Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 14, 1994 TAG: 9401140218
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
Named in the indictment by a federal grand jury in Abingdon were Southmountain Coal Co. of Coeburn and company supervisors Freddie Carl Deatherage, 42, of Jenkins, Ky., and Kenneth Ray Brooks, 57, of Clintwood.
Deatherage was the superintendent and Brooks the evening shift foreman at Southmountain's No. 3 mine, which exploded about daylight on Dec. 7, 1992.
The indictment charges that a series of mining law violations led to a buildup of methane gas in the mine. The gas was then ignited by a cigarette lighter carried into the mine by one of the blast's victims. It further charges that company records were falsified to cover up the violations.
The indictments are intended to send a message to the mining industry, said Edward Hugler, deputy assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health. "Willful violations of federal mine safety standards cannot and will not be tolerated," he said.
Hugler, and Bob Crouch, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, held a news conference in Abingdon on Thursday to announce the indictment.
Crouch said the criminal investigation of the explosion is continuing and may lead to other indictments.
Jack Davis of Coeburn, the operator of the Southmountain mine, and W. Ridley Elkins of Clintwood, the consultant who state and federal investigations indicated was running the mine for Davis, were not mentioned in the indictments.
Last August, the Mine Safety and Health Administration assessed civil penalties totalling $439,172 against Southmountain and Elkins, of which $400,000 was for safety violations that the agency said directly contributed to the explosion.
In Thursday's criminal indictment, Southmountain was charged with 11 misdemeanor violations concerning a failure to properly conduct safety examinations, which would have detected the buildup of explosive methane gas.
The indictment also charges that the company failed to follow a ventilation plan that would have prevented a gas buildup and failed to suppress explosive coal dust by "rockdusting" the mine. It also says the company did not ensure that miners did not carry lighters, matches or other smoking materials into the mine.
The company also faces six felony charges related to a falsification of record books that investigators said covered up a failure to conduct safety examinations and misrepresented amounts of methane detected before the explosion.
If convicted of all counts, the company, which has no active mining operations, faces a maximum fine of $8.5 million.
Deatherage faces the possibility of 26 years in prison and $2.5 million in fines and Brooks faces eight years in prison and $1 million in fines.
The defendants will be arraigned in federal court in Abingdon on Jan. 27.
The indictments, Hugler said, are part of a trend within the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration of seeing that those who willfully violate mine safety laws are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Last year more than 75 companies and individuals either were convicted or pleaded guilty to federal mine safety and health violations, Hugler said.
Neither Deatherage nor Brooks could be reached for comment. Jack Kennedy of Norton, a lawyer for Southmountain, said the company would not comment until it had seen the indictment.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB