SEARCH
37th Mine Death This Year |
|
A worker was killed on the job July 30 at a coal-preparation plant in Randolph County, W.Va. Jermey T. Heckler died when a pressurized tire exploded. He was welding along the tire’s rim when it exploded, according to news reports.
Heckler’s death is the 37th coal mine fatality in 2006. At this time last year, 10 miners had lost their lives. This the deadliest year in the nation’s coal mines since 2001 when 42 miners were killed on the job.
Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) records show four similar deaths to Heckler’s over the past 10 years. MSHA guidelines for working on mining equipment tires say the tires should be deflated because of the possibility of explosion.
In one of those four deaths, MSHA investigators faulted the company for not providing proper equipment for inflating tires. In another, the agency concluded a supervisor “engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence” when he instructed a miner to cut a slot in a brake drum, which ignited gases in the adjacent tire.
This year got off to a deadly start when 12 miners were killed following a Jan. 2 methane explosion at the Sago Mine in Upshur County W.Va. A report on that blast says the miners might have survived if seals used to block off the section of the mine where the explosion occurred had worked properly.
On Jan. 19, two miners were killed at the Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County, W.Va., after a fire broke out along a conveyer belt. Days earlier, federal inspector tried to close down a portion of the mine because of fire risk along the conveyer where the blaze began, but was overruled by supervisors.
An explosion killed five coal miners May 20, two weeks after the Darby Mine No. 1 mine in Harlan County, Ky., was cited for allowing the accumulation of excessive amounts of explosive coal dust.
Other miners have been killed in roof falls or were crushed by equipment.
Former coal industry insider David Stickler, the Bush administration’s choice to run MSHA, has failed to win Senate approval because of concerns about his track record on mine safety while working in the industry. But in a backdoor maneuver to get Stickler into the safety agency, the Bush administration hired Stickler as a consultant to MSHA.
Since the beginning of the administration, coal safety advocates have criticized MSHA for lack of strong enforcement of safety rules and tough penalties for mine operators who violate safety regulations. In addition, the Bush administration has withdrawn 17 proposed new mine safety rules.
However in June, after the families of many of the coal miners killed on the job made visits to Washington, D.C., for hearings and other events focusing on the need for new mine safety laws, Congress passed legislation calling for increased emergency oxygen supplies, better communications and tracking devices for trapped miners and other safety improvements.
1 Comment
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
[...] As we’ve previously noted, deaths in the American coal mining industry are on the rise this year, reflecting a whole sale abandonment of oversight and regulation of worker safety by the Federal Mine Safety & Health Administration. The death toll is rising: A worker was killed on the job July 30 at a coal-preparation plant in Randolph County, W.Va. Jermey T. Heckler died when a pressurized tire exploded. He was welding along the tire’s rim when it exploded, according to news reports. [...]