Federal Prosecutor Charges Coal Company With Faking Dust Samples Amid Black Lung Surge
The U.S. Attorney for Kentucky’s Western District unsealed eight fraud indictments Wednesday against employees of the bankrupt Armstrong Energy coal company for falsifying dust monitoring samples in two Kentucky mines.
“What the grand jury is charging and what the United States will prosecute is lying and cheating by a coal company to prevent the appropriate testing of this dust to protect miners,” Russell Coleman, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, said at a press conference in Ownesboro.
Coleman sad those charged conspired to commit dust fraud “by knowingly and willfully altering the company’s required dust-sampling procedures,” either by circumventing the dust-sampling regulations, submitting false samples, or by making false statements on dust certification cards.
Controlling coal dust is important both to prevent the potential for explosions in mines and to limit miners’ exposure to dust, which causes lung disease. The region is experiencing an epidemic in cases of black lung disease.
Read more: http://www.wvpublic.org/post/federal-prosecutor-charges-coal-company-faking-dust-samples-amid-black-lung-surge