The latest federal investigative report on the deadliest mine explosion in America in 40 years – a blast at a Massey Energy coal mine in West Virginia that killed 29 men – has revealed that the mine’s overseers kept two sets of books on the mine’s operations. One was a clean set that failed to show state and federal safety officials the true record of the mine’s safety issues, as the law requires. The other set detailed hazardous conditions at the mine and what efforts were made to remedy them, but was kept hidden from safety inspectors.
If the books that detailed the mine’s safety problems had been shown to safety regulators as the law required, the explosion that killed the 29 miners who worked in the Upper Big Branch mine might have been avoided.
Discovery of the dual bookkeeping, disclosed this week by Keven Stricklin, administrator of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, is a milestone in a yearlong investigation that has included interviews of 266 people, analysis of 84,000 pages of documents and thorough examinations of the mine.
That investigation, Stricklin said, has also ruled out the mine owners’ contention that an event beyond their control – a huge infusion of gas – set off the deadly blast in April last year. Instead, investigators say they have concluded that a large amount of coal dust was allowed to accumulate, which set the stage for a small ignition of methane to ignite a huge blast throughout the mine.
Whether new criminal charges will result from the latest findings remains to be determined, but prior and current MSHA findings suggest that neglect of safety issues at the Massey Energy mine was systemic and part of a long pattern.