Another accident occurred a month earlier in which Black Thunder worker Les Butts was critically injured when a boulder fell off a high wall and struck the cab of the cable-reel truck he was driving. Butts remains in the hospital today, paralyzed from the waist down.

Black Thunder is the second-largest coal mine in the United States, employing 500 people. In 2001 Black Thunder produced 67.6 million tons of coal. It is located in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming where 30 percent of the nation's coal is produced.

After the January accident officials of the Mine, Health and Safety Administration (MSHA) told Black Thunder it should increase the number of inspections at work sites and on the high walls in particular. MSHA regulations call for one work site and high wall inspection per 12-hour shift.

"We've talked to the mine operator in terms of making more than one examination per shift...especially when weather conditions could be aggravating conditions," said Allyn Davis, MSHA district director. Davis also said MSHA urged the mine owners to organize more than drive-by inspections and to instead have inspectors walk along the surface of the mine's high wall.

Constant fluctuations of temperatures from above to below freezing causes material to contract and expand and tends to loosen overburden material along high walls. This process can quickly change the safety status of a work site, Davis said.

Black Thunder official Greg Schaefer said in response that a state-certified mine supervisor and a state mine inspector had checked the section of high wall that sloughed off and killed Greger one-and-a-half hours before the accident. He stated that Black Thunder follows the same practice as many surface mines which run a bulldozer with a heavy chain attached along the top of the high wall each day to clean and loosen material that could potentially fall from the edge.

MSHA ordered the pit where the accident occurred shut down until an investigation is completed. The company complied by shutting the entire mine down until the next day.

Black Thunder, along with Kennecott's Jacob Ranch Mine and Tritan Coal Company's North Antelope/Rochelle Mine--also located in the Powder River Basin, were cited by the Air Quality Division of the Department of Environmental Quality for high particulate measurements and for frequent high emissions levels over the last two years.

Helen Meyers previously worked at the Black Thunder Mine.  
 
 
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