Vol. 74/No. 17      May 3, 2010

At a White House news conference April 15, President Barack Obama called Massey Energy’s safety record at the Upper Big Branch mine “troubling” and ordered federal inspectors into mines. He said the backlog of cases at the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission would be tackled and if a mining company consistently violates safety standards, as Massey did, they will be “placed on an updated Pattern of Violations” list.

Meanwhile, West Virginia governor Joe Manchin halted coal mine production in the state for one day April 16. He appointed David McAteer, the former assistant secretary of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) under the Clinton administration, to head an investigation into the mine explosion.

A voluntary production “stand down,” a pause between shifts to review safety, was ordered by Manchin after the Sago explosion. Safety procedure reviews were organized by MSHA and hearings conducted by the U.S. Senate. Congress then passed the 2006 Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act, which required mine operators to have emergency breathing devices that contain two hours of oxygen, communication and tracking devices, and airtight rescue chambers. Despite this law, which was never adequately enforced, the worst mine disaster in 40 years occurred four years later at the Upper Big Branch Mine.

In 2006 this mine saw a big increase in violations. MSHA threatened to place the mine on a “pattern of violations” list. After the warning, the company reduced enough of the violations to avoid being placed on this list. In 2009, MSHA issued more than 500 safety violations against the mine, 39 percent of them “significant and substantial.” MSHA also issued 48 withdrawal orders at Upper Big Branch last year.

The violations continued this year, as Massey strove to mine coal as fast a possible. According to newly released MSHA records, bosses told workers at the mine in January “‘not to worry’ that the flow of air in the mine that controls deadly gases and coal dust was headed in the wrong direction,” reported the Charleston Gazette. At no point did MSHA move to simply close down the mine.

Marlene Griffith, the widow of William Griffith, 54, one of 29 coal miners killed in the explosion, filed a wrongful death lawsuit on April 15 against Massey Energy and Performance Coal, the Massey subsidiary that operated the Upper Big Branch mine. Griffith had been working as a coal miner since 1974 and had been at the Upper Big Branch Mine since 1992.
 
 
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