<\/p>\n
While we are still waiting for the details on the Performance Coal <\/p>\n In March alone, U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration<\/p>\n officials cited the mine, which is owned by Massey subsidiary<\/p>\n Performance Coal Co., for failing to control dust; improperly planning<\/p>\n to ventilate the mine of dust and the combustible gas methane;<\/p>\n inadequate protection from roof falls; failing to maintain proper<\/p>\n escapeways; and allowing the accumulation of combustible materials.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since 1995, there have been more than 3,000 violations at Upper<\/p>\n Big Branch, though it was not immediately clear how that compared to<\/p>\n other mines of its size.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Massey, of course, has become infamous for its devastating mountaintop removal operations<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But the company also pleaded guilty to criminal violations for a <\/p>\n A huge problem at Aracoma was also that Massey officials<\/p>\n had removed key ventilation walls, or stoppings, allowing smoke to<\/p>\n enter that primary escape tunnel in the first place—a move that U.S.<\/p>\n District Judge John T. Copenhaver later said “doomed two workers to a<\/p>\n tragic death.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a now infamous internal memo to employees<\/a> that was used in the Aracoma mine trial, Massey’s CEO Don Blankenship <\/p>\n Nonetheless, Massey is ramping up its mine productions and profits,<\/a> especially in its hurry to export coal to India and China. Last year, nearly 3,000 coal miners died in China’s own mines.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When my grandfather was in the mines in southern Illinois, a group <\/p>\n In fact, Governor Green, this is a plea to you, to please<\/p>\n save our lives, to please make the Department of Mines and Minerals<\/p>\n enforce the laws at No. 5 mine of the Centralia Coal Company at<\/p>\n Centralia, Ill., at which mine we are employed, before we have a<\/p>\n dust explosion at this mine like just happened in Kentucky and West W.Va.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite numerous inspections, recommendations, and noted violations, <\/p>\n As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out, a crime was <\/p>\n And the violations and the deaths continue today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can’t get the words of an old Welsh coalfield ballad out of my mind:<\/p>\n Oh what will you give me, say the sad bells of Rhymney <\/p>\n Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n One more blow to the ailing Great Barrier Reef<\/a><\/p>\n Obama’s mountaintop-removal crackdown could mean more than offshore drilling<\/a><\/p>\n Appalachians hail EPA’s great victory for Clean Water Act and justice<\/a><\/p>\n
\nCo. Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, and whether methane gas buildup—the release of highly flammable and toxic gas that has haunted coal
\nminers for centuries—led to the explosion that has taken at least 25
\nlives, reports are now coming out of the mine’s history of safety
\nviolations. According to Ry Rivard in the Daily Mail<\/a>:<\/p>\n
\nJanuary 2006 fire at the Aracoma mine in Logan County, W.Va., which took
\nthe lives of two miners. As Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n
\nopenly declared: “If any of you have been asked by your group
\npresidents, your supervisors, engineers, or anyone else to do anything
\nother than run coal (i.e. build overcasts, do construction jobs, or
\nwhatever) you need to ignore them and run coal,” the complaint quotes
\nthe memo. “This memo is necessary only because we seem not to
\nunderstand that coal pays the bills.”<\/p>\n
\nof UMWA miners from Centralia, Ill., outraged by the political
\nmachinations in the Department of Mines and Minerals, wrote a letter in
\n1946 urging the governor to take action on clearly dangerous buildups
\nof coal dust. The letter described the mine’s situation, the politics,
\nand then made a desperate request for intervention:<\/p>\n
\nthe mine owners did not consider the dust situation to be of imminent
\ndanger. On March 25, 1947, an explosion ripped through the Centralia
\nmine and killed 111 miners. Half of them died from carbon monoxide
\npoisoning. Three of the four men who had written the governor also died
\nin the explosion.<\/p>\n
\ncommitted at Centralia. Just like modern operators, the Centralia Coal
\nCompany had made it a habitual practice to violate mining safety laws
\nand simply pay the fines.<\/p>\n
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 …<\/p>\n