Mine Citations Focus on Ventilation, Fire, Electricity
A rescuer walks through a blocked tunnel in the Crandall Canyon Mine, northwest of Huntington, Utah. - Mine ventilation issues are critical to running a safe coal mine. Here, a rescuer walks through a blocked tunnel in the Crandall Canyon Mine, northwest of Huntington, Utah, where six coal miners were trapped in 2007. (Rick Browmer / AP)
Citations for safety and health violations by operators of underground coal mines have increased by nearly a third since 2006, with federal mine inspectors focusing about equally on three main types of mining hazards.
An NPR analysis of nearly 80,000 citations written last year found that an accumulation of combustible coal dust was the most frequently cited violation overall, accounting for more than one in 10 citations.
The analysis found that three categories of problems -- fire and coal dust issues; ventilation problems; and electrical issues -- each made up about a quarter of the violations found by inspectors nationwide.
"Most of our major disasters since 2001 have been related to mine ventilation and accumulations of explosive dust in the mine and problems that could be triggered by an electrical malfunction," says Jack Spadaro, a mining engineer and former head of the National Mine Safety and Health Academy. "So, I think it's reasonable to expect that the numbers of citations in those areas would be substantial, and about the same."
Methane And Coal Dust
Inadequate ventilation in an underground mine can lead to a buildup of naturally occurring methane gas, which becomes explosive if there is enough of it in the air. Coal dust kicked into the air by an explosion can ignite and act as a kind of fuel. Sparks from all sorts of mining activities, as well as mines' complex electrical systems, can act as ignition sources.
So, mine ventilation issues, which are critical to running a safe coal mine, came to the fore quickly after a massive explosion at Massey Energy Co.'s Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 miners April 5.
Upper Big Branch had more than 100 violation citations just this year, including problems with ventilation plans.
In the weeks following the blast, mine workers told NPR reporters Howard Berkes and Frank Langfitt that Upper Big Branch was plagued with air flow problems. And earlier this month, NPR documented the disabling of a methane gas monitor at Upper Big Branch in February. Methane can reach explosive concentrations if ventilation is inadequate and a disabled monitor won't detect dangerous levels of the gas.
Massey has said the monitor bypass was not improper.
Investigators looking into the Upper Big Branch disaster haven't yet determined its cause.
Nonetheless, shortly after the explosion, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, known as MSHA, lashed out at Massey, issuing a report saying Upper Big Branch and other company mines had a history of serious safety violations.
In that same briefing paper for President Obama, the agency pointed to methane and coal dust as typical elements in explosions like the one at Upper Big Branch.
Massey, a publicly traded company answerable to stockholders, has maintained that it does not put coal production goals ahead of safety, even commissioning a survey of its miners.
At the same time, the company has clashed with regulators since the blast, challenging MSHA's conduct of the investigation, and suing the agency over its regulation of mine ventilation plans.
More Inspections And Citations, But Miners Still Die
The agency is four years into a more aggressive focus on mine inspections -- adopted after 12 miners died in an explosion at the Sago Mine and a fire at Massey Energy's Aracoma Alma Mine killed two miners. Both accidents happened in West Virginia, in January 2006.
In the following year, MSHA hired more than 270 new mine inspectors so the agency could perform a required four inspections per year of underground mines.
"That's when they started emphasizing more the ventilation plans that each company files with MSHA," says Bruce Dial, a mining safety consultant and former mine inspector. "So that's why the number of citations has gone up rather significantly."
And while regulators did increase inspections, a Department of Labor audit released in March 2010 found several problems with the way MSHA trains inspectors -- including a charge that some mine inspectors were not getting adequate training.
At Upper Big Branch, federal inspectors spent 180 days last year enforcing safety and health standards. Still, they could not prevent the April 5 explosion.
Spadaro says he believes mine inspectors are doing their jobs, and aim to keep miners safe. But, he says, MSHA has not used its authority to close unsafe mines until problems are corrected.
"The agency already has the authority to close a mine or a section of mine for imminent harm. The management of the agency needs to make it clear to the inspectors that they have that authority, and they haven't done that."
MSHA did not respond to several NPR requests to discuss patterns of violations in underground coal mines.
Ventilation A Growing Challenge
Some mining experts believe ventilation problems will continue to threaten the lives of miners, especially as mines become more productive.
As coal mines have become more complex and covered larger areas, ventilating them has become more challenging.
Says Dial: "You have to travel two or three miles in some of these larger coal mines to get back to where they're mining the coal.
"You have to make sure that the ventilation or the air travels that two or three miles. It's much more difficult, much more complex, to set up a ventilation plan on some of these mines."
About one in 20 citations last year specifically concerned mines' ventilation plans -- detailed strategies that mine operators must develop to keep fresh air moving through underground passages.
Also notable in the NPR analysis was another well known hazard of underground mining -- maintaining strong structures such as a mine's underground roof. Such problems made up about 10 percent of the citations last year.
MSHA said in a statement last month that roof falls "continue to be a leading cause of coal mining fatalities." The agency says 69 miners have died from roof falls since 2000.
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MICHELE NORRIS, host:
Following April's disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, where 29 miners died, NPR's investigative unit has been crunching the numbers. They looked at records for about 600 coal mines, and it turns out that safety citations are up by a third in the last four years.
Joining me to talk about this is NPR's Robert Benincasa - he conducted the analysis - and NPR's Howard Berkes; he's been reporting on the Upper Big Branch disaster.
Robert, I'm going to begin with you. If federal mine safety officials are issuing more safety citations, does that mean that coal mines are not as safe as they were a few years ago?
ROBERT BENINCASA: Well, the hope in 2006 was to make them safer after there were two significant coal mining disasters that year. So what the federal regulators did, was they added about 270 more mine inspectors. And with more mine inspectors, we have more mine citations for violating these health and safety standards.
NORRIS: So more inspectors, more violations. What kinds of things are they finding?
BENINCASA: Well, the most frequently cited violation is a buildup of coal dust. And this is a real problem in an underground coal mine because when - coal dust is this fine powder that's generated when they cut the coal out of the earth. And if it gets disturbed or tossed into the air, it can act as fuel in an explosion.
NORRIS: Now Howard, I want to bring you into this. I want to ask you about this. You and NPR's Frank Langfitt spent most of the last three months looking into the Upper Big Branch disaster. Is there a connection between that disaster and the data that Robert is describing?
HOWARD BERKES: Not directly, at least as far as we know, because there's really still no cause determined for the explosion at Upper Big Branch. But investigators do suspect that there was some kind of ignition source. It could have been a frayed cable, which is picked up in these violations. And it's believed that this ignition source, whatever it was, ignited methane gas, which occurs naturally in coal mines. Well, if the mines were not properly ventilated, the gas wouldn't have reached explosion concentrations.
And finally, the ignited methane can cause a small explosion, which throws the coal dust up into the air, as Robert explained, and that feeds an even bigger explosion. And the blast at Upper Big Branch was massive. It traveled around corners. It went about two miles, right out the entrance of the mine. There were people in the parking lot who were hit by the concussion.
This astounds mine experts, and some suggest it means that maybe there was too much coal dust laying around.
So, you know, the kinds of violations identified in mines across the country in this analysis could have been factors in the Upper Big Branch explosion. We don't really know for sure yet.
NORRIS: Last week, Howard, you reported that methane monitors on mining machines were disabled at the Upper Big Branch mine. These monitors detect dangerous levels of methane, and they shut down mining machines when concentrations get too high. Why doesn't that sort of thing show up in the citation records that Robert's been analyzing?
BERKES: Well because in coal mines in general, as mine safety experts have explained to me, a methane monitor that is disabled electronically, it's not necessarily visible to the mine safety inspector.
And the other thing is that as Frank Langfitt, our colleague, has reported, miners underground are often warned by company officials and other workers aboveground when a federal mine inspector shows up at the mine.
NORRIS: Robert, remind us of the safety record at the Upper Big Branch Mine.
Mr. BENINCASA: Michele, that's one of the first things that we looked at after the explosion, and we found that Upper Big Branch had more than 100 citations and orders just this year. About a third of those were considered significant and substantial, which means that they were likely to lead to serious injury or illness.
And our listeners can go onto our website, npr.org, and they can look at the details of our analysis, as well as look up individual mines and sort them by the mine operator or by the state or however they like, and so that they can get the details on how many violations that inspectors have been finding at mines around the country.
NORRIS: A lot of detailed information there. Before we go, Howard, I understand that the CEO of Massey will be speaking at the Press Club tomorrow. Could you give us a quick preview of what we might hear from him?
BERKES: Sure. That'll be Don Blankenship, who's been under fire for safety practices at his company. He'll be speaking at the National Press Club. The topic is surface coal mining, but there'll be a lot of reporters in the room. They're going to ask questions about Upper Big Branch. They're going to ask questions about the safety record at Massey Energy. So it'll be very interesting to hear what he has to say.
NORRIS: The CEO has been on the hot seat for some time now. Is it surprising that he would speak to a room full of reporters at the Press Club?
BERKES: It kind of fits his personality that he would show up at a place where there's a room full of reporters, and be confident that he could handle whatever they'd throw at him.
NORRIS: Thanks so much to both of you.
BERKES: Thank you.
Mr. BENINCASA: Thank you, Michele.
NORRIS: That's NPR's Howard Berkes and Robert Benincasa Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
