Safety Award at West Virginia Mine Stirs Critics

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration plans to give a safety award to a Massey Energy Co. underground mine in West Virginia where two men were killed in a January 2006 fire.

Massey announced the award for its Aracoma Coal Co.’s Alma No. 1 and Hernshaw mines Monday. The award recognizes Aracoma for having no lost-time injuries while miners worked 574,000 hours at the mines in 2007. MSHA also is giving the same award to a Nicholas County coal prep plant, Massey said.

Winning a safety award is a big turnaround for Alma and Massey, the nation’s fourth-largest coal mine operator by revenue. MSHA cited reckless disregard for safety when it hit Massey with a record $1.5 million fine for 25 violations that investigators concluded contributed to the deaths of miners Ellery Elvis Hatfield and Don “Riz” Bragg. They died after getting lost in thick, choking smoke inside the Logan County mine Jan. 19, 2006. The fine is still unpaid.

Along with two other high-profile mining accidents, the fire persuaded Congress to pass sweeping mine safety legislation.

“We just focused on the basics of mine safety,” said Elizabeth Chamberlin, Massey vice president of safety and training. “We went out of our way to recognize a job well done by our members (employees) … and worked with them and focused on achieving a zero accident month, you know, one month at a time.”

Among other things, Chamberlin credited renewed focus on making sure the mine’s ventilation system works properly (MSHA found a missing wall designed to control air flow contributed to the deaths) and dusting the mine with rock dust to prevent fires.

“It means a lot to our people to be recognized,” Chamberlin said. “I can’t tell you how proud I am.”

But lawyer and former state and federal safety official Tony Oppegard called it “unseemly” for MSHA to give a safety award to a mine with Alma’s record.

“I understand the theory behind rewarding companies with good safety records,” Oppegard said. “But I don’t think that’s part of the business of government and I don’t think enforcement agencies should be in the business of handing out awards to coal companies.”

In this instance, the awards cite the number of hours worked at Alma, Hernshaw and the prep plant without a lost-time accident. Oppegard is one of many critics who consider that an easily manipulated figure that is a poor basis for a safety award.

Historically, he notes, some mine operators reassign injured miners who should be recuperating at home to light office jobs. Doing so makes a mine’s safety record look better than it really is and can lower worker’s compensation insurance costs, among other things. The most infamous case of underreporting accidents involved Jericol Mining Inc., which had to give up an MSHA safety award in 1983 because it was caught falsifying records.

The award, which was given by MSHA’s southern West Virginia district office, is based solely on the number of hours worked and the number of injury accidents, MSHA spokesman Matthew Faraci said. “The Pacesetter Wards are based on specifica numeric criteria,” Faraci said.

Aracoma had zero lost work time with the most hours worked, compared to operations of similar size that also were considered for the award, Faraci said.

Attorney Bruce Stanley, who is suing Massey on behalf of Bragg’s and Hatfield’s widows, said the women are pleased Alma miners no longer have to work in the unsafe conditions that existed when their husbands were killed.

“Unfortunately, we cannot turn back time,” Stanley said in an e-mail. “Had Massey demonstrated the same regard for safety then as MSHA apparently believes it does now, Elvis Hatfield and Riz Bragg would still be with us.”

Besides Stanley’s lawsuit, the Alma fire remains the subject of a criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charleston.

Massey Energy is based in Richmond, Va., and operates coal mines in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky. Its stock rose 99 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $47.19 Monday.