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Crandall Canyon Mine Owner Showed ‘Callous Disregard for the Law’ |
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The owner of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah where six coal miners and three rescue workers died last year showed a “callous disregard for the law and for safety standards, and hardworking miners lost their lives,” says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The committee issued its report on the disaster today.
Kennedy says the U.S. Justice Department should begin a criminal investigation into the circumstances that led to the Aug. 6 collapse that killed six miners—whose bodies have never been recovered—and the Aug. 16 deaths of the three rescue workers.
The committee report also charges that the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) failed to protect the Crandall Canyon miners by “rubber-stamping” a dangerous mining plan. Says Kennedy:
The committee’s investigation has revealed that the owner of Crandall Canyon mine, Murray Energy, disregarded dangerous conditions at the mine, failed to tell federal regulators about these dangers, conducted unauthorized mining and—as a result—exposed its miners to serious risks. MSHA also unconscionably failed to protect miners by hastily rubber-stamping the plan….This deserves a full criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.
Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts says the report confirms that what the union has pointed to as the causes behind the deadly collapse.
The report says that the mining plan that led to the cave-in at the mine was flawed and should not have been submitted by the company nor approved by the [MSHA], which echoes what the UMWA has said from the very outset of the investigation into the tragedy.
Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, has yet to come before Senate or House committees, declining several invitations to testify. He has since been subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Appropriations labor subcommittee and the House Education and Labor Committee. Says Roberts:
The report also indicates that the mine’s operator, Bob Murray, far overstepped his bounds before the tragedy occurred, and that MSHA did not take the proper action to stop him—indeed, the report says that Murray “bullied MSHA and got away with it.”
Both Kennedy and Roberts say the report shows the urgent need for tougher mine safety laws, including the S-MINER Act passed by the House earlier this year. Says Roberts:
We urge the HELP Committee to now take up the S-MINER Act as soon as possible and send it on to the full Senate. American coal miners are still dying just because they went to work. We need the enhanced protections the S-MINER Act provides.
Here are some of the key findings of the report, which is available here:
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Murray Energy and its technical consultant, Agapito Associates, failed to make sufficiently conservative engineering assumptions and ignored the history of the mine’s instability.
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MSHA missed significant flaws in Agapito’s analysis, dismissed critical findings by MSHA’s own engineer and did not submit the plans—which proposed one of the most hazardous mining operations ever attempted—for review by MSHA’s expert technical staff.
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Murray Energy ignored substantial evidence of instability during mining operations, continuing to extract coal despite mounting evidence of danger in the North Barrier. The company could have taken the time to notify MSHA of these conditions, stop mining and reassess the risks.
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Murray Energy encountered—and ignored—instability in the South Barrier where the accident occurred. Again, they did not take the time to report to MSHA and reassess, but continued mining, retreating under deeper cover.
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Murray Energy may have been conducting unauthorized mining right before the mine collapse. The evidence uncovered by the investigation reflects that Murray Energy was illegally mining the remnant barrier pillar just before the August 2007 accident.
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MSHA entered into an illegal agreement with Murray Energy. The evidence strongly suggests that MSHA entered into an informal agreement with a Murray Energy official agreeing that MSHA would relax the reporting requirements for seismic events occurring at Murray Energy mines.
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The workers and rescuers are dead and buried; their families and co-workers are left to their grief and sorrow. Thanks to the tireless work of public servants like Sen. Ted Kennedy and others, they will not have died in vein.
As long as the voice of corporate greed is heard before that of American workers, tragedies such as the mining accident at Crandall Canyon will continue to occur. Miners themselves must be more valued than the coal they mine. This job has never been risk free, but there is so much more that can and should be done to enhance mine safety and save miners’ lives.
Oh how this action from the owner of Crandell Canyon, Murray Energy is so similar to the action that the employees suffer from PG&E back in 1983.
They disregarded the conditions at there workplace that expose serious risk of muscular skeletal disorder.
The U. S. Justice Department needs to investigate every business that deal with Energy from the time of George H.W. Bush to the current Bush administration.
How long will Congress let this keep going on?
Mining companies relentlessly attempt to mine a larger and larger percentage of the coal from a particular vein exposing miners to higher and higher levels of danger due to the absence of supporting pillars in an exhausted mine. For this reason, all miners should be organized union members (preferably UMWA) and maintain the right to exercise wildcat strikes over safety procedures within the mine. This is the only effective method of policing mine safety on an immediate basis.
This is exactly why UMWA President Roberts called for an independent investigation of this disaster early on. MSHA would never have produced this kind of report — too much truth in it . And too much in the way of what exactly went on behind the scenes at the mine, in Murray Energy and inside MSHA. That’s why MSHA is mad this report has been released and is trying to trash it. Thank you Senator Kennedy!