Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 14, 1993 TAG: 9301140252
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS and DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: WISE LENGTH: Long
FAMILIES PICKET MINE INVESTIGATION
A small group of family and friends of eight miners killed in the Southmountain No. 3 coal mine explosion last month picketed federal mine safety inspection offices Wednesday, complaining that the federal investigation is unfair to miners.While they picketed, federal mine officials in Washington issued an advisory warning the coal industry that the mining procedure that was in use at Southmountain was the same as that used in three other recent mine accidents that killed four other miners and injured seven.
The government stopped short of warning that the method - which involves removing pillars of coal that had been roof supports - was a factor in the accidents.
"There is nothing yet in our investigations, which are still under way, that indicate room-and-pillar retreat mining had anything to do with the accidents," said Wayne E. Veneman of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The statement came in response to a United Mine Workers' call Wednesday for a national alert and immediate inspection of U.S. coal mines following the accidents.
The union said Wednesday that its preliminary investigation of the Southmountain No. 3 explosion showed that the mine's ventilation system was not adequate to remove methane gas.
The roof control system for the mine, which must be designed to keep ventilation passages open, also was faulty, said Joe Main, the union's chief safety officer.
Inspection records show that despite the union's findings, Southmountain repeatedly obtained federal and state mine inspection approval of its mining procedure and ventilation system.
Main called on the Mine Safety and Health Administration to issue a nationwide alert on the "room-and-pillar retreat" mining method. In a letter to administration chief William Tattersall, Main also asked that his staff take a closer look at the mining practice.
Main also asked Tattersall why federal inspections of mines and those required of mine management are missing problems, particularly since the Mine Safety and Health Administration must approve a mine's roof-control and ventilation plans before mining can begin.
The union has been concerned for some time about the way the administration reviews mine plans, making fewer visits to mine sites. Main questioned whether the reviews amount to "mere rubber stamps."
Federal budget cuts have contributed to the lack of oversight, but so has a change in the way the agency uses its personnel and a move over the past 12 years to deregulate the mining industry, Main said.
"This agency needs a retooling," Main said in an interview Wednesday. "Some fundamental things about coal mining shouldn't have fallen through the cracks."
Veneman responded that Main's speculation about the rubber stamping of mine plans by the agency "is just not true." He added that the Mine Safety and Health Administration had written new mining regulations during the period Main accused the agency of trying to deregulate the industry.
To visualize what a room-and-pillar mine looks like inside, imagine the downtown of a city with rows and rows of streets intersecting at right angles. The mine's rooms or passageways are the streets and the pillars are the city blocks made from coal.
In room-and-pillar retreat mining, miners remove the big blocks of coal that initially were left in place to support the mine roof.
Removing the coal blocks - the pillars - without adequate safeguards can trigger cave-ins that choke off passageways that supply the fresh air necessary to dilute and remove highly flammable methane gas from a mine, Main said.
"As the roof caved in at Southmountain No. 3, the ventilation system for diluting and carrying way methane was apparently choked off, leading to the tragedy," Main said. "At that point anything - even the smallest spark from the smallest piece of equipment - could have triggered the explosion."
Veneman said because the administration's investigation of the explosion still was going on, he could not comment on Main's findings. A spokesman for the company could not be reached for comment.
Family members of some of those killed at Southmountain complained this week that federal mine officials improperly released preliminary investigation reports implying that the dead miners caused the explosion by smoking underground.
And a lawyer representing the families of three of the dead miners demanded that interviews of Southmountain miners and other witnesses be conducted in public. He said a public hearing offered the best guarantee that the investigation will be fair and that miners won't suffer retaliation by mine operators.
Federal mine officials refused to open the interviews when they began Tuesday at the federal mine safety office in Wise. As a result, about 20 family members and friends gathered outside the office with protest signs.
"I don't think they've done a very good job," Rose Marie Whitt said as she shivered in the early morning cold. Whitt lost two cousins and an in-law in the Dec. 7 explosion.
Tony Oppegard, the attorney for families of three of the dead miners, stood with the family members Wednesday outside the mine safety office. He said his major concern is that federal mine officials closed the interviews to the public, but allowed the owners of Southmountain Mine to sit in on the questioning.
"How can you expect miners to be open about safety problems when their bosses are looking straight at them?" he said. "The interviews are a charade."
Oppegard said the owners should be removed from the interviews or the interviews should be made totally public.
Kathy Snyder, a spokeswoman for the federal mine agency, said the miners who are interviewed can refuse to participate or can ask for confidential private interviews if they prefer. She said they can also file confidential statements.
One of those gathered for the Wednesday protest was Clearsy France, who had worked on the same shift as the eight miners who died. He would have been with them except for a leg and back injury that forced him to quit work in October.
France said he considered the mine one of the best-maintained he had ever seen. But he said he was angered last month when federal mine officials implied that the miners may have caused the explosion by smoking. "They always do that. They always try to blame the miners."
Federal mine officials said they did not release the preliminary investigation report last month in an effort to point blame at anyone. Instead, they said, it was done as an industrywide warning against unsafe mining practices.
In addition to revealing that they had found smoking materials on and around some of the dead miners, federal officials said they discovered that a device to detect explosive levels of methane in the mine had been tampered with to prevent it from working.
Federal mine officials said they plan to interview about 30 Southmountain employees and other witnesses, and then will make transcripts of the interviews public.