Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 31, 1993 TAG: 9301310034
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS and DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
WILDER JOINS EFFORT ON COAL-MINE SAFETY
Gov. Douglas Wilder has lent his support to a proposed re-evaluation of Virginia's coal-mine safety laws by the General Assembly.Del. Alson Smith, D-Winchester, said last week he'll seek creation of a House-Senate committee to study the state's mine safety laws, which got their last major revision in the mid-1960s. Smith is chairman of the House Committee on Mining and Mineral Resources.
Some coalfield legislators already have ideas about how state mining law needs to be changed.
Smith's proposal is one of many related to mine safety that have been introduced in this year's legislative session as a result of the Dec. 7 explosion in Wise County that killed eight miners.
Other proposed legislation deals with smoking in mines, tampering with methane detection devices and eliminating the "nongassy" classification the state gives to some mines.
"I want to make sure our present laws are sufficient, and where they are not so, work to make them current and functional as well as enforceable," Wilder said in supporting Smith's study committee.
But Del. Clarence Phillips, D-St. Paul, said he hopes a General Assembly committee doesn't wind up backing last year's Wilder administration proposal to remove mine inspection responsibilities from the state Division of Mines and to place the agency in a more educational role.
That suggestion was strongly opposed by the United Mine Workers union and coalfield legislators. It also ran contrary to advice from a committee that studied a 1983 explosion that killed seven miners in Dickenson County, which said state inspections don't unnecessarily duplicate inspections by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
That committee, named by then-Gov. Charles Robb to investigate an explosion at Pittston's McClure No. 1 mine, found "the hazards of coal mining are so severe and unique that duplication is an effective and essential method to improve safety."
The Wilder administration had suggested eliminating the state's inspection role as a way of coping with a proposed 20 percent cut in the Division of Mines' 1992 budget. The measure never was introduced, however, because the administration couldn't find a legislative sponsor in the face of opposition.
Mike Abbott, a spokesman for the Division of Mines, said the state didn't want to give up inspections but suggested it as part of a statewide effort to look for programs that could be cut. Eventually Stump the division retained much of its budget money.
Harry Childress, head of the Division of Mines, said Friday that the division no longer is even considering dropping its inspection duties. And he avoided taking any stand on any of the various law changes being proposed. He said his department would carry out whatever is adopted.
Phillips said he opposes any effort to end state inspection of mines. "We need as many inspections as we can get," he said.
Phillips himself has introduced a bill that would make it a felony to "smoke, carry or possess" smoking materials in a coal mine or for a mine manager to allow someone else to. A mining company would face revocation of its license and mine employees, such as foremen and mechanics, could lose their state certification if they were convicted of violating the proposed law.
Investigators have said they found smoking materials and cigarette butts on and around the bodies of some of the miners found dead in Southmountain Coal Co.'s No. 3 mine after the December explosion. But safety officials have not determined if smoking was the source of the spark that set off the methane blast.
One miner at Southmountain No. 3 who asked to remain unidentified said he had smoked in the mine several times but gave it up after learning about the danger during a retraining class.
Relatives of some of the dead miners told Phillips after the explosion that smoking had been going on in the mine and that it was common knowledge.
Still, no one reported the smoking to state or federal officials.
"The men needed their jobs and didn't want to do anything that would cause them problems with their co-workers or the mine operator," Phillips said.
Even if someone had reported the smoking to state officials, state law lacked the teeth to do much about it, Phillips said. The law regarding smoking contains no criminal penalties and provides only for civil fines against a mine's operator.
Phillips has sponsored another bill that would provide for the same penalties against those who tamper with automatic methane detectors on mining machinery. The detectors, which he called a miner's "first line of defense," are designed to kill the power to mining machinery when methane levels rise.
Federal officials reported that a methane monitor on a mining machine in the Southmountain mine had been blocked with a rag.
Also addressing the issue of explosive methane in coal mines, Del. Jackie Stump, D-Buchanan County, has sponsored a bill that would eliminate the classification of some mines in Virginia as "nongassy." That would bring state regulations into line with those of the federal government and many other states, which consider all coal mines as "gassy." Stump is a member of the UMW's International Executive Board.
The state's "nongassy" classification is not based on a presumption that there is no gas at all in a mine, but rather that the gas can't be measured at significant levels near the working area or in other parts of the mine.
But classifying a mine "nongassy" makes miners complacent, said Bob Scaramozzino, the UMW's deputy administrator for safety. "You're not looking for it. You don't think there's a danger."
Sometimes mines with no history of a methane problem can quickly develop one. Scaramozzino said that was the case at a Dickenson County mine that exploded in 1987, killing one miner.
In that instance, mining was being conducted at a higher level over an older mine. Cracks developed in the mine floor and methane seeped in from the lower mine through the cracks, he said.
"There should be no mine classified `nongassy,' " he said.
At Southmountain, the last quarterly inspection in 1992 did not find methane levels in excess of the 0.25 percent level that state law requires to classify a mine as gassy. "We have the utmost faith in the thoroughness of the inspections conducted by all our mine inspectors," the Division of Mines' Abbott said Thursday.
If state inspectors had known about higher gas levels in the mine, the division would have reassessed the mine's designation, Abbott said.
In January 1992, a federal inspection found a methane level of 6 percent in the mine, an explosive level of the odorless, colorless gas. But state inspectors never were made aware of the federal inspector's discovery because the two agencies don't routinely exchange information.
Committee hearings on Phillips' and Stump's bills are scheduled for Wednesday at 7 a.m. Meanwhile, Wilder has set out the responsibilities for a special 10-member task force he has appointed to oversee the investigation of the December explosion. The task force, chaired by former Del. James Robinson of Pound, will hold its first meeting Feb. 9 in Wise County.
The group is composed of three UMW representatives, three from industry, three citizens and a member of the state police. Part of its duties will be to oversee the Division of Mines' investigation of the disaster, to consider recommendations in the final report and make any additional suggestions that would prevent a similar disaster.