Profits Over Safety

 

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, Igor Volsky, and Alex Seitz-Wald

On Monday, 25 miners died and another four went missing after an explosion took place at 3 p.m. at Massey Energy-owned Performance Coal Co.'s Upper Big Branch Mine-South between the towns of Montcoal and Naoma in West Virginia. The deadly accident resulted in "the most people killed in a U.S. mine since 1984, when 27 died in a fire at Emery Mining Corp.'s mine in Orangeville, Utah." Rescue teams attempted to retrieve the four missing miners on Tuesday, but were forced to turn back "because unsafe levels of methane and carbon monoxide posed a risk of a second explosion." Early today, four rescue teams entered the Upper Big Branch Mine-South, "working their way to a chamber where it is hoped four unaccounted-for miners may be found." Though there is a "sliver of hope" that the miners could be rescued, "officials and townsfolk alike admitted" to the Associated Press that "they didn't expect to find any of the four still-missing miners alive." "We've been working against long odds from day one," said West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D). Since the accident on Monday, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship --  whose mines have a long history of safety violations -- "has appeared several times before the cameras," but "has said very little, his face seeming almost expressionless as he quietly answers questions about his concern for miner safety." According to the New York Times, when Blankenship attempted to "announce the death toll to families who were gathered at the site" around 2 a.m. Tuesday, "people yelled at him for caring more about profits than miners' lives."

OVER 3,000 VIOLATIONS: According to Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) records, since 1995, Massey's Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for 3,007 safety violations. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and 127 are delinquent. "Violations in 2009 were roughly double the amount from any previous year" and a violation involving mine foreman Terry Moore "was one of at least 50 'unwarrantable failure' violations assessed there in the past year, the most serious type of violation that MSHA can assess."  In March 2010, 53 new safety citations were issued for Massey's mine, including violations of its mine ventilation plan. Federal regulators issued two citations against the Upper Big Branch Mine-South on Jan. 7 "because the intake system that was supposed to pull clean air inside was moving air in the wrong direction. Similar problems were also noted by the mine safety agency after a 2006 fire at a Massey mine in Logan County, W.Va., killed two miners. " The New York Times reports today that "federal officials said two safety citations were made against the mine's operator on the day of the explosion." "One of the citations issued Monday against the operator, the Massey Energy Company, was for failing to properly insulate and seal spliced electrical cables" while the other "was for failing to keep maps of above-ground escape routes current." Blankenship is dismissive of the safety violations. "Violations are unfortunately a normal part of the mining process," he said in an interview with the Metronews radio network in West Virginia. "There are violations at every coal mine in America, and U.B.B. was a mine that had violations," he added, referring to Upper Big Branch Mine-South. In a 2003 Forbes profile, Blankenship said, "We don't pay much attention to the violation count." In addition to violations at the Upper Big Branch Mine, the Washington Independent's Mike Lillis notes that "the dozens of other active tunnel mines owned by" Massey "have run up thousands of safety violations this year alone."

A HISTORY OF DISASTER: Monday's tragic explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine-South was not the first environmental or safety disaster to occur at a Massey Energy-owned property. Massey is the parent of Martin County Coal, which was responsible for the "nation's largest man-made environmental disaster east of the Mississippi" until the 2008 Tennessee coal-ash spill. "In October 2000, a coal slurry impoundment broke through an underground mine shaft and spilled over 300 million gallons of black, toxic sludge into the headwaters of Coldwater Creek and Wolf Creek," in Martin County, Kentucky. In 2008, Massey's Aracoma Coal Co. agreed to "plead guilty to 10 criminal charges, including one felony, and pay $2.5 million in criminal fines" after two workers died in a 2006 fire at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Melville, West Virginia. Massey also paid $1.7 million in civil fines. The mine "had 25 violations of mandatory health and safety laws" before the fire on January 19, 2006, but Blankenship passed off the events that caused the deaths as "statistically insignificant." Days before fire broke out in the Aracoma mine, a federal mine inspector tried to close down that section of the mine, but "was told by his superior to back off and let them run coal, that there was too much demand for coal." Massey failed to notify authorities of the fire until two hours after the disaster. Three months before the Aracoma mine fire, Blankenship sent managers a memo saying, "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal...you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills." A week later, however, Blankenship sent a follow-up memo, saying that safety is the first responsibility.

PAID-FOR POLITICAL PROTECTION: Blankenship is not just a coal baron, he's also a right-wing activist millionaire who sits on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association. He's "a highly active GOP fundraiser and bankroller who is known for his outspoken opposition to labor unions." The Center for Responsive Politics has calculated "that individuals and PACs connected to Massey Energy have contributed more than $300,000 to federal candidates in the past two decades, 91 percent of which went to Republicans." "Blankenship contributed the federal maximum of $30,400 last year to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and he has supported Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and GOP Senate candidates Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio," the Washington Post reports. After the Marin County Coal spill, then-U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, who oversaw the MSHA, "put on the brakes" on an agency investigation into the spill by placing a staffer to her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), in charge. In 2002, a Labor Department judge levied a $5,600 fine. "In September 2002, Massey's PAC gave $100,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee," which McConnell had previously chaired. Overall, McConnell has been one of the top recipients of Massey-related contributions, collecting $13,550 from Massey-connected contributors. Blankenship's closeness to prominent Republicans helped him land allies at the highest levels of the federal mine safety system during the Bush administration. Massey COO Stanley Suboleski was named a commissioner of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission in 2003 and was nominated in December 2007 to run the Energy Department's Office of Fossil Energy. Suboleski is now back on the Massey board. After being rejected twice by the Senate, President Bush put one-time Massey executive Dick Stickler in charge of the MSHA by a recess appointment in October 2006. In the 1990s, Stickler oversaw Massey subsidiary Performance Coal, the operator of the deadly Upper Big Branch Mine, after managing Beth Energy mines, which "incurred injury rates double the national average." Bush named Stickler acting secretary when the recess appointment expired in January 2008.