04-06-2010, 09:29 PM
0
this morning some of the dead miners' families said they had not HEARD ONE WORD FROM MINE OFFICIALS! that's outrageous!! not even notice of deaths! 
(CNN) -- The deaths of at least 25 workers in a West Virginia coal mine this week have turned a harsh spotlight on the safety record of the mine's owner, which has paid record fines for safety and environmental violations.
Virginia-based Massey Energy Co. has racked up millions of dollars in penalties in recent years. The Montcoal, West Virginia, mine where Monday's fatal explosion took place received 458 citations from federal inspectors in 2009, and more than 50 of those were for problems that the operators knew about but had not corrected, according to federal mine safety records.
The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration hit the company with nearly $900,000 in fines in 2009 and has sought more than $100,000 in the first quarter of 2010. Inspectors cited the operators more than 100 times in the first quarter of 2010, including six times for "unwarrantable failure" to correct violations.
"They had a doubling of the number of site citations from 2008 to 2009 and a doubling or a tripling of the penalties," said Davitt McAteer, who led the Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration. "What that suggests to you is ... that there are problems here and that those problems are not being addressed."
Massey Energy has paid less than $200,000 of the penalties assessed at the Upper Big Branch South Mine in Montcoal and is challenging some of the penalties. Its CEO, Don Blankenship, told CNN that his company's facilities are "typically in better shape than others in the area or in the country."
"We would take great exception to the fact that someone would claim Massey's mines aren't generally safer than competitor coal mines," he said.
He said the company was "uncomfortable" with the number of violations reported, but said tighter enforcement has driven up the numbers of violations across the industry since the Sago Mine disaster that killed 12 men in 2006 in Tallmansville, West Virginia.
"Certainly violations are a bad indicator, but they're not a sole source for judging safety performance," Blankenship said.
Massey Energy is the fourth-largest American coal producer and the largest mine operator in central Appalachia. It churned out 38 million tons of coal in 2009, 1.2 million tons of which came from the Upper Big Branch South Mine, and reported earnings of $497 million.
Its annual corporate "social responsibility report" says that safety is its No. 1 concern and that its employees "are the best-trained, most productive, and safest miners in the world."
But McAteer said on CNN's "American Morning" that "some companies, and this appears to be one, take the approach that these violations are simply a cost of doing business -- it's cheaper for us to mine in an unsafe way or in a way that risks people's lives than it is for us to comply with the statutes, comply with the laws."
(CNN) -- The deaths of at least 25 workers in a West Virginia coal mine this week have turned a harsh spotlight on the safety record of the mine's owner, which has paid record fines for safety and environmental violations.
Virginia-based Massey Energy Co. has racked up millions of dollars in penalties in recent years. The Montcoal, West Virginia, mine where Monday's fatal explosion took place received 458 citations from federal inspectors in 2009, and more than 50 of those were for problems that the operators knew about but had not corrected, according to federal mine safety records.
The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration hit the company with nearly $900,000 in fines in 2009 and has sought more than $100,000 in the first quarter of 2010. Inspectors cited the operators more than 100 times in the first quarter of 2010, including six times for "unwarrantable failure" to correct violations.
"They had a doubling of the number of site citations from 2008 to 2009 and a doubling or a tripling of the penalties," said Davitt McAteer, who led the Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration. "What that suggests to you is ... that there are problems here and that those problems are not being addressed."
Massey Energy has paid less than $200,000 of the penalties assessed at the Upper Big Branch South Mine in Montcoal and is challenging some of the penalties. Its CEO, Don Blankenship, told CNN that his company's facilities are "typically in better shape than others in the area or in the country."
"We would take great exception to the fact that someone would claim Massey's mines aren't generally safer than competitor coal mines," he said.
He said the company was "uncomfortable" with the number of violations reported, but said tighter enforcement has driven up the numbers of violations across the industry since the Sago Mine disaster that killed 12 men in 2006 in Tallmansville, West Virginia.
"Certainly violations are a bad indicator, but they're not a sole source for judging safety performance," Blankenship said.
Massey Energy is the fourth-largest American coal producer and the largest mine operator in central Appalachia. It churned out 38 million tons of coal in 2009, 1.2 million tons of which came from the Upper Big Branch South Mine, and reported earnings of $497 million.
Its annual corporate "social responsibility report" says that safety is its No. 1 concern and that its employees "are the best-trained, most productive, and safest miners in the world."
But McAteer said on CNN's "American Morning" that "some companies, and this appears to be one, take the approach that these violations are simply a cost of doing business -- it's cheaper for us to mine in an unsafe way or in a way that risks people's lives than it is for us to comply with the statutes, comply with the laws."