by Mike Hall, May 22, 2006

Three of the five miners killed after an explosion in a Harlan County, Ky., coal mine May 20 survived the blast but died from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the county coroner. The lone survivor said his oxygen self-rescuer that all miners carry to help them escape a poisonous atmosphere did not work properly, according to The Associated Press (AP).

Randall McCloy, the sole survivor of the Jan. 2 Sago Mine explosion in West Virginia, which killed a dozen miners, said oxygen devices there also didn’t properly function.

State and federal mining officials investigating the Harlan County explosion are looking at a buildup of coal dust as a primary or secondary factor in the blast. Inspectors from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) repeatedly have cited the owners of the Darby Mine No. 1 in Holmes Mill for not cleaning up coal dust and other combustible material, including three times this month, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.

Thirty-one coal miners have been killed in the mines so far this year, compared with 22 in all of 2005. But in the four months since the Sago disaster focused the nation’s attention on mine safety, the Bush administration and Congress have done little.

It’s time to act to protect coal miners. Right now, tell your members of Congress to pass real mine safety reform, including H.R. 5389.

The Harlan County coroner reported the miners who died from carbon monoxide had donned their oxygen self-rescuers, which are supposed to provide an hour’s worth of oxygen.

The blast’s lone survivor, Paul Ledford, was able to crawl to safety, but his oxygen device only worked for about five minutes and he passed out several times before he was found near the mine’s entrance, Ledford’s brother Jeff told reporters. He said he believed that if  the other miners “had the right kind of equipment,” they may have survived. 

The reports about the oxygen malfunction upset the victims families, the AP reported. Tilda Thomas, whose husband, Paris, was killed, said:

What they told me was when they found my husband, he had the rescuer on, and he was trying to get out. I just think all miners everywhere need bigger oxygen supplies. The rescuers only have an hour supply, even if they work at all.

On May 1, Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts called for immediate nationwide testing of the oxygen devices.

Every miner working today must know, without the shadow of a doubt, that the [Self-Contained Self Rescuer] he or she straps to their belt before they go to work—and the ones that are stored underground for emergency use—will function properly. It’s MSHA’s job to provide miners with that security, and we call on MSHA to do its job.

Roberts said in 1999, MSHA considered implementing new rules regarding self-rescuers, but the proposed rule was dropped by the Bush administration in 2001.

Mine safety legislation passed by a Senate committee last week and pending in the House calls for each miner to have at least a two-hour oxygen supply and for additional oxygen to be available throughout the mine to aid in escape. A Kentucky law passed in reaction to the Sago disaster that goes into effect July 1 also calls for added oxygen supplies.

Tony Oppegard, former general counsel to Kentucky’s mine safety agency, told the Courier-Journal the reports about the buildup of coal dust are “really troubling.”

Coal dust is highly explosive and can be the main cause of an underground explosion or it can be ignited after an initial explosion from another source such as methane gas. But coal dust can be controlled by what is known as rock-dusting—spreading crushed limestone in the dusty areas of the mine.

MSHA has cited the Darby Mine No. 1 47 times since April 2001 for not cleaning up coal dust and other combustible material and for not properly rock-dusting. Oppegard said:

Rock dust suppresses fire, suppresses explosions. There are many recorded cases, and the Sago Mine is an example, where a methane explosion was confined to the immediate area because the mine was well-rock-dusted. These are not nitpicky violations. Those are crucial to mine safety and it’s unfortunate that a lot of operators consider them to be nitpicky violations and unimportant.     

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article | Comments (1)