{"id":517995,"date":"2010-04-06T14:06:09","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T18:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=81509"},"modified":"2010-04-06T14:06:09","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T18:06:09","slug":"report-recent-violations-%e2%80%98quite-relevant%e2%80%99-to-mine-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/517995","title":{"rendered":"Report: Recent Violations \u2018Quite Relevant\u2019 to Mine Explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even while Massey Energy is touting<\/a> “another record setting year for safety,” the Charleston Daily Mail today has a different story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Safety inspectors concluded as recently as last month that conditions at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch mine posed substantial and significant risks to miner well-being before a Monday explosion killed 25 miners and trapped 4.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In the past 15 years, there have been more than 3,000 violations cited at the Upper Big Branch mine, the Daily Mail reports.<\/p>\n

\n

The violations appear “quite relevant” to Monday’s explosion, said Scott Simonton, a professor of environmental science and environmental engineering at Marshall University.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not much to add here, really. All businesses hate red tape and government meddling. But in high-risk industries like coal mining the safety regulations clearly serve a purpose — though the influence of industry means that such regulations usually arrive as a response to a disaster like Monday’s, instead of anticipating such an event.<\/p>\n

“It’s unfortunate, but every mine safety law we have on the books today was written in the blood of coal miners,” Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) said <\/a>today.<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail story seems to reveal that the problem is not about writing these laws, but enforcing them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even while Massey Energy is touting “another record setting year for safety,” the Charleston Daily Mail today has a different story: Safety inspectors concluded as recently as last month that conditions at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch mine posed substantial and significant risks to miner well-being before a Monday explosion killed 25 miners and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}