The Militant - February 10, 2003 -- Coal miners union faults company in Alabama mine deaths

Vol. 67/No. 5 February 10, 2003

Coal miners union faults company
in Alabama mine deaths
(front page)

BY CLAY DENNISON
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama--A report released by the United Mine Workers of America January 22 details the safety violations that led to the deaths of 13 miners in the Jim Walter Resources (JWR) Blue Creek No. 5 mine on Sept. 23, 2001. It places responsibility for the disaster on the company, and sharply criticises the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for not enforcing existing mining laws and approving the owner’s operation of the mine.

Jim Walter No. 5, as the mine is known, is located in Brookwood, Alabama. In a January 22 press release the UMWA summarizes the findings of its inquiry into the nation’s "worst mining disaster in 17 years."

According to the statement, the union investigators concluded that "the accident occurred when part of the mine’s roof fell on top of and short-circuited a 6-ton scoop battery, generating sufficient heat to ignite methane." The roof fall, continued the release, "resulted from the mine operator’s failure to adequately support" the roof.

Following the first explosion and injuries to four miners, "ventilation controls were damaged, allowing methane gas to build up.... JWR’s emergency response was deficient and failed to protect and evacuate the miners."

Twelve miners, who responded to the accident without necessary information and direction, were caught in the second explosion about 55 minutes after the first blast. All 12 died along with a previously injured miner.

The explosions, read the statement, "resulted because of a breakdown in the federal Mine Safety and Health Act’s (Mine Act) checks and balances...." MSHA signed off on plans, it explained, "that were inadequate to control the mine’s roof, ventilation system and float coal dust as well as to evacuate miners in emergencies."

The union is calling for an independent investigation into MSHA, whose "failure to effectively enforce the Mine Act contributed to the operator’s noncompliance with" federal mining laws.

One of the UMWA report’s most serious charges is that JWR bosses opened a ventilation shaft without prior approval by MSHA. For their part MSHA inspectors allowed this major violation of the law to continue without comment for five months up to the explosion.

The UMWA is also calling for MSHA to hold a national conference to go over the lessons of this and other recent mining emergencies.

With the deaths of three mine construction workers on January 22 in an explosion in a West Virginia air shaft, the death toll in U.S. coal, metal and other mines stands at six in the first 22 days of 2003.

The UMWA report is available online at http://www.umwa.org/brookwood/brookwood.shtml. Clay Dennison is a member of UMWA Local 2133 in Oak Grove, Alabama.

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