Massey energy
cmonforton | October 23, 2015The criminal trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship went into its third week. Jurors heard testimony from Upper Big Branch (UBB) coal miners Stanley “Goose” Stewart, Richard “Smurf” Hutchens, and Scott Halstead, UBB superintendent Rick Hodge, and MSHA investigator Keith McElroy, among others. At the end of this third week of the trial, the 15 jurors have heard the testimony of 21 witnesses. Thanks to the Charleston Gazette-Mail’s Ken Ward Jr. and Joel Ebert, I can select and share some of my favorite quotes from this week's proceedings.
Performance Coal president Chris Blanchard,…
cmonforton | April 3, 2014You’d think the man responsible for the death of 29 coal miners would show remorse and not subject us to his opinions. Nope. That’s not what we should ever expect from Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy.
Four years ago this coming Saturday, April 5, will mark the 4th anniversary of the coal dust explosion that killed 29 workers at the Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine. Blankenship thinks it is appropriate to mark the anniversary with his propaganda. Blankenship hired Adroit Films of Chesapeake, VA to produce a documentary called “Upper Big Branch – Never Again.” It…
cmonforton | September 16, 2013A fourth official formerly associated with Massey Energy was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison for conspiring to thwart federal mine safety laws. David C. Hughart, 54, appeared this week before U.S. District Judge Irene Baker for his sentencing hearing. Hughart plead guilty in February 2013, following charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
U.S. attorney Booth Goodwin’s staff have been investigating former Massey Energy personnel (the firm was purchased by Alpha Natural Resources in 2011) as part of DOJ's criminal investigation related to the April 2010 Upper Big Branch (…
cmonforton | April 5, 2013Three years ago today, April 5, 2010, at approximately 3:02 pm (ET) a coal dust explosion ripped through Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia. Twenty-nine miners were killed by the blast, suffering fatal injuries from the explosion itself or from carbon monoxide poisoning. They were:
Carl Calvin "Pee Wee" Acord, 52
Jason Atkins, 25
Christopher Bell, 33
Gregory Steven Brock, 47
Kenneth A. Chapman, 53
Robert E. Clark, 41
Cory Thomas Davis, 20
Charles Timothy Davis, 51
Michael Lee Elswick, 56
William "Bob" Griffith, 54
Steven "Smiley" Harrah, 40
Edward Dean Jones,…
cmonforton | January 23, 2013In the month's preceding the deadly explosion in April 2010 that killed 29 coal miners, Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine had racked up hundreds of serious violations of safety standards. In 2009 alone, this included 48 orders from federal mine inspectors to withdraw workers from the UBB mine because of dangerous conditions. But Massey knew how to game the system. Mine managers would make a couple tweaks, correct the immediate problem, and it was back to mining coal. usually within an hour or so. There was no real consequence for their or other mine operator's repeated…
lborkowski | August 21, 2012by Beth Spence
Last week a friend and I visited the memorial dedicated to the miners who were killed in the 2010 Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine disaster. The massive 48-foot granite structure with 29 ghostly silhouettes is a powerful tribute to the lost miners and to the industry that has been so dominant in the Appalachian region.
It is fitting that the memorial is in Whitesville, nestled in the Coal River Valley not far from where coal was first discovered in West Virginia, and that it stands on the very site where, in the days and weeks after the disaster, an organic memorial sprang up to…
cmonforton | July 18, 2012Patty and Gary Quarles lost their only child on April 5, 2010. Gary Wayne Quarles, 33, was part of the crew operating the longwall mining machine at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine. He died that day in a massive coal dust explosion along with 28 other men. Patty's and Gary's life will never be the same. The lives of all the families and close friends of those 29 coal miners changed forever that day. They've suffered losses that few of us will ever understand. A recent story in the Washington Post entitled "After Massey mine disaster killed their son, settlement of millions…
cmonforton | July 3, 2012[Updated (July 5, 2012) below]
"We're still in the dark," explained one family whose son was killed 27 months ago at Alpha Natural Resources (formerly Massey Energy's) Upper Big Branch mine (UBB). That comment came two weeks ago after learning that Alpha, one of the world's largest coal companies, provided its first progress report to U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin as required by the December 2011 Non-Prosecution Agreement. The report was dated June 4, 2012. The progress report is supposed to describe the firm's compliance with the agreement, which settled the U.S. Department of Justice's…
cmonforton | June 28, 2012Just two weeks ago, families of the 29 men who were killed on April 5, 2010 at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine traveled to Washington DC to urge lawmakers to improve our nation's mine safety law. The West Virginia natives met with Republican and Democratic Members of Congress and asked for four simple reforms targeted at the mining industry's bad actors. They weren't asking anything for themselves. Only for new laws to help deter unscrupulous employers from causing another disaster and causing other communities to suffer the same pain and loss the UBB families have endured.…
cmonforton | June 1, 2012by Laredo, golden retriever dog
A weird story appeared on my Facebook page today. It was written by somebody named "AP." The headline read: "Alpha introduces mine search-rescue dog in Va." I like working dogs just as much as the next canine, so I read the article. Says that "Ginny" is a two-year old dutch-shepherd dog who weighs 48 pounds.
Get this, Mr. AP's article says Ginny is:
"...the newest member of coal producer Alpha Natural Resources Inc.'s search-and-rescue team, trained to perform searches in both underground and surface mines. Equipped with an infrared camera and atmospheric…
cmonforton | April 5, 2012"When the world came to an end" is how Joshua Williams described being inside the Upper Big Branch coal mine at 3:02 pm on April 5, 2010. He knew several crews of coal miners were much deeper inside the dark tunnels than he. An ominous feeling. Coal dust explosions are powerful and deadly. Eight days later, after all the worker-victims were removed from the mine, the death toll was 29.
What's happened in the two years since the disaster? Here's a brief recap:
Eighty-four mine workers at other U.S. mining operations have been killed on-the-job since the April 2010 Upper Big Branch…
cmonforton | December 6, 2011The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) released today the findings of its 20 month-long investigation into the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion. The April 5, 2010 disaster killed 29 workers, seriously injured another worker, and left hundreds of grieving family members and friends. MSHA identified 12 violations of safety regulations that contributed to the cause or the severity of the disaster. Nine of the 12 contributory violations were classified as "flagrant" infractions which come with a $220,000 penalty each (for a total of $2.64 million). In…
cmonforton | December 1, 2011The US Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is preparing to issue next week its investigation report on the April 5, 2010 coal mine disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 workers. Ken Ward, Jr. at Coal Tattoo reports that MSHA will hold a media briefing at 3:00 pm (EST) on December 6 at its training academy near Beckley WV. The Charleston (WV) Gazette reporter reminds us that December 6 is an ominous date. It marks the 104th anniversary of the Monongah disaster, the worst mining disaster in U.S. history.
MSHA's investigation report will be the…
lborkowski | May 19, 2011On April 5, 2010, an explosion occurred at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The blast rocketed through 2.5 miles of underground chambers and tunnels nearly 1,000 feet beneath the mountains, and it killed 29 miners and severely injured another. The youngest victim was Cory Thomas Davis, age 20, who loved spending weekends hunting and fishing in the mountains, and the oldest was Benny Willingham, age 61, a Vietnam veteran of the US Air Force who had been a coal miner for 30 years and was five weeks away from retirement.
Shortly after the tragic day, then-…
lborkowski | December 2, 2010Mary Kay Magistad of PRI's The World surveys the cost of China's huge appetite for coal and reports that it's harmful to workers as well as air quality. She interviews 37-year-old coal miner Zhong Guangwei, who developed a severe case of pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease, after just 10 months of working in a coal mine in the Shanxi province.
"Down in the mine, the coal dust was so thick, we couldn't even see people who were four or five feet away," Zhong says. "We had to just shout out to each other, to see who was around. There were no safety precautions, and the ventilation was terrible…
dblum | May 12, 2010 On Saturday night, about 9 p.m., a short, sharp explosion rattled one of Russia's largest coal mines, a deep maze of underground tunnels located in Siberia. About 370 miners were working at the time.
Most of them came hurrying out of mine entrances. But not all. Managers organized rescue teams and sent about 50 people back into the Raspadskaya mine to hunt for survivors - and bodies. In the best of circumstances - which would not be in the panic of an emergency, in the middle of the night - this would be a daunting task. The mine's tunnels (an estimated 200 miles worth) plunge…