collected by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. The foreman, who is now working with federal prosecutors and elected officials investigating the mine, asked not to be identified because speaking out is not acceptable in the culture of his company, Massey Energy. Excerpts from an audio recording of the foreman’s remarks are at nytimes.com.

It is not clear whether the coal shaft played a role in the explosion of the Upper Big Branch mine two weeks ago, a disaster that killed 29 miners, rattled West Virginia and, once again, raised questions about Massey’s safety practices. But with federal investigators saying they suspect that a buildup of methane and coal dust led to the explosion, the handling of the shaft seems a particularly egregious example of the mining practices that have set Massey apart from the rest of the coal industry.

Coal mining carries inherent risks. But the numerous and very public violations and fatalities at Massey-owned mines over the years may leave the impression that all mines are run this way — that all mines leave coal shafts open and fail to exhaust methane properly. They do not. A comparison between Massey’s safety practices and those of other operators in the coal industry shows sharp differences, helping to explain why Massey mines led the list of those warned by federal regulators that they could face greater scrutiny because of their many violations.

For example, less than 200 miles to the west, in a corner of Kentucky called Hazard, a unit of the TECO Coal Corporation operates a mine with the all-business name of E3-1. Like Upper Big Branch, it is nonunion. It has fewer employees, produces three-quarters the amount of bituminous coal, uses an arguably riskier method of mining — and, its operators say, emits 25 percent more methane a day.

Yet E3-1 has not had an underground fatality since it opened in July 2004; nor does it have anywhere near the number of violations ac ulated by Upper Big Branch.

TECO is not immune to violations and accidental deaths; for example, an inadequately supported roof collapsed in 2006, killing a worker in a TECO-owned mine across the road from E3-1. But the operators at E3-1 say they build on experience, and strive toward vigilant safety practices, including routinely trying to double the required amount of fresh air that is directed into the mine’s chambers.

“This mine is gassy; it liberates methane,” said Robert J. Zik, the company’s vice president for operations. “So if we don’t do it right, you’re going to have a problem.”

“The mine has to be ventilated,” Mr. Zik added. “Otherwise, it will destroy the company. I don’t think TECO Coal could have an accident like Massey’s and survive.”

TECO executives and miners, who spoke openly and on the record during a reporter’s tour of the E3-1 mine last week, say that their training, procedures and equipment generally exceed what is required by Kentucky and federal regulators. The company says it rewards safety, provides an 800 number for anonymous complaints and fosters an open-door management style.

The differences in safety practices between TECO and Massey are often stark. Where TECO workers rigorously inspect the mine for safety problems before every shift, Upper Big Branch has had dozens of violations related to pre-shift examinations, some for failing to conduct them at all, others for not do enting that they had been done. All TECO miners get weeks of safety training, but in September an inspector ordered dozens of Massey miners out of Upper Big Branch because they lacked proper training.

Several years ago, TECO fired a mine foreman for failing to rehang a ventilation curtain that had fallen to the mine floor and contributed to a fire. At Upper Big Branch, inspectors more than once found curtains improperly hung or lying on the mine floor, a practice workers said was routine and encouraged because the plastic sheets get in the way of equipment.

And the attention to safety — or the lack of it — has had measurable results: Compared with the industry average, TECO’s workers spent much less time away from work because of injury last year; Upper Big Branch workers spent significantly more.

TECO’s mine has had far fewer safety violations over the last five years than Massey’s, and the company has been less inclined than Massey to fight with regulators. Massey has contested 69 percent of the proposed $1.9 million in civil penalties proposed by the mine safety agency since the beginning of 2005, federal records show.

Massey executives, especially its chairman and chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, have also said they maintain a vigilant commitment to safety, though they declined to comment in detail for this article.

“Massey’s board of directors has instructed counsel and mine experts to conduct a full evaluation of events, and it would be premature to comment on specific violations before they have had time to finish,” said a statement issued Thursday by a company spokeswoman, Karen Hanretty. “It’s important to note, however, that all M.S.H.A. violations must be abated. Most citations are corrected the same day, often immediately. For those that require more time, a deadline is given by M.S.H.A. to correct the situation.”

Nonetheless, the 52 deaths over the past 10 years at their mines — including a fatal 2006 fire in a mine with safety practices so poor they were later deemed criminal — tend to undermine the Massey assertions.

Now, in the wake of a catastrophe that has all of West Virginia in mourning, the trail of federal violations issued to Upper Big Branch, many of them in the weeks leading up to the explosion, seems infused with foreboding.

“The methane and dust control plan is not being followed.”

“The lifeline in the primary escape way” is not being maintained.

“In case of an emergency the men on this section would not have fresh air in the primary escapeway.”

“Management engaged in aggravated conduct cons uting more than ordinary negligence, in that production was deemed more important than conducting parameter checks.”

Grown Men, Crying

Like so many other workers across the country, the day-shift miners at Upper Big Branch had an early-morning commute. Every workday, a dozen or so piled into a covered vehicle called a mantrip and caught a half-hour doze as the car followed a track three to four miles into the side of a central Appalachian mountain.

The car would come to a stop in a world where the ceiling was less than seven feet high, the floor puddled with water, and the air cool, breezy and faintly musty. As loud fans helped to move the air, the mining machine would grind back and forth about 1,000 feet across the wall, slicing coal to be carried away by conveyor belt.

Down there, fresh air could not be taken for granted.

Well before this month’s fatal explosion at Upper Big Branch, the country’s worst mine disaster in 40 years, the lack of proper ventilation had been a continuing concern among its miners. The fear of methane building while oxygen dropped preyed on their minds.

“I have had guys come to me and cry,” said the veteran foreman. “Grown men cried — because they are scared.”

But workers in the mine said they did not dare question the company’s safety practices, even when asked to perform a dubious task.

“It was all about production,” said Andrew Tyler, 22, an electrician who two years ago worked as a subcontractor on the wiring for the coal conveyer belt and other equipment at Upper Big Branch. “If you worked for them, you didn’t ask questions about whether some step like running a cable around the breaker was a smart idea. You just did it.”

The foreman said that everyone agreed that an obvious culprit for some of the compromised air was what they called the “glory hole,” an old mining term for the chimneylike storage shaft deep within the mountain, a few hundred feet long and about 20 feet wide, that connected Upper Big Branch to a few mines above.

In years past, coal from these upper mines was dumped down the shaft to Upper Big Branch, then taken out by conveyor belt. But after the shaft stopped being used, the foreman said, a proper seal between floors was never installed.

“They just dumped trash in there,” he said. “Any kind of trash they could get, buckets, you name it.”

The foreman said that methane was being sucked down through the shaft into the active mine, to the point that methane readings in the area often measured at twice the allowable level.

About two months ago, he said, a young, fit contractor climbed a ladder on the outside of the coal shaft to retrieve a monitor. A few steps up, though, the man passed out — apparently from the high methane levels — and had to be dragged to safety. The incident was kept quiet, the foreman said, and never reported to state and federal regulators.

At least 44 times in the last two years, regulators cited the mine for major methane violations. Just three months ago, an inspector found that ventilation air was flowing the wrong way, thwarting any potential escape in an emergency. The inspector wrote that Terry Moore, the supervisor in charge, had been aware of the condition for three weeks.

“Mr. Moore engaged in aggravated conduct cons uting more than ordinary negligence in that he was aware of the condition,” the inspector said.

The foreman said that miners had fresh-air concerns beyond those created by the leaky, unused shaft. There were also the air-lock steel doors that swung open, saloon-style, dozens of times a day, as miners in mantrips crossed over the primary tunnel providing fresh air. Every time the doors opened, he said, they compromised the flow of clean air that helps to flush out the methane.

Ideally, the doors should not be in the way of the air flow. The foreman said that worried miners had pressed the coal company to cut through rock to create a dedicated air pathway, but were met with a dismissive rejection, along the lines of: We dig coal, not rock.

Inspectors have cited the company at least a dozen times over the past two years for failing to maintain or properly operate doors intended to direct air flow inside the mine. In November, an inspector found two large holes in the set of doors cited by the foreman, and noted that a large amount of air was escaping.

According to two other miners who had worked for several years at Upper Big Branch and asked not to be identified in order to keep their jobs, the pressure to run coal was so intense at times that any claim of a commitment to safety seemed like part of some absurdist play. Entrance guards would alert the miners when an inspector was on the way down. Equipment that measured coal dust was manipulated by placing it in areas with cleaner air before inspectors checked it. Curtains that directed clean air were moved around to favorably skew readings.

Daniel Woods, a federal mining inspector from Man, W.Va., on disability leave, said that Massey mines were some of the most difficult to handle. Inspections that should have taken a day took three, he said, because the first day would be spent arguing with Massey operators over paperwork and permission to enter certain sections. The company was far more likely than others to complain about inspectors it thought were too aggressive, and eventually the mine safety agency would send different inspectors, he said.

And then there were the lifelines: the steel cables that hang from the ceiling and run the length of the tunnels, intended to guide miners in darkness and smoke out of dangerous situations and into safety.

The company knew the importance of lifelines because it had been cited more than two dozen times since January 2009 for not properly maintaining them. Last summer, for example, an inspector ordered workers out of the mine after discovering several hazards, including an incorrect escape route map, a part of that route underwater — and a long stretch of lifeline missing.

According to the foreman, a few months ago the company built a wall to try and address some of the mine’s ventilation problems. That wall was still in place at the time of the explosion.

The only problem, he said: The new wall cut off a lifeline.

A Criminal Fire

Four years ago, in another southern West Virginia coal mine owned by a Massey subsidiary, a preventable fire broke out two miles below the surface. A faulty conveyor belt that should have been better maintained ignited some coal spillage that should not have been allowed to ac ulate, federal investigators found in a report compiled after the incident.

One of the miners hurriedly tried to connect a fire hose to a nearby water valve, but this was futile; the threads of the coupling and the outlet were not compatible. The miner then tried to open the valve — just to get water on the fire — but the line was dry. And things only got worse.

The miner belonged to a crew working in Massey’s Aracoma Alma mine. In a memorandum issued three months before this fire and widely disseminated in 2006, Mr. Blankenship, the company’s chief executive, ordered subordinates to run coal and ignore everything else. A week later he sent a follow-up memo saying that, of course, safety comes first — and that he would “question the membership” of any employee who thought he meant anything other than that.

Now, on the evening of Jan. 19, 2006, just hours after Aracoma officials received yet another handwritten note from Mr. Blankenship — “Stay on coal,” it said in part — a fire had broken out, again, on a misaligned conveyor belt, there was no water, and smoke was thickening.

“You could hear stuff falling and cracking and popping,” a miner named Jonah Rose later said, according to a state report by J. Davitt McAteer, a prominent mine-safety consultant who is now leading a state investigation into the Upper Big Branch explosion. “It sounded like thunder coming through there.”

After a delay of nearly half an hour, the crew of a dozen miners was ordered to evacuate. They rode a mantrip down the primary escape path — only to run into thick, impassable smoke. Holes in a ventilation wall had been created weeks earlier to accommodate electrical equipment, it turned out, effectively compromising the escape tunnel’s fresh air.

The men stumbled out of the vehicle, hollering to stick together, fumbling to don their portable breathing devices, at least one of them vomiting before his air supply halted the sensation of suffocating. Then, as best as they could in the blinding pitch of smoke, the miners felt their way along the coal wall, trying and not always succeeding to form a human chain of life support.

Somebody yelled a muffled something about a door, and the miners followed the voice. On the other side of the door, they could breathe, and see, and count: 10 now, instead of 12. Two roof-bolt operators, Ellery Hatfield and Don Israel Bragg, were missing.

Three miners went back into the smoke, repeatedly removing their masks to shout for the men they called Elvis and Riz. “You could hear them hollering at the top of their lungs, hollering for them,” another miner recalled. But there was no answer.

Two days later, rescuers — whose many obstacles included the inaccurate mine maps provided by the company — found the bodies. Mr. Bragg was 33; Mr. Hatfield was 46.

As in the past, as in the future, state and federal inspection reports provided disturbing context. The Aracoma mine had received more than two-dozen violations in the months just before the fire, including several that cited problems with its ventilation system and three that raised alarms about the build-up of combustible coal dust and spillage.

In addition, Aracoma miners later told investigators that they had put out two other fires caused by faulty conveyor belts in the two weeks before the fatal fire. Neither of these fires was reported to state or federal officials.

In the fall of 2008, the widows of Mr. Bragg and Mr. Hatfield settled their lawsuit against various Massey en ies and Mr. Blankenship in midtrial, for an undisclosed amount.

Then, in April 2009, the Aracoma Coal Company, a Massey subsidiary, pleaded guilty to several counts of willfully violating mandatory safety standards, and agreed to pay $4.2 million in criminal fines and civil penalties. The Department of Justice described it as the largest financial settlement in the coal industry’s history.

After the fire, court files indicate, Aracoma installed state-of-the-art fire suppression systems, provided training and technologies for emergency mine evacuation, and adopted other safety measures that in hindsight seem obvious.

But ventilation problems similar to those found at Aracoma were also part of a citation issued on Jan. 7 of this year to Upper Big Branch.

“What we’re afraid of is that the same types of ugly conditions at Aracoma may resurface again at Upper Big Branch,” said Bruce Stanley, the lawyer for the two Aracoma widows. “And that perhaps the lessons of Aracoma might not have been learned.”

A Different Kind of Mine

A morning shift of miners disappeared last week into an Appalachian foothill. Wearing blue jumpsuits with orange reflective tape and hardhats with lights, they crouched into small cable cars and descended some 750 feet into the E3-1 mine, the subterranean maze in Hazard that is their place of work.

They breathed air that was cool, fresh and breezy, thanks to a fan system stronger than federal regulations require. They carried portable emergency-breathing devices with which they had all trained four times a year under smoky conditions, well beyond the federal requirement of once a year. (The Massey foreman said such training does not happen that often.)

Theirs is a room-and-pillar mine, in which natural pillars are left during the coal removal to support the roof, some of which are later removed. According to company officials, most mines that use this method create 40-square-foot pillars every 90 feet, while the pillars here measure 70 square feet. (Some mining experts consider this method riskier than the longwall mining approach at Upper Big Branch.)

Typical of the safety measures in evidence are the identification tags on the power breakers. They include explanatory pictures, and not just names or numbers, to reduce the risk of one of the many power lines being plugged into the wrong receptacle, which could lead to electrocution. Massey has no such system, according to the foreman.

In particular, TECO says it emphasizes that the mine be examined before every shift — a federal requirement that has drawn several Massey violations and one that Mr. McAteer, the mine-safety consultant, has repeatedly said is of the utmost importance.

Between the three shifts, foremen at E3-1 test methane levels, check the heavy plastic curtains that help to control air flow, and inspect for cracks in the roof.

“It’s common sense, not high tech,” said Dave Blankenship, TECO’s director of safety and environmental affairs. (He is not related to Massey’s chairman.)

These safety practices did not develop in a vacuum. Five years ago, about a year after the mine opened, one of the heavy plastic curtains that help to control air flow fell down, and a foreman failed to hang it back up. Methane collected, ignited, and created a brief flash fire that caused no injuries but earned two significant violations from federal inspectors.

The foreman was fired, and a machine operator was suspended for three days. “It sent a signal,” Mr. Blankenship said.

The company’s safety record is very good, but not perfect. Five months ago, above ground, an independent contractor was killed and another was seriously injured when a boom fell on them while they worked on building an air shaft for E3-1. Federal inspectors ruled that Perry Coal Company, the TECO subsidiary, had not secured the boom in place; the company is contesting the citation.

The company is also contesting a $70,000 fine for another incident from last year, in which a worker injured his sacrum, or tailbone, while working on machinery that inspectors also say was not properly secured.

Over all, though, the operation at E3-1 rates well. It has no fatalities, no evacuations for ventilation problems since 2004, and, for the last five years, an injury rate well below the national average in mines.

The shift ended. Miners climbed into the cable cars that would safely take them back up to late-afternoon daylight, where the dogwood and Eastern red bud trees colored the landscape, and where the mining supervisor gave them license to talk to a visiting reporter, on or off the record.

All 10 miners approached by the reporter agreed to talk. All 10 agreed that the supervisors of the E3-1 mine emphasized safety and encouraged cooperation with the state and federal inspectors who are frequently on site.

Gary Caudill, 56 years old and with 30 years in the mines, said that E3-1 was the gassiest mine he had ever been in. But, he said: “I’ve worked for a lot of mines, and this is the safest. If they come in and a curtain is not up, the man responsible would be fired.”

Before calling it a day, 35 of these miners gathered in a paneled room of wooden benches and metal lockers for their weekly safety meeting, where the words “Safety on Call” loom above the door. Some sat, most stood, and all listened in silence as their mine safety inspector, Rocky Moore, began the session by bringing up the Upper Big Branch disaster.

Mr. Moore repeated what the men already knew, that 29 men had lost their lives in an explosion whose cause remained under investigation. Still, he said, the men before him must remain alert about methane.

He emphasized the importance of the plastic curtains that help to direct air flow. He read aloud a series of best practices for preventing underground explosions: clean up loose coal; check seals; maintain sufficient ventilation; and, again, test frequently for methane.

He asked if anyone had any questions. There were none.

“Just be sure you all be careful,” Mr. Moore said in closing. “And see Mama when you get off work.”

His words carried these weary miners out into the fresh afternoon, where the white and purple-pink blooms of spring adorned the hillside.

Andrew W. Lehren, Janet Roberts, Michael Cooper and Dan Heyman contributed reporting.

==========

So, WC, when mgmt cares about the welfare of its workers, and creates a culture of safety, mine safety is achievable.

It's clear that Blankenship did not value safety, and was repeatedly, criminally negligent. Like most "corporate person" criminals, he won't be accounted, imprisoned, or fined, unlike Real Persons guilty of 20+ manslaughters.

Spin away, asshole.

[Wild Cobra]

Here ya go, WC, A Climate of Safety Violations


The New York Times


April 22, 2010

<snip>

Spin away, asshole.

I don't need to spin. I read the first several paragraphs, and only saw hearsay. I'm not going to bother reading on, damn long article. If there is some do ented fact rather than what a disgruntled employee may say, please highlight, quite, underline, color, or something.

[ChumpDumper]

I'm not going to bother reading

[FromWayDowntown]

I wonder if Massey will settle with the survivors or fight them in court.

Hey, they paid for the West Virginia courts -- might as well use them, right?

After all, WC seems to think it's more likely that the miners were at fault than that the mine was.

[Wild Cobra]

Hey, they paid for the West Virginia courts -- might as well use them, right?

After all, WC seems to think it's more likely that the miners were at fault than that the mine was.

I would say it is more likely just for safety violations. I am not solid on any particular cause of the accident, or fault. I have simple not seen any credible evidence to sway me one way or another. Not everything can be prevented, that's why there is a word "accident." The probability of accidents can he highly reduced, but never eliminated in such jobs, unless you simply don't do said job.

[FromWayDowntown]

All the more reason for them to take their chance in court and not just pay out to the families of these miners, who (after all) assumed the risk of being coal miners.

[exstatic]

I think the best way to improve safety is for the union to have a clause written into the next contract that they get to pick one day every month, and on that day, Blankenship has to go into a mine of their choice and spend 8 hours there. He doesn't have to do any work, just stay underground in the conditions that he provides to the miners for 8 hours. Something tells me those mines would be REAL ing safe after that.

[LnGrrrR]

You discount the word of the foreman on-site wholesale WC?

And why such a high number of safety violations for Massey's business? Should we just assume that the miners he hires are much dumber than the national average, and don't care about their safety?

[mogrovejo]

Another massive regulation failure from the usual suspects.

It's about time for people to understand that the government is just not good to exercise regulatory functions. They're inept.

[LnGrrrR]

It's about time for people to understand that the government is just not good to exercise regulatory functions. They're inept.

Who would you suggest in their place? Curious.

[boutons_deux]

"the government is just not good to exercise regulatory functions"

You Lie

When govt has been corrupted by Repugs placing lobbyists in regulatory/enforcement positions, when the regulatory agencies have been financed by and captured by the corps, you end up with dead/maimed BigPharma patients, dead miners, dead soil, dead rivers, dead oceans.

The Repugs' hate-all-govt-all-the-time leads directly to bad govt, which is what the Repugs and Movement Conservatives targeted for 35 years.