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Sago Evacuation Alarm Ignored |
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Public hearings into the Jan. 2 explosion that killed 12 miners at International Coal Group’s Sago Mine in West Virginia get under way May 2. New reports of serious safety problems at the mine are emerging.
The Charleston Gazette reports that 20 minutes before the explosion, an alert warning of dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in a section of the mine appeared on the mine dispatcher’s computer screen. Under federal mine safety rules, that should have prompted an evacuation of the mine. But it was ignored as a malfunction.
The fatal Sago explosion was fueled by methane gas, not carbon monoxide. But the Gazette writes:
Investigators and mine safety experts do not necessarily believe that the alarm was a warning of conditions that caused the Jan. 2 explosion. But, as public hearings on the Sago disaster begin this week, mine safety experts want to know whether the warning, if heeded, might have saved lives by clearing the mine before the blast.
Questions about the 6:10 a.m. alarm are adding to the mounting evidence of serious mine safety problems at Sago prior to an explosion that caused West Virginia’s worst coal-mining disaster in nearly 40 years.
After the explosion, 12 miners were trapped deep inside the Sago Mine and the lone survivor, Randall McCloy, said when they tried to activate their emergency oxygen self-rescuers, four of the devices failed to work and the miners were forced to share.
“There were not enough rescuers to go around,” he wrote in a letter to the surviving family members. The dozen miners survived the blast, but after hours waiting for a rescue, all but McCloy died by the time rescuers reached the trapped men several hours after the explosion.
Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts has called for a nationwide testing effort of the emergency oxygen supplies in a May 1 letter to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA):
It appears that inadequate supplies of emergency oxygen contributed to the deaths of the Sago miners. Mr. McCloy’s letter specifically noted problems the Sago miners had in using SCSRs (self-contained, self-rescuers). Whether it was because the trapped miners could not properly don their SCSRs or some other reason, miners working in 2006 have reason to be concerned about whether they will be able to successfully use SCSR if an emergency confronts them. MSHA has known about these concerns for many years; this year’s coal mining tragedies only serve to prove that MSHA must take a more aggressive posture to protect and enhance miners’ health and safety.
He also noted that in 1999, MSHA had given public notice of a proposed rule that would have examined the reliability of the self-rescuers and the possible need to store more such devices through coal mines. Currently, miners carry just one such unit on their belts.
In a related coal safety development, a federal prosecutor is investigating possible criminal activity connected to the Jan. 19 fire at Aracoma, the Massey Energy Co. coal mine in West Virginia, that killed two miners.
U.S. Attorney Charles Miller also has filed criminal charges against another Massey subsidiary in a separate incident.
The Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports that Miller, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, filed charges against officials of White Buck Coal Co., for falsely reporting they had conducted required pre-shift exams and taken methane and air quality readings at a Nicolas County, W.Va., on numerous occasions in May and June of 2002.
In the Aracoma case, The Post-Gazette wrote:
Miller said federal Mine Safety and Health Administration officials had referred the case to his office because they believed criminal activity had occurred. No specifics were provided on what the alleged criminal activity was.
The paper also has reported that just days before the conveyer belt fire that resulted in the deaths of the two Aracoma miners, an MSHA inspector wanted to close sections of the mine because of concerns about fire hazards along the conveyor belt but was overruled by superiors.
Last week at a special mine safety forum at the AFL-CIO headquarters, UMWA’s Roberts pointed to actions by MSHA that may have contributed to the fatal Aracoma fire.
MSHA allowed what is called “belt air” to be used to ventilate the mine, instead of a separate ventilation path. Air that runs along the conveyer belt that carries coal from a working section of a mine means that a fire along the belt could send smoke, flames and fumes into occupied areas of the mine. Most mine safety experts believe that is dangerous. The UMWA took MSHA to court over the belt air exemption, but a federal judge ruled in favor of the agency in 2004.
The agency also withdrew a proposed rule that would have required mine conveyor belts be made of nonflammable material.
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