All coal mining safety laws have been written in miners' blood.
My grandfather, who barely survived an explosion in a coal mine in southern Illinois, taught me this phrase. He also taught me about the 150-year-old battle in the coalfields over reckless production at the cost of responsible safety measures.
As our prayers and condolences go out to the many coal mining families in Raleigh County, West Virginia, I think about the needless safety violations and subsequent disasters that have taken place over the past century.
Over 104,000 Americans and immigrants have died in our coal mines. According to one inspector, many, if not a majority of those "accidents" should not be considered mishaps, but acts of negligent homicide.
As a coal miner's widow from Raleigh County, West Virginia told me on the phone last night, every time she sees a miner just off his shift, draped in coal dust, standing at the convenience market, she knows that mine is rife with violations.
Three coal miners still die daily from black lung disease -- one of the most flagrant safety issues and scandals overlooked in our nation.
While we are still waiting for the details on the Performance Coal Co. Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, and whether methane gas buildup -- the release of highly flammable and toxic gas that has haunted coal miners for centuries -- led to the explosion that has taken at least 25 lives, reports are now coming out of the mine's history of safety violations. According to Ry Rivard in the Daily Mail:
In March alone, U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration officials cited the mine, which is owned by Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co., for failing to control dust; improperly planning to ventilate the mine of dust and the combustible gas methane; inadequate protection from roof falls; failing to maintain proper escapeways; and allowing the accumulation of combustible materials.
Since 1995, there have been more than 3,000 violations at Upper Big Branch, though it was not immediately clear how that compared to other mines of its size.
Massey, of course, has become infamous for its devastating mountaintop removal operations.
But the company also pleaded guilty to criminal violations for a January, 2006 fire at the Aracoma mine in Logan County, WV, which took the lives of two miners. As Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward noted:
a huge problem at Aracoma was also that Massey officials had removed key ventilation walls, or stoppings, allowing smoke to enter that primary escape tunnel in the first place -- a move that U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver later said "doomed two workers to a tragic death"
In a now infamous internal memo to employees that was used in the Aracoma mine trial, Massey's CEO Don Blankenship openly declared: "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e. build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal," the complaint quotes the memo. "This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills."
Nonetheless, Massey is ramping up its mine productions and profits, especially in its hurry to export coal to India and China. Last year, nearly 3,000 coal miners died in China's own mines.
When my grandfather was in the mines in southern Illinois, a group of UMWA miners from Centralia, Illinois, outraged by the political machinations in the Department of Mines and Minerals, wrote a letter in 1946 urging the governor to take action on clearly dangerous buildups of coal dust. The letter described the mine's situation, the politics, and then made a desperate request for intervention:
In fact, Governor Green, this is a plea to you, to please save our lives, to please make the Department of Mines and Minerals enforce the laws at No. 5 mine of the Centralia Coal Company at Centralia, Illinois, at which mine we are employed, before we have a dust explosion at this mine like just happened in Kentucky and West WV.
Despite numerous inspections, recommendations, and noted violations, the mine owners did not consider the dust situation to be of imminent danger. On March 25, 1947, an explosion ripped through the Centralia mine and killed 111 miners. Half of them died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Three of the four men who had written the governor also died in the explosion.
As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out, a crime was committed at Centralia. Just like modern operators, the Centralia Coal Company had made it a habitual practice to violate mining safety laws and simply pay the fines.
And the violations and the deaths continue today.
I can't get the words of an old Welsh coalfield ballad out of my mind:
"Oh what will you give me, say the sad bells of Rhymney
Is there hope for the future, say the brown bells of Merthyr
Who made the mine owners, say the blackbells of Rhondda
And who killed the miners, say the grim bells of Blaenau. . . "
Jeff Biggers is the author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland , and The United States of Appalachia.
Coal mining has become much safer.
Here are the number of coal mining deaths in the United States, from 1990 through 2008, and the fatality rate (deaths per 200,000 work hours).
1980: 133 deaths, .06 per 200,000 hours.
1990: 66 deaths, .04 per 200,000 hours.
1991: 61 deaths, .04.
1992: 55 deaths, .04.
1993: 47 deaths, .04.
1994: 45 deaths, .04.
1995: 47 deaths, .04.
1996: 39 deaths, .03.
1997: 30 deaths, .03.
1998: 29 deaths, .03.
1999: 35 deaths, .03.
2000: 38 deaths, .04.
2001: 42 deaths, .040.
2002: 27 deaths, .028.
2003: 30 deaths, .031.
2004: 28 deaths, .027.
2005: 23 deaths, .021.
2006: 47 deaths, .040.
2007: 28 deaths, .030.
2008: 30 deaths, .030.
2009: 18 deaths. .020.
Keep this in mind when you choose to cast blame.
The governor is a democrat. The previous governor was a democrat. Since 1932 the attorney general has been a democrat.
Both senators are democrats.
You can have all the regulations you want, but if the state enforcers refuse to hold business accountable, they will always choose the path of least resistance. More regulations will not help if the current ones are being ignored. This was true with the financial crisis and is true with this mining occurrence. Notice I am not using the word "accident" because I have no way to know if that is true.
SHORT TAKES:
A perfect example of how the Robber Barons of America (RBA) feel about America's working people is clearly revealed by the activities of the owners of that mine in West Virginia where 29 miners just lost their lives. There is no doubt that the greed of these soulless bastards murdered these 29 miners and they should all be prosecuted for mass murder.
*****************************************************************************************************************Wouldn't it be wonderful if the leaders of the world could eliminate ALL WMD's.
Did anyone notice that Iran was designated for special treatment in Obama's speech. It seems AIPAC's efforts to keep alive their desire to have the U.S. Government bomb, bomb, bomb Iran is indeed alive and well!!!
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That military video showing unarmed civilians in Iraq being murdered by an American gunship is shocking but not as shocking as those statistics that at least a million human beings have already been slaughtered or maimed because of these 3 insane wars that have been going on now for 9 years. The question is; " Why the hell is the U.S. Government still slaughtering and maiming human beings in those 3 countries to support 3 of the most corrupt governments on the planet???!!!
It won't happen though, because big money owns the politicians in this country.
That is THE NUMBER ONE MOST IMPORTANT MISSING LINK in this horror story.
Union mines have far, far, far, fewer safety citations.
Union mines have a far quicker compliance record in correcting safety violations.
Union mines not only have federal agencies overseeing operations but, more importantly, union reps present within the mine provide oversight.
Massey Energy is infamous as a union buster and union blocker. And they have set records for safety violations. Now they are proud possessors of another record.
How many miners will die to keep me comfortable this summer? Clean coal is an oxymoron.
For every miner, the owner of the mine must designate a lump sum of money to be paid at the miner's death if said death is related to coal mining, including illness caused by mining.. This sum is to be set by law and be tied to COLA. If the amount is set right, safety will be less expensive.
Oh, shoot; I forgot that since it would raise costs of coal, everyone will have a hissy, because its just some miner's life. I mean, it isn't anyone we know.
It should be no surprise that the US coal industry has remained rather uninterested in worker safety.
All mining laws in all mines, not just coal, have been written in miners blood. Every law has had a fatality as it's justification.
Miner safety won't be improved by reducing electrical demand. We will still be getting 50% of our non-transportation energy from coal, and coal will still be the dirty, dangerous, business it is, even if the mine owners cared about worker safety. (They don't. Not really.)
What WILL improve miner safety is moving off coal ASAP, and then moving off Natural Gas.
And what could do that soon?
Nukes.
Don't like thousands of coal miners dying for your electricity? Support nuke power.
Doing less is just being lazy.
Prototype plug-in hybrids have been demonstrated with a two-way plug. Those cars can sell power to the local utility when parked.
Although not yet widely believed, it will become clear that water can replace oil as fuel.
Future cars will be able to become substantial power plants when suitably parked, eliminating any need to build coal burning power plants and perhaps allowing existing ones to be superseded.
The new technologies will be cost-competitive. Cars and trucks might eventually pay for themselves.
See Running on Water at: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
To read about water as fuel, visit the website of parallel technology developer BlackLight Power.
Scientists understandably have a hard time accepting fractional Hydrogen, the basis of this radically new energy.
Many more laboratories should repeat the experiments published by Rowan University and successfully performed by GEN3 Partners, who advise Fortune 100 firms.
Once technology using water as fuel is demonstrated and reaches the market, it will become increasingly difficult to ridicule, ignore or deny.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, within months a bomber was completed every 59 minutes.
These radically new technologies are much less complicated.
Let's have an all out effort to develop them rapidly!
Widespread public support will cheer an end to the rising price of imported oil.
Rapid reduction in burning coal may soon be a realistic prospect.
We need alternatives: real, viable, accessible, affordable.