Black Lung Makes a Reappearance In American Coal Mines

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Enactment of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 was supposed to sharply cut exposure to coal mine dust.

The act set a standard for coal dust exposure (2 milligrams per cubic meter of air), which was as little as 1/4 of the concentrations miners breathed at the time.

The act's passage followed a 23-day unauthorized and rowdy strike in which 40,000 West Virginia coal miners demanded government efforts to prevent the disease and to compensate victims.

By the end of the year, tough dust exposure limits were in place. Miners were offered free diagnostic chest X-rays every five years, and federal compensation became available.

The X-rays showed 4 in 10 miners tested had black lung. The disease killed 1,800 miners in a single year. But diagnoses soon plunged more than 90 percent, according to NIOSH data.

"They anticipated that no one would develop progressive massive fibrosis," says 84-year-old Donald Rasmussen, a pulmonologist in Beckley, W.Va., who says he's tested 40,000 coal miners in the last 50 years.

"In 1969, I publicly proclaimed that the disease would go away before we learned all about it," he adds. "And I was dead wrong."

The regulations did result in a major decrease in black lung deaths at the outset, but after a period of long decline, the numbers are on the rise. The numbers have been rising since the mid 1990s.

Thus, even though the federal regulations are being met on coal dust exposure, the miners are apparently being afflicted in greater numbers as a result of silica that is being thrown into the air by the very equipment that is supposed to make the miners' jobs easier. They're so effective and are being used to scrape away the rock to get at the coal seams that they are creating a toxic brew in the air.

This is the kind of situation that would seem to call for new protections, including requiring masks for certain mining operations near the face of the mines. Some mining companies will complain that their profits may be squeezed by the regulations, but they'd still come out ahead because they'd have a healthier workforce which is more effective and efficient.

Company That Bought Massey Energy Pays $200 Million Settlement Over Mining Disaster That Killed 29

Alpha Natural Resources, which purchased Massey Energy in June 2011, has agreed to a $209 million settlement in restitution and civil and criminal penalties for the role Massey Energy in the mining disaster in West Virginia that killed 29 miners.

Massey Energy flagrantly disregarded numerous safety rules and regulations in its operations at the mine, which led to the explosion and death of 29 miners.

The settlement, first reported by the Charleston Gazette, follows months of investigative work by federal officials from the Departments of Justice and Labor, as well as an independent commission appointed by the former West Virginia governor. The findings that had been made public placed the blame for the blast squarely on Massey and what investigators said was its reckless disregard for safety standards, but had stopped short of assigning criminal blame.

Tuesday’s announcement, which will be made public after federal investigators meet with families of the victims in West Virginia, will detail criminal responsibility, that Alpha, and in turn Massey, which it now owns, will accept.

In the past, Massey, which was purchased by Alpha in June, had dismissed investigators charges that its actions led directly to the disaster.

“It’s a record-level settlement,” said a former federal mine safety chief, J. Davitt McAteer, who conducted the independent state investigation, which issued the first findings about the explosion this year. “This is an amount that will get companies to pay attention. It has to affect their bottom line, otherwise it doesn’t mean anything.”

The settlement does not protect individual Massey managers, including the former chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, who have not been charged. In all 18 executives refused to be interviewed by federal investigators, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights.

In addition to the $46.5 million payout to victims and families, the agreement includes $80 million to bolster safety and infrastructure in all underground mines owned by Alpha and Massey; $48 million to establish a mine health and safety foundation to be used to finance academic research on mine safety; and about $35 million in fines and fees that Massey owed to the Mining, Safety and Health Administration, the branch of the Department of Labor that oversees the mining industry.

Under the terms of the agreement, Alpha must also put in place a plan that guarantees it has enough safety equipment, ventilation and methods of clearing potentially explosive rock dust out of all its underground mines within 90 days.

The company will be required to build a state-of-the-art training facility in West Virginia, including a mine lab where it will be able to simulate mining disasters.

The key detail here is that Alpha made the settlement after buying up Massey; Massey had done an insufficient job in dealing with the aftermath of the disaster. In many respects, Alpha is cleaning up the mess that Massey and its corporate leaders made. It's also good that Alpha is going to bolster safety and infrastructure at all its mining operations.

Chilean Miners Begin Returning To Surface After Being Trapped For More Than 2 Months

The video shows the first of 33 miners that were trapped more than 2,500 feet underground since the summer in a Chilean mine.



I can't begin to imagine what they were feeling during that time - or during the perilous ride up the narrow passage drilled down to their refuge underground. A rescuer was first sent down to help evaluate the miners and determine the order in which they would return to the surface. They were also provided with special food and compression stockings and sunglasses to prepare them for the trip to the surface.

West Virginia Coal Mine Explosion Kills 25; 4 Remain Missing

A massive explosion deep inside the Upper Big Branch mine near Montcoal, West Virginia killed 25 miners and 4 others remain unaccounted for. It was the worst coal mining disaster in the United States since 1984. The explosion may have been due to a buildup of methane gas in the mine, but the cause has not been officially declared.

The accident was the worst in an American mine since Dec. 19, 1984, when 27 workers died in a fire at the Wilberg Mine in Orangeville, Utah, and it came just four years after federal regulators enacted a sweeping overhaul in mine safety laws. That overhaul, the first in over three decades, came after 19 miners died in a series of mine accidents in West Virginia and Kentucky — including one that brought criminal charges against a Massey subsidiary.

The explosion occurred about 3 p.m. Monday at the Upper Big Branch mine, 30 miles south of Charleston, in Raleigh County.

The mine, which employs about 200, is owned by the Massey Energy Company, based in Virginia, and operated by the Performance Coal Company.

Mine safety officials said that there were three groups of miners affected by the blast. One group consisted of nine miners who were leaving the site at the end of their shift in a vehicle known as a “mantrip.” Seven of the miners in the man trip were killed by the explosion while two others were injured and taken to the hospital by rescue workers.

A second group of 18 miners was said to be working a bit deeper in the mine, closest to the area where coal was actually being extracted. All 18 of them died.

A third group of four miners — the ones still unaccounted for — was even deeper in the mine.

The miners were all thought to be working more than 1,000 feet underground.

The explosion on Monday destroyed all communication lines inside Upper Big Branch, but Kevin Stricklin, an administrator with the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said there were two rescue chambers near the blast site. If the miners could reach them, the chambers were stocked with food, water and enough air to allow them to survive four days.

Mr. Stricklin said that officials did not think there had been a roof collapse, but that they did not know what had caused the explosion in the sprawling mine. Upper Big Branch, which cannot be seen from the road, has 19 openings and roughly seven-foot ceilings, federal safety officials said.

Just a month ago, the mine was found to not be in compliance with mining safety rules, including proper ventilation and mitigation of methane gas. Despite a massive overhaul of mine safety rules four years ago, companies are still skirting the rules, and enforcement by government regulators is anything but assured.

The mine had been fined more than $1.5 million, but had paid only a fraction of the fines imposed by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

Meanwhile, rescuers were attempting to drill three shafts into the mine to vent methane and carbon monoxide.

Heartbreak in Huntington

Last week, a serious mine accident trapped six miners deep inside a mine near Huntington, Utah. Emergency workers had been using a combination of drills to ascertain whether the miners found clean air to breathe while other rescuers attempted the hazardous task of boring through the areas near where the collapse occurred.

Last night, the mine "bumped" - a rock wall literally exploded from the pressure exerted by seismic stresses in the vicinity and killed three rescuers and wounded six others.

he desperate underground drive to reach six trapped miners will be suspended indefinitely after a catastrophic cave-in killed three rescuers inside a mountainside mine, a federal official said Friday.

The announcement from Richard Stickler, head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, came after a cave-in Thursday killed three rescue workers and injured at least six others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach them.

"Is there any possible way we can continue this underground operation and provide safety for the rescue workers? At this point we don't have an answer," Stickler said.

He said mine-safety experts were being summoned to central Utah to discuss the crisis.

Outside the mountain, crews were drilling a fourth hole for any sign of the six men, whose survival status still was unknown on the 12th day of confinement, 1,500 feet below ground.

"Without question, we have suffered a setback and we have incurred an incredible loss, but this team remains focused on the task at hand" — the rescue of the miners, said Rob Moore, vice president of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner of the mine.

Said Gov. Jon Huntsman: "Yesterday we went from a tragedy to a catastrophe."

He said the state would help federal official in the investigation into the collapse.

"We have questions, too, and we want answers to those questions. We want to make sure that the lives that were lost last night were not in vain," Huntsman said.

The collapse Thursday evening was a devastating turn for the families of the six men trapped in the initial Aug. 6 collapse at the Crandall Canyon mine and for the relatives of those trying to rescue them. All rescue workers were evacuated from the mine Thursday evening and work underground was stopped.

The cave-in at 6:39 p.m. was believed to be caused by what seismologists call a "mountain bump," in which shifting ground forces chunks of rock from the walls. Seismologists say such a bump caused the Aug. 6 cave-in that trapped the six men more than 3 miles inside the central Utah mine.

The force from the bump registered a 1.6 at the University of Utah seismograph stations in Salt Lake City, said university spokesman Lee Siegel. It was the 20th reading at the university since the original collapse, which registered a 3.9 on Aug. 6.

"These events seem to be related to ongoing settling of the rock mass following the main event," Siegel said Friday morning. "I don't think I'm going too far to say that this mountain is collapsing in slow motion."

The initial collapse led to the frenetic effort by rescuers to dig through the mine toward the men and drill narrow holes atop the mountain in an attempt to learn their whereabouts and perhaps drop food and water.

Underground, rescuers had advanced only 826 feet in nine days. Before Thursday's cave-in, workers still had about 1,200 feet to go to reach the area where they believe the trapped men had been working.

Mining officials said conditions in the mine were treacherous, and they were frequently forced to halt digging because of seismic activity.

That has caused MHSA to cease their efforts inside the mine to focus on attempting to open up access to the unaffected area beyond the collapsed section to allow transfer of food and air.

Things definitely appear grim for the miners stuck inside the mine and my thoughts and prayers go out to those families and the families of the rescuers who died attempting to save the lives of the trapped miners.