Mining
sb admin | November 12, 2007What does it take for MSHA's Richard Stickler and the Solicitor of Labor to do their jobs?
Front-page newspaper stories about MSHA's failures?
A letter from a grieving mother?
A petition signed by other family-member victims of workplace fatalities?
Apparently, it took all this and more for MSHA finally to decide that the November 8, 2005 coal truck accident at the Alliance Resources' Metikki Mine which killed Chad Cook, 25, was work-related.Â
Chad Cook, a contract driver employed by the Utah-based Savage Services, died when his haulage truck, heavy-loaded with coal, ran off the…
sb admin | November 9, 2007Tyler Kahle, 19, (photo) and Craig Bagley, 27 (photo) were killed four months ago at the NovaGold Resources' Rock Creek mine near Nome, Alaska. MSHA is completing its investigation; so far, all the Kahle family has been told is that the lift basket was 90 feet off the ground and "it tipped over." Sadly, what the Kahle family has learned, is that mothers, fathers and other family-member victims of workplace fatalities have few if any rights, the exclusive liability provision of state workers' compensation laws is a cruel joke, and families are excluded from the fatality…
sb admin | November 7, 2007The House Education & Labor Committee has approved a bill (the Supplementary MINER Act) that would speed up deadlines for several mine rescue requirements passed by Congress last year, and require more oversight by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Ken Ward Jr. has the details about the billâs provisions â and MSHA head Richard Sticklerâs criticisms of it â in the Charleston Gazette. In West Virginia, where tougher requirements were adopted after the Sago and Aracoma mine disasters in that state, approvals for wireless communications and tracking systems are already being sent to…
sb admin | November 3, 2007The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward, one of the few reporters in the country who writes consistently about worker health and safety issues, is featured on EXPOSE: America's Investigative Reports. The episode entitled "Sustained Outrage" depicts Ward's approach to covering coal mine disasters like the 2006 Sago tragedy:
"When other reporters are zigging, I'm zagging,"
describing his talent for investigating these fatalities well beyond the headline and long after the cameras are turned off.  The 24-minute episode describes how Ken Ward created a database using information from …
sb admin | November 1, 2007Three young widows of Harlan County are taking a stand against incumbent Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher (R). An op-ed by Claudia Cole, Stella Morris, and Melissa Lee appeared in the Lexington Herald Leader, with harsh words about the Governor's record on mine safety and rights for victims' families.
"Gov. Ernie Fletcher has disrespected our families and has not kept his word. ...[We] urge all Kentucky coal miners and their families to join us in voting against Fletcher in Tuesday's election. ...We refuse to support a politician like Fletcher who stands in the way of protecting…
sb admin | October 31, 2007The OSHA Fairness Coalition weighed in with some fightin' words yesterday, expressing "unequivocal opposition" to a mine safety bill scheduled for mark-up in the House Education and Labor Committee. This is the same group that opposed the "Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act" when it successfully moved through Congress in September. At that time, we wondered what the Messenger Courier Association of the Americas, or the Independent Electrical Contractors, or the Roofing Contractors Association had to do with butter-flavoring agents, but whatever, the Chamber of Commerce and…
sb admin | October 30, 2007Working a weekend shift has been particularly dangerous for West Virginia coal miners this year. All seven coal-mining related fatalities in the State have occurred on weekend shifts. The latest victim was Mr. Charles Jason Keeney, 34, who died on Sunday while working underground at the Long Branch Energy's Mine No. 23 in Boone County, WV. The miner was killed by a piece of falling coal or rock, according to the WV Office of Miners' Health, Safety & Training (WVMHST)
The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward writes that the day after this last fatality, Mr. Ron Wooten, the director of…
sb admin | October 18, 2007The demand for coal is going through the roof. Do giant U.S. energy companies really need a handout?
Apparently, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opporunity thinks so. Yesterday, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich announced the awarding of millions of dollars in economic development aid to some of the biggest coal mining companies in the country.Â
Illinois is subsidizing the coal mining activities of Murray Energy (owner of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah), Peabody Energy (self-proclaimed "world's largest private-sector coal company"), Wilbur Ross' International Coal…
sb admin | October 9, 2007What do three women made widows by three fatal Kentucky coal mining accidents have in common with two others left behind in the 2006 airline crash?
"I am a widow. I am a single parent. I'm an advocate for anyone suffering because they were robbed of their spouse due to ineptitude and/or negligence,"
said Sarah King Fortney, (here) whose 49 year-old husband C.W. Fortney was killed when Comair flight 5191 crashed after taking-off from the wrong runway at the Lexington, KY airport in August 2006. Mrs. Fortney was recently honored, along with four other widows, by the Kentucky Justice…
sb admin | October 5, 2007MSHA announces '100 percent' plan
From The Onion? No. MSHA (seriously) just announced "a new initiative to complete 100 percent of mandated regular inspections of all coal mines in the country." Huh? A "new initiative" to do something that you are already required by statute to do?
Perhaps the Secretary of Labor Chao and Asst. Secretary Richard Stickler are a little irked at Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette for publishing a number of stories in recent weeks, documenting that MSHA has failed to conduct its required inspections. Two of the stories (here and here) followed accidents…
sb admin | October 5, 2007Nearly 7 years ago, the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) began a legislative effort to ban asbestos-containing products. Yesterday, the "Ban Asbestos in America Act" passed the Senate with a bi-partisan voice vote.
On introducing the measure, the bill's author, Senator Murray, said:
"When I heard about Americans and people who were dying from absestos, I thought to myself, my gosh, I thought asbestos was banned many years ago.  How can this be? Well, the fact is asbestos has never been banned [in the U.S.] , today 2,500 metric tons of asbestos are…
sb admin | October 4, 2007Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash) introduced a bill (S. 2127) to see that family members of miners involved in disasters like the 2006 Sago and 2007 Crandall tragedies receive accurate information about the rescue operations and appropriate post-accident support.
At a Senate Appropriations' subcommittee hearing on Sept. 5, Senator Murray suggested that she was examining the family-assistance program in place at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as a model for mining disasters (See previous post here). At an October 2 hearing of the Senate HELP Committee, members heard a bit…
sb admin | September 28, 2007The Senate HELP Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 2 on "Current Mine Safety Disasters: Issues and Challenges." The witness list includes the same familiar faces from MSHA, NIOSH, the UMWA and National Mining Association, but the Committee has also invited two "newcomers" to these mine safety hearings. One is former MSHA engineer Robert Ferriter (now with the Colorado School of Mines), who received some publicity in the wake of the Crandall Canyon disaster when he was critical of MSHA's approval of the Murray Energy's mining plan. The other is Joseph Osterman of the…
sb admin | September 13, 2007One of the benefits of blogging at The Pump Handle is connecting with people who have first-hand experience with our nation's inadequate public health protection system. We've heard from parents and wives who appreciate us writing about their loved ones' fatal on-the-job injuries, and federal employees who share their unique experiences with how scientific information is used (or misused) in public health decision-making. Today, I'd like to introduce you to Mrs. Patty Sebok, who I first "met" a few months ago through a blogpost at Gristmill. We've been exchanging emails since then about…
sb admin | August 31, 2007by Celeste MonfortonÂ
Yesterday in "MSHA Spokesman Parrots Bob Murray," I wrote about MSHA's rejection of a request by the families of the six trapped Crandall Canyon miners to have the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) serve as the miners' representative during MSHA's investigation of the disaster. As usual for me, about two hours after hitting the "print post" button, I realized I should have said this and I should have said that. Oh the glories of blogging! Here's what came to me after hitting the "print post" button:
I was irked by MSHA's spokesman Dirk Fillpot saying the …
sb admin | August 30, 2007by Celeste MonfortonÂ
Max Follmer of The Huffington Post reports that MSHA has rebuffed a request from the Crandall Canyon families to designate the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to serve as their representative during MSHA's formal accident investigation.Â
"In a statement e-mailed to The Huffington Post, MSHA spokesman Dirk Fillpot defended the agency's actions, saying federal officials have spent 'untold hours' briefing the families of the missing miners. We are disappointed that the UMWA is trying to use a law enforcement investigation for its own purposes."
Hmmm. Where…
sb admin | August 29, 2007The Mountain Eagle's Tom Bethell recounts a 1986 coal mining disaster in Queensland, Australia which involved an explosion in an abandoned, sealed area which caused the death of 12 miners. Its similarities to the 2006 Sago tragedy end there because, as Bethell writes:
In the wake of that disaster, the Australian government launched an innovative program to spur development of through-the-earth communication and tracking technology. Australian coal producers agreed to assess themselves a per-ton fee, with the revenues used by the government to support companies---mostly small…
sb admin | August 28, 2007During one of Mr. Bob Murray's endless television appearances, he was asked why his underground coal mine in Illinois had received more than 900 safety and health violations last year. In his "I'm just a humble coal miner" kind-of-way, he tried to explain that the public just doesn't understand that getting written up by a mine inspector is commonplace, and most of those 900 violations were for trivial items like not having toilet paper in the restrooms.
Oh really? I reviewed all 975 violations cited in 2006 at Murray Energy's coal mine in Galatia, Illinois, and only 3 of the 975…
sb admin | August 24, 2007Four months ago, Mr. Dale Jones, 51 and Mr. Michael Wilt, 38 were killed in a massive highwall collapse at a surface coal mine near Barton, Maryland. The two miners were buried under 93,000 tons of rock, and it took rescue crews three days to recover the men's bodies. Â
This week, MSHA assessed a monetary penalty of $180,000 against the mine operator Tri-Star Mining, Inc. (Their accident investigation report was issued six weeks ago.)Â
In a news release announcing the fine, MSHA's Assistant Secretary Richard Stickler said:
"Two miners lost their lives because federal safety…
sb admin | August 24, 2007If you haven't seen it yet, go read Edward Cody's Washington Post article on a recent Chinese mine disaster. It begins with a description from a survivor:
XINTAI, China, Aug. 23 -- The first sign of trouble was a stream of water that burst from a wall deep in the mine, Wang Kuitao recalled. Within minutes, he said, the water was everywhere, rushing down the shaft carrying tons of mud. Another disaster was on the way, Wang quickly concluded, one more in the cruel rhythm of China's deadly coal fields.
"I said to myself, 'Something terrible has happened,' " Wang recounted later to a group of…