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West Virginia Coal Mine Refrain

By Joe Consumer

While the corporate disaster du jour ? the BP oil rig explosion and spill, which gets more distressing by the hour  ? may be pushing the Massey Energy mine disaster off the national front pages, there are some very important stories still coming out of West Virginia since our last visit.  Here?s the rundown:

Massey Energy is offering each family $3 million.  Michelle McKinney, daughter of Benny Ray Willingham, said ?her family isn't interested and she'd prefer to take every cent CEO Don Blankenship has.?  (Blankenship's own salary, by the way, was $17.8 million last year.)

It's been reported that ?The widows of two men killed [i.e., suffocated in a fire] in a 2006 fire at a coal mine run by Massey Energy Co.?s Aracoma unit sued the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, alleging improper inspections were linked to the deaths.?  This case is unusual because the agency itself is being sued.  The complaint says that ?MSHA found at least 20 specific safety violations that contributed to the accident that killed Mr. Bragg and Mr. Hatfield.  For almost every violation, MSHA determined that its inspectors were at fault for failing to identify or rectify grave and obvious violations during its numerous inspections of the Alma Mine prior to the fire.?

The United Mine Workers is calling for Blankenship's ouster, but he apparently "has the full support and confidence of the Massey Energy Board of Directors. ... The statement comes as several shareholder groups have indicated they could seek Blankenship's removal as CEO at an annual meeting scheduled for May 18, as well as the ouster of several of Blankenship's allies on the board of directors." The board, by the way, is being sued by a number of institutional investors.

Meanwhile the news about the safety of Massey mines is not getting better.  Massey ?was caught recently operating three other mines where safety rules were violated and miners had to be evacuated by inspectors for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).  MSHA said each of the surprise visits was prompted by anonymous tips that the agency received about conditions at the Massey-owned mines. ?What?s especially troubling is that one of the complaints came in just days after the explosion at Upper Big Branch Mine,' said Joseph Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health.??

Speaking yet again of the MSHA, Joe Main said in Congressional testimony this week, ?We realize the current ?pattern of violations? program is broken and must be fixed,? Main said. ?It is too easy for mine operators to evade responsibility and too hard for the government to hold bad actors accountable.?

And finally, West Virginia is certainly not alone. In Kentucky, ?Two miners were killed when a roof collapsed in a coal mine with a long history of safety problems.? State and federal records show more than 40 closing orders for the mine over safety violations since January 2009.  Inspectors from the State Office of Mine Safety and Licensing have issued 31 orders to close sections of the mine or to shut down equipment because of safety violations since January 2009.  Federal inspectors cited the mine 840 times for safety violations since January 2009, and closing orders were issued 11 times. The records show that 214 of the citations were issued in the first four months of this year, and that inspectors have issued closing orders twice so far this year.?

Full post as published by ThePopTort on April 30, 2010 (boomark / email).