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West Virginia Legislators Pass Fast-Tracked Mine Safety Bill

Posted on: Tuesday, 24 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By LAWRENCE MESSINA, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHARLESTON, W.-Va. - After 14 coal mining deaths in three weeks, West Virginia lawmakers unanimously passed a bill Monday that would require mines to use electronic devices to track trapped miners and stockpile oxygen to keep them alive until help arrives.

The Senate and House both acted with remarkable haste at the urging of Gov. Joe Manchin, who unveiled the legislation about 11 a.m. and pressed lawmakers to pass it by the end of the day.

"We can't afford to wait any longer," Manchin said after two miners were found dead over the weekend in a mine fire in Melville. Three weeks ago, 12 miners died after an explosion at the Sago Mine.

"I just wish they would have done it before and maybe I'd have my daddy here with me," said Brittany Hatfield, 18, whose father, Ellery "Elvis" Hatfield, died last week as a result of the mine fire.

Once the governor signs the bill, coal companies in the nation's No. 2 coal mining state - behind Wyoming - will have to comply by the end of February.

In Washington, meanwhile, the Senate opened a hearing on mine safety.

"These deaths I believe were entirely preventable," said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.-Va. "And we owe the families of these deceased and noble and great and brave men a hard look of what happened and why."

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chaired the hearing on the accidents at the Sago and Aracoma mines. He expressed anger after the acting head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration left the roughly two-hour hearing halfway through.

"I can't recollect it ever happening before," Specter said of acting Assistant Secretary David Dye's decision to leave. Dye said he had urgent agency business to tend to.

Specter said he would try to pass legislation this year that would stiffen penalties against coal operators that violate safety rules and would require that up-to-date safety equipment be placed in mines.

Specter called for an end to a practice in which coal operators can whittle down fines they receive though an appeals process. As an example, he cited the reduction of fines - from $435,000 to $3,000 - against a coal company in charge of a mine where 13 people were killed in 2001.

Source: Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.

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