Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 13, 1993 TAG: 9305130297
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE and GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ The most frightening revelation in the state's five-month investigation of the Southmountain coal mine disaster is that virtually nothing can be done to prevent a recurrence.
The reason, the investigation shows, is that many miners and supervisors at Southmountain Coal Co.'s No. 3 mine in Wise County were either willfully violating safety regulations or ignoring violations by others.
"Why do people do wrong, or why does anyone allow it to occur?" the state's mine chief, Harry Childress, said Wednesday. "That's a good question. We'd all like to know how to answer that."
The spark that ignited the Dec. 7 explosion that killed eight miners occurred when one miner illegally lit a butane cigarette lighter, according to the investigation.
But if that hadn't sparked the explosion, there were plenty of other things that could have, the report indicates. That's because many violations of air-flow and coal-mining plans had allowed a huge bubble of explosive methane to build up.
The mine was a ticking bomb.
"That's what we're saying: If they had done what they are supposed to do, this wouldn't have happened," Childress said.
The 22 major recommendations made in the report to prevent similar accidents call for nothing substantially new. They simply urge miners and mine operators to follow the law.
But Tony Oppegard, an attorney with the Mine Safety Project in Lexington, Ky., says the state has ignored the fact that enforcement agencies "bear some responsibility" along with the miners and mine operators.
Oppegard, who represents the families of some of the dead miners, said "the state Division of Mines, Minerals and Energy doesn't examine its own role."
Roanoke lawyer S. Roberts Moore, who represents families of other dead miners, agrees that safety officials might bear some responsibility for the disaster.
"From what I've heard, there's certainly reason to believe state and federal mine inspectors failed to discover a very dangerous condition," Moore said. "I have serious questions as to how it ever came to be that the level of methane was permitted to accumulate in that mine without detection."
State and federal mine-safety agencies could be targeted by a lawsuit by families of the dead miners, but the fact that some victims were smoking in the mine could hurt their case. Roberts said he couldn't say for sure without further study.
Procedures are supposed to be in place that allow miners to know if there has been a dangerous accumulation of methane, he said.
"Certainly nobody is going to light up a cigarette in the face of an indication there's been a large buildup of methane."
But a methane detector on the mining machine had been tampered with and did not properly register methane, the report said.
Family members realize that the miners bear some responsibility for the disaster, but they want state and federal inspectors to realize that they have to do more to promote safety, Oppegard said.
The problem is particularly dire at small non-union mines like Southmountain, where the company had been working around the clock to fill a production order, Oppegard said. "Safety takes time," and when mines are pushing production something's got to give.
The report revealed that cigarettes, lighters or cigarette butts were found on or near three of the dead miners. It's a violation of federal and state law to take smoking material into a mine.
The butane lighter thought to have set off the explosion was found near the body of James "Gar" Mullins, a 42-year-old miner from Clintwood. Mullins also had 10 Viceroy cigarette butts and an open pack of Viceroy cigarettes on him at the time of his autopsy.
Oppegard said the families applaud the state's decision to seek criminal charges against some of the mine officials.
But, he said, the state needs to beef up safety education and install a toll-free phone line for miners to anonymously report violations.
Childress agrees that more needs to be done to push safety and make miners and mine supervisors put safety first. But, he said, "We found nothing that sticks out that was wrong on our part."
\ Inspectors found nothing
If things were so bad at Southmountain, why hadn't inspectors seen indications earlier?
State inspectors said the main reason is that virtually all of the dangerous activity and rule violations occurred after their last quarterly inspection in September. The next regular inspection was set for a couple days after the explosion.
The state, which has 22 inspectors for more than 300 mines, had been at Southmountain a dozen times in the past year on regular and surprise inspections without finding anything seriously wrong. "We're not going to be there all the time with them," Childress said.
Kevin Fleming, 21, of Clintwood, the only miner to survive the explosion, said he felt that production was being pushed "a little bit." But, he said, he worked closer to the surface, the only reason he survived, and didn't know about safety violations where the coal was being dug. The only thing he knew, he said, was "they wanted as much coal as they could get."
Bobby Kyle, an official with Davis Mining and Manufacturing of Coeburn, which owns Southmountain Coal Mine No. 3, said the company was still studying the report and had no comment. Jack Davis, owner of the company, could not be reached for comment.
The company is protected from a lawsuit by families of the dead miners by the state Workers' Compensation Law. But it could face criminal charges in addition to the civil charges brought by the state and expected from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration also is investigating the disaster, but no date has been set for release of that federal report.
Chief State Mine Inspector Childress said he plans to meet with Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Tim McAfee to discuss possible criminal charges.
Terrence Cook, a Grundy lawyer, has written Childress to ask to sit in on the meeting with McAfee. Along with Moore, Cook's firm represents families of three of the dead miners and Fleming.
One thing that jumped out at him from his review of the investigation report, Cook said, is that the butane lighter was one of only 15 possible sources of a spark that could have set off the blast once methane accumulated.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB