McDowell Cave-in Kills Two Miners: Site Flagged Last Year for High Injury Rate

By Ken Ward Jr.

kward@wvgazette.com

Two miners were killed Saturday morning in a roof fall at a small underground mine in McDowell County, the first deaths in West Virginia’s coal industry this year.

The accident occurred at Brooks Run Mining Co.’s Cucumber Mine, in the town of Cucumber, about 25 miles south of Welch near the Virginia border, according to Lara Ramsburg, spokeswoman for Gov. Joe Manchin.

A McDowell County 911 dispatcher told The Associated Press that the miners were reported trapped at about 10:30 a.m. and that the accident occurred up to a mile and a half from the entrance of the mine.

State officials learned of the accident at about 11 a.m., said Caryn Gresham, spokeswoman for the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training.

Both bodies were recovered by about 12:30 p.m., but the names were not being released while family members were being notified, Gresham said.

"It took a couple of hours to remove the debris and recover the bodies," Gresham said. "And they had to be careful doing that work because of the roof fall and the roof conditions."

State and federal mining investigators were at the scene Saturday.

Gresham and a spokesman for Brooks Run’s owner, Abingdon, Va.- based Alpha Natural Resources, both said the miners were apparently performing "retreat mining," a dangerous process where miners remove the last bits of coal possible from pillars meant to hold up the mine roof before abandoning that section of the mine.

Thirty-five workers were in the mine at the time of the accident, said Ted Pile, the Alpha spokesman. No one else was injured or trapped by the roof fall, but there were several witnesses, Pile said.

Ron Wooten, director of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training, told the AP that the miners’ bodies were taken to a hospital in Welch.

Operations at the mine began in 2004, according to corporate disclosures and government records. Last year, the mine employed about 90 workers and produced 375,000 tons of coal, according to records filed with the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Also last year, the Cucumber Mine recorded an injury rate that was twice the national average for similar mines, according to MSHA data.

Mine officials reported seven nonfatal injuries in 2006, including one machinery accident that left a worker with permanent total or permanent partial disabilities, according to MSHA records.

In 2006, MSHA inspectors cited the mine for 65 violations, assessing it $5,051 in fines, and the company paid the total amount, the records show.

During the last two quarterly inspections in 2006, MSHA inspectors found 32 violations, including six related to roof- control problems, according to federal data.

Alpha Natural Resources, a publicly traded energy company, operates 39 underground mines, 27 active surface mines and 11 preparation plants in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

It was formed in 2002 by affiliates of First Reserve Corp., a private equity firm, and certain Alpha managers. Alpha acquired the Virginia coal operations of Pittston Coal Co. in December 2002, bought Coastal Coal Co. in January 2003 and bought the coal operations of American Metals and Coal International in March 2003.

In late October, a 49-year-old continuous-mining-machine operator, Thomas Channell, was killed in another Alpha subsidiary’s mine in Preston County.

Channell died when a mine wall fell, pinning him against a shuttle car. Federal officials issued no citations in that death at Kingwood Mining Co.’s Whitetail Kittanning Mine near Fellowsville.

Last month, MSHA chief Richard Stickler visited a Brooks Run coal preparation plant in Webster County to celebrate the operation’s receiving a prestigious Sentinels of Safety Award in 2005 for having no reportable accidents during its employees’ 122,000 hours worked that year.

But in 2004, two Brooks Run miners were killed in a five-week period, one at the preparation plant Stickler visited and another at a nearby underground mine. MSHA cited the company in both deaths, and Brooks Run paid a total of $66,000 in fines.

After his visit, Stickler said in an interview, "They had those two fatalities and they made a commitment that they were going to do something drastically different. Obviously, this company has made a commitment to safety. That’s the way they’re running their business."

On Saturday afternoon, Stickler released a short statement saying, "We at MSHA were saddened by the accident today in West Virginia, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the two miners lost.

"We will work closely with West Virginia officials to learn what caused this accident, and we will take appropriate actions on our findings," Stickler said.

Pile said he was not aware of any ongoing safety problems at the Cucumber Mine.

"It is a deep, underground mine, so I expect that the rate would be higher than a surface mine, but I’m not aware of any problems they were having," Pile said. "Obviously, if we have an injury rate that was higher than the benchmark, we would be looking at it to see what could be done about it."

Saturday’s accident brings to three the total number of coal miners killed nationwide during the first two weeks of 2007, according to MSHA records.

On Jan. 6, 26-year-old Jeremy Garcia of Delta, Colo., was killed when a bundle of materials fell on him at an Oxbow Mining operation in Gunnison County, Colo.

Last year, 47 coal miners died on the job nationwide, the most since 1995. In West Virginia, 24 miners were killed on the job in 2006, the most in the state since 1981, when 28 miners died.

To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348- 1702.

(c) 2007 Sunday Gazette – Mail; Charleston, W.V.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.