West Virginia Dominates List of Most Dangerous Mines

[PassiveObserver]

Massey had five mines on the list of 48, but Patriot Coal had only three, almost as many citations, and was disputing more than Massey was during the past year.

http://westvirginia.watchdog.org/1545/w ... ous-mines/

[fearpeddler]

what people want for "safety" is always gonna be just a dream, Mining is and always has been an extremely dangerous profession, no matter how many laws get passed the only way to have an accident free mine is to have no mining at all....

[genlock]

Cow Creek's own Rick Abraham has one mine on the list, RIO Coal.
Abraham is a democratic power broker in the Logan/Mingo area.
Let's see if he gets a shutdown order.
Let's see if any union mine gets a shutdown order.
Local politicians will be milling around the mines to show their support to the miners.
This entire stand down is a publicity stunt.

[genlock]

Surface mining is safer by far than underground mining.
The larger scale mine the better.

[cgarison]

First off, this report is calling Liberty Processing a mine when it is a coal preparation facility located at Massey's Independence operation in Uneeda. This just prooves that we have a lot of blowhards yelling from the peanut gallery in Congress.

Surface mining is safer by far than underground mining.
The larger scale mine the better.

Yes, surface mining is safer than underground operations, but I do not think that scale is a good predictive indicator as to the safety of an underground mine. UBB at one time was one of the nation's largest producers of coal and for the last 15 years has scared the miners that enter the portal on a daily basis because it was such a gassy seam of coal.

Also, back to a point that I made last week in another forum, these longwall mines have the faces advancing so fast that it is easy to have an MSHA inspector with a notepad writing up violations out the wazoo while miners are working a shift behing the advancing face to safely move electrical connections, rock dust the area, and move curtains to aid in the ventilation of the mine. Having worked at a mining company office, I can attest that a majority of these violations are rectified by the time that the paperwork comes off the printer. The issue is not that the violation occured, but how long does it take for for the situation to be corrected as production continues. This is where having unionized workers can be a benefit because the UMWA is not interested in issuing citations like MSHA but works to improve the overall working conditions in the mine to make it as safe as possible at all times in the mine.

[genlock]

I was referring to the scale of the surface mine.

[Dave Allen]

Kinda off topic here (sorta) but I have to say it PUKES me to see the way some media outlets are rushing in to "raise money for the miner's families". First of all the miner's families are each going to get SEVERAL million dollars apiece. Their funerals are all 100% paid for and the families will never want for anything else ever. That being said I know that no amount of money will ever replace Daddy. I was in Northern WV last week and I heard a station saying "we have to do what we can for the families". Well, here's an idea.....educate yourself as to the way this thing works. What bothers me is that well-meaning folks are going to give money to people who certainly DON'T need money. I would think a much better idea would be to start some kind of scholarship or something for the kids of coal miners...ALL coal miners. These families and their kids and even THEIR kids will be well taken care of.

[genlock]

Most of the charity money goes into the charity pocket anyway.