State Shuts Down ‘Unsafe’ Schuylkill County Coal Mine: DEP Says Probe into October Death Revealed a Number of Violations.
By Chris Parker, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
Jan. 27–Pennsylvania on Friday shut down a Schuylkill County coal mine where an explosion killed a worker last fall, saying the company had showed “a disregard for the safety and well-being of the miners and their families.”
Regulators acted after learning R&D Coal Co. misled them on details of an earlier blast at its Tremont Township shaft, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
New information from former mine workers revealed methane gas, not an air line as the company reported, caused a 2004 explosion that injured four miners at R&D Coal’s Buck Mountain Slope Mine, DEP spokesman Tom Rathbun said. Methane gas also caused the Oct. 23, 2006, blast that killed miner Dale Reightler.
“Based on information we had been given at the time, we were led to believe [the 2004 accident] was an explosion of an air line,” Rathbun said. “Now we’re saying it was methane.” But DEP would not be more specific.
The similarity led DEP to revoke R&D Coal’s mining permit, he said. The mine has been sealed, and the company must fill it.
Mine owner David Himmelberger said Friday he “had no idea” what he will do and referred questions to his attorney, Adele Abrams of Beltsville, Md. Abrams did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
After the former miners came forward, regulators found the 2004 accident “was very similar to the 2006
explosion and that circumstances of the [first] accident had been misrepresented by mine management,” said Jay Scott Roberts, DEP’s deputy secretary for mineral resources management.
In the Dec. 1, 2004, blast, flying debris and coal injured four miners, two seriously. The state closed the mine six days later but let it reopen Dec. 20, 2004, while authorities investigated.
DEP and the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration concluded “a pressurized 2-inch aluminum air and water pipe had exploded because the hydraulic valve pressure gauge was inaccurate,” a DEP spokesman said. The operators had to install safety connectors on air lines in the work areas and move the lines away from electrical and water conduits.
The Oct. 23, 2006, explosion killed Reightler, 43, of Frailey Township, a miner since his teens. It was the only fatality in a Pennsylvania underground mine in 2006. Reightler’s widow, Dorothy, could not be reached for comment Friday.
DEP said its investigation of the October blast showed the company let uncertified miners blast rock or coal and that the mine foreman failed to conduct a proper pre-shift examination of the mine. Also in December, DEP filed 23 citations against R&D. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration filed 10 citations.
According to officials at both agencies, R&D was working to correct the violations, and in late December filed plans with DEP for continued mining.
“As long as the investigation was continuing, everyone operated under the assumption that certain things needed to be corrected before we considered allowing them to reopen,” Rathbun said. “But the investigation revealed that the mine can’t be operated safely.”
R&D must immediately place barriers over openings and backfill them so no one can get in, then regrade the surface and revegetate it and raze any buildings, Rathbun said. Someone else could apply for a permit to mine that site, he added.
“This action closes that specific mine,” Rathbun said. “They still have a mining license. But that has to be renewed every five years. It might be up for renewal this year.”
chris.parker@mcall.com
610-379-3224
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
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