Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 6, 1993 TAG: 9312060040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Robert Kevin Fleming didn't see the dim early-morning light as it began to embrace Wise County's hills and hollows.
The 21-year-old Clintwood man was inside a mountain near Norton, nearing the end of his shift at Southmountain Coal Co.'s No. 3 mine, thinking about heading home to his wife and 16-year-old son.
He took a drink of water and began shoveling coal that had spilled from a conveyor belt.
Then - about 6:30 a.m. last Dec. 7 - a moving wall of dust and heat knocked the hard hat from Fleming's head and, as he bent to pick it up, threw him dozens of feet through the mine shaft to the rock floor.
Fleming, who was working near the mine's mouth, was the only survivor of the Southmountain explosion. A mile farther underground, his eight co-workers were killed outright as they were mining coal.
In the year since, Fleming has not returned to work in the mines or anywhere else. He is under a psychiatrist's care.
He replays the explosion and its aftermath over and over in his mind, whether he wants to or not. "It pretty well happens by itself all the time," he said.
The Southmountain explosion - the worst coal-mining accident in Virginia in 34 years - triggered a review and rewrite of Virginia's mine safety laws, the first in four decades.
The efforts of a special legislative subcommittee doing that work will be considered by the 1994 General Assembly.
The changes proposed so far have been significant.
Among them is a proposal to provide a mechanism to revoke a state mining license when management shows a wanton and willful disregard for worker safety.
An investigation by federal and state mine safety officials concluded that a failure to follow the mine's approved ventilation and roof-support plans led to a buildup of explosive methane gas inside the Southmountain mine.
The gas, investigators concluded, most likely was ignited by the spark from a cigarette lighter that, along with cigarettes, was illegally brought into the mine by one of the dead miners.
Once the methane exploded, it set off a secondary explosion of coal dust, which hadn't been adequately controlled, officials said.
In August, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration fined Southmountain Coal Co. and W. Ridley Elkins of Clintwood, the company official in charge at the mine, $439,172.
"Investigators found violations caused by a high degree of negligence and in several instances reckless disregard for the nation's mining laws," Edward Hugler, MSHA's acting administrator, said at the time.
A federal grand jury now sitting in Abingdon is looking for possible crimes related to the Southmountain explosion. Any indictments probably will not come before next year.
The legislative subcommittee has heard recommendations from a special task force appointed by Gov. Douglas Wilder to oversee the state's investigation of the Southmountain explosion and has held public hearings in Big Stone Gap and Claypool Hill.
Elizabeth Mullins of Clintwood, the widow of explosion victim Mike Mullins, told the committee at one of those August hearings that her husband was aware of the dangers inside the mine - the high levels of methane, the failure to control loose coal dust and a lack of attention to the ventilation system.
But she said her husband was unaware of his right under federal law to refuse to work in unsafe conditions without fear of reprisal from management. "There's simply no excuse for the commonwealth of Virginia not to train its miners about their rights and do whatever is necessary to protect them," she said.
With the anniversary of the Southmountain explosion coming up and the holiday season under way, Mullins and the widows of other Southmountain victims were reluctant to talk about their lives over the past year. It hurts too much, they said.
"Maybe they will come out with some new law that will help somebody else," Mullins said of the legislative subcommittee's work. "I hope so."
Mike Sturgill of Pound, the son of Palmer Sturgill - one of two brothers killed in the blast - said he doesn't trouble his mother by talking about the explosion.
But a day doesn't pass that he doesn't think about his father, Sturgill said. The men who died in the mine still haven't received justice, he said.
The next meeting of the full General Assembly subcommittee will be on Dec. 16 in Richmond, when it will begin drafting legislation to change the safety laws.
The review of the laws has been intense, participants said, and it has provided insight.
"You can't wait 40 years again to review and recodify the mining act," said Del. Clarence "Bud" Phillips, D-St. Paul, a member of the subcommittee. The law needs to be updated periodically based on the advice of miners, coal operators and safety officials.
Another subcommittee member, state Sen. William Wampler Jr., R-Bristol, said the review of the laws has shown him that "there's no one answer" to making Virginia's mines safer.
"I think there is a consensus that we want to go after the habitual offender," Wampler said. If a mine operator continues to violate the law, they should be denied the right to do business in Virginia, he said.
Making managers responsible
Max Kennedy, a safety official with the United Mine Workers in Virginia, hopes the legislative rewrite will put more emphasis on holding mine managers responsible for operating safely. Kennedy served on the governor's task force overseeing the Southmountain investigation and has closely followed the legislative subcommittee's rewrite of the mine safety laws.
Kennedy said a proposal to eliminate state inspections at mineral mines that are inspected by federal inspectors worries him. And he questioned why miners from the mineral-mining industry are not represented on the subcommittee.
Two miners have died in mineral mines in the state this year; one coal miner has died.
He also is bothered by a proposal to lift a requirement for state safety inspections four times a year. The subcommittee is considering giving the Division of Mines more flexibility to target its inspections at mines with poor inspection and accident records.
The law now allows the chief mine inspector to cut back on inspections in specific cases where a mine has a good record. Cutting back inspections across the board won't help mine safety, Kennedy said.
But Thomas Hudson, a member of the subcommittee and the executive officer of the Virginia Coal Association, which represents the state's big coal companies in Richmond, said the proposal to reallocate the resources of the division is one of the more significant changes that has been proposed.
Proposals to increase the education and training of miners also should help, he said, because many accidents are caused by the acts of workers rather than the conditions inside a mine.
The subcommittee has adopted a tentative proposal asking the governor to restore a $260,000 yearly appropriation for a training program at "unsafe" mines that was cut from the budget two years ago.
Among the other proposals being supported by the subcommittee are:
Requiring lifelines along the main mine escapeways to guide miners to safety.
Setting a 4.5 percent ceiling for methane levels in the ventilation tunnels, known as "bleeder systems," in the abandoned portions of working mines. Methane becomes explosive in the 5 percent to 15 percent range.
Requiring supervisors and foremen to know a mine's ventilation and roof-support plans.
The subcommittee also has agreed that the regulations prohibiting smoking in mines be maintained. After the Southmountain explosion, the General Assembly passed a law making it a felony to smoke or carry smoking materials inside a mine.
Surprise visits by federal and state inspectors to three Southwest Virginia mines this fall resulted in arrests of miners for smoking violations.
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