Grim Start to New Year: Two Coal Miners Killed (Sat, Jan 13)

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/01/13/grim-start-to-new-year-two-coal-miners-killed/

Grim Start to New Year: Two Coal Miners Killed

by Tula Connell, Jan 13, 2007

Two coal miners were killed today when a roof collapsed at a mine in Cucumber, W.Va.

According to the Associated Press:

The miners apparently were caught when a pillar fell, said Ron Wooten, director of the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. Wooten said rescuers were bringing their bodies to the surface.

The miners became trapped around 10:30 a.m. at the Brooks Run mine in McDowell County, said Paul Butler, a county 911 dispatcher.

Dispatchers said the accident scene was up to 1½ miles beyond the entrance to the mine.

The mine, about 90 miles west of Roanoke, Va., is owned by Alpha Natural Resources LLC. In October, a miner was killed in a wall collapse at Alpha’s Whitetail Kittanning Mine in Newburg in Preston County.

The Brooks Run roof collapse comes just days after the first anniversary of the Sago Mine disaster in which 12 coal miners were killed Jan. 2, 2006. Last year was the deadliest year for U.S. coal miners since 1996, with 47 deaths—a 210 percent increase from 2005.

The Bush-backed head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), former coal company executive Richard Stickler, failed to win Senate approval last year because of concerns over the safety records at the mines he ran from 1989 to 1996, where the injury rate was double the national average. Bush used a backdoor recess appointment to place him in the post last October.

Stickler has promised a new emphasis on safety enforcement—and after allowing its mine-inspection force to drop from 634 inspectors in 1997 to 584 in 2005, MSHA is adding more inspectors. Safety advocates are taking a wait-and-see attitude on MSHA’s vows to crack down on safety violators.