Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 10, 1993 TAG: 9302100270
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
INSPECTOR'S RECORD QUESTIONED
The February issue of the United Mine Workers Journal questions Virginia's chief mine inspector's commitment to enforcement of safety laws and his ties with the coal industry.The Journal said its story - "Virginia's chief mine inspector Harry Childress: Protecting miners or his family ties" - was based on an examination of Childress' 11-year record in the wake of a December explosion in Wise County that killed eight miners.
The story and a longer accompanying article were based on an investigation by the union publication in conjunction with the UMW's health and safety department.
Michael Abbott, a spokesman for the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, said neither Childress nor the department would have any comment on the UMW report until state officials have had time to review it.
The Journal suggests that Childress might have been less aggressive in the enforcement of safety law than was prudent where some, including his own father, were involved.
Some of what the union publication reported was history, some was not.
The Journal recalled that after Childress was named the state's chief mine safety official in 1982, he failed to divest himself of $19,000 of corporate stock in his former employer, the Pittston Co., until the union complained. Holding the stock was barred by law.
The story, written by Journal staffer Marat Moore, reported that John Talbert, a former assistant superintendent at Pittston's McClure No. 1 mine in Dickenson County, had been hired by the state as a mine inspector in 1991. This happened, she reported, even though investigators had found after a 1983 explosion at the McClure mine that killed seven miners that Talbert had failed to ensure adequate pre-shift and on-shift safety examinations and the use of proper ventilation procedures.
The Journal also reported that a mine at which Childress' father, Harold, worked as a superintendent from 1979 until mid-1991 was cited only once for a safety violation by state inspectors from January 1987 to June 1990.
But internal state documents indicate that the mine, Lambert No. 44, had the state's worst accident record in 1991 and was not a safe mine, as the inspection record might indicate, the Journal said.
Childress told the union that he had no knowledge of his father's mine's record of accidents and few violations. He said he had never discussed the mine with his father since 1979.
The Journal reported that in 1992 a group of state mining inspectors and instructors urged Childress to put into effect an accident-prevention plan they had developed. The plan was based on stiffer enforcement at mines showing high accident rates in 1991.
The story said sources in the state division of mines, which Childress led, said Childress rejected the plan. It could have exposed lax enforcement at his father's mine and provided extra enforcement at Southmountain Coal Co.'s No. 3 mine near Norton, where an explosion Dec. 7 killed eight miners.
Other incidents reported in the Journal included Childress' proposal last year to eliminate the safety-enforcement role of his division. The proposal would have substituted an increased effort on training miners and providing technical assistance at mines. The plan was drawn up in response to proposed budget cuts for Childress' agency and would have left the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration solely in charge of making safety inspections at Virginia mines.
"For Virginia miners who work in small mines without union representation, a weak state agency increases their risk of injury and death," the UMW said.
"We desperately need people at [the state agency] who have a real commitment to protecting lives," said union safety official Max Kennedy, who sits on the state Mine Safety Board.
Moore's story on Childress accompanied a longer story of hers which detailed the deaths of 18 Appalachian coal miners over five weeks this winter.
The union's investigation had "uncovered a pattern of dangerous working conditions and lax safety enforcement that possibly contributed to the deaths of 18 Appalachian coal in miners in little more than a month," union safety chief Joe Main said.
"Small mines are the dirty little secret of the coal industry, but they couldn't continue to operate - and injure and kill workers at high rates - if agencies were doing their jobs," Main said.
"Coal miners who work in deathtraps without union safeguards are forced to remain silent about their working conditions, or are fired if they don't."