[July 01, 2011] MSHA: Massey kept real, fake logs Tweet Jun 30, 2011 (Charleston Daily Mail - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- BEAVER, W.Va. -- Mine operators at times masked hazardous conditions inside the Upper Big Branch mine before an explosion there killed 29 men on April 5, 2010, according to documents made public Wednesday by the U.S. Mine Health and Safety Administration. MSHA's investigation of the blast is ongoing, but the agency has now concluded the explosion was preventable. That, along with the documents and a number of the agency's other findings, adds to a damning picture of conditions at the mine before it exploded. The findings raise further questions about the culpability of mine owners, Massey Energy Co. and its subsidiary, Performance Coal Co. Alpha Natural Resources has since bought Massey and promises to run safe mines. But there is plenty of blame to go around. A top mine safety official admitted that, while Massey didn't comply with recommendations designed to make the mine safer, MSHA also didn't do follow-ups to be sure Massey had done so. An apparently major finding MSHA made public also shows mine operators kept parallel sets of records about conditions at Upper Big Branch, an indication they were intentionally and perhaps illegally concealing dangers from federal regulators. MSHA Coal Administrator Kevin Stricklin revealed the findings in presentations to the public and the media at the National Mine Health and Safety Academy. A PowerPoint presentation released by MSHA shows two sets of documents from three separate days in March 2010. On each of the days, hazards in the mine were recorded in internal production and maintenance reports kept by the company. But on those same days, those same hazards were not listed in required examination books that would be viewed by government regulators. "Managers pressured examiners to not record hazards in the books," Stricklin said. Stricklin didn't say who viewed those reports. But the reports were counter-signed by "upper management," according to MSHA. Stricklin declined to define the term "upper management." Stricklin suggested Massey accidentally provided the internal reports to MSHA. He didn't say how often MSHA believed officials at Upper Big Branch maintained two sets of records. A statement from Massey owner Alpha did not address the differing logs. United Mine Workers of American President Cecil Roberts seized on the news to criticize Massey, his longtime foe. "When mine management records continuing safety issues and hazards at the mine in production and maintenance reports, yet omits the same information from the official safety examination logbook, it confirms that management knew there were serious problems at the mine, yet chose to hide them from safety officials and the miners themselves," Roberts said in a statement. MSHA also said the mine's "upper management" threatened to fire "first line management" for not meeting production goals. MSHA said a foreman was fired for delaying production to fix ventilation problems. At Upper Big Branch, one miner had the responsibility to report coal production every 30 minutes between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. to mine President Chris Blanchard, Vice President Jason Whitehead and Lisa Williams, executive secretary at Marfork Coal. The information then went to CEO Don Blankenship and Chief Operating Officer Chris Adkins. MSHA also found a host of other problems, like the failure of mine management to inoculate the mine against the buildup of explosive coal dust. MSHA determined coal dust was the main fuel for the explosion, a finding that contradicts Massey's version of events. The company blames the blast on an unforeseeable act of nature -- a sudden surge of methane. One way to keep coal dust from blowing up was to apply rock dust, a technique that miners have known since the 1890s can help prevent explosions. The mine's longwall -- the site of the most intense and profitable mining at Upper Big Branch -- had never been rock dusted, Stricklin said. It's there that MSHA believes the explosion began. Stricklin said officials might never know exactly what started the explosion. But he said it's likely that a large machine caused sparks when it cut into the coal seam, igniting a small amount of methane. Then, accumulations of coal dust provided fuel for a second, more deadly explosion. Among the points the company made in its own report: the cutting machine blamed for causing sparks had been turned off in the two minutes before the blast. Stricklin said that indicated miners there knew there was a problem; that they saw an ignition that they couldn't put out; and that they then fled from the longwall before they died. The fuel for the fire was coal dust, Stricklin said. He said forensic evidence supports that finding. Without a buildup of coal dust, the small methane-fueled flame at the longwall would have been just that, he said. He said more than three-dozen such ignitions had occurred at mines across the country in the year before the Upper Big Branch disaster. None of them caused an injury, he said. "Even with this initial methane explosion, no one should have been injured and definitely no one should have died in the explosion," Stricklin said. Alpha, Massey's new owner, has not said what it thinks caused the blast. "We welcome any additional information that will help reconstruct the events that took place at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine, including any new information provided by MSHA as a result of their ongoing investigation," said Alpha spokesman Ted Pile. "But we also ask for time to conduct our own review and analysis of the report's findings that have been issued so far." He said Alpha was launching its own internal review. Massey's former board of directors released Massey's internal review just after the deal closed with Alpha and Alpha officials weren't involved. "Until we complete our own review I don't think we'll be in a position to speculate as to what may have caused the accident," Pile said. MSHA intends to release a final report later this year. The findings made public Wednesday came mostly from Stricklin's talk with the public and the press and a 66-page slideshow prepared by MSHA. MSHA's other major findings are nearly the same as those found in a May report from the eight-member panel appointed by former Gov. Joe Manchin and led by J. Davitt McAteer. Among them: --Massey officials were operating Upper Big Branch with outdated, malfunctioning or disabled safety equipment. --Mine managers were frequently tinkering with the ventilation system that was supposed to make sure the mine had enough clean air, which it often did not. Stricklin said Massey seemed to be using the "trial and error method" to ventilate the mine. MSHA also found the majority of miners at Upper Big Branch received incomplete training. Of the 263 Upper Big Branch employees, 205 had "deficiencies" in their training and 104 did not receive or complete required training. But Stricklin's report didn't do much to address McAteer's other major conclusion: that the explosion was the result, in part, of failure after failure by state and federal regulators. Upper Big Branch had been the site of a relatively high number of citations and regulatory orders. For instance, Stricklin said MSHA told the company it needed to fix its ventilation system. "There is no evidence that any of those recommendations was ever implemented," he said. But Stricklin was asked what MSHA did to follow up. "It didn't look like we did," Stricklin said. @tagline:Contact writer Ry Rivard at [email protected] or 304-348-1796. To see more of the Charleston Daily Mail, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dailymail.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, Charleston Daily Mail, W.Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]