Mine Where Explosion Occurred Was (21 times) Cited for (XPLOSIV) Hazards (

[papau]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aAcRjFr7_TNs&refer=top_world_news

Mine Where Explosion Occurred Was Cited for Hazards (Update2)

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Federal authorities issued 21 citations last year for a build-up of combustible materials at the West Virginia mine where 12 men died, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.

The Sago mine, owned by billionaire investor Wilbur Ross's International Coal Group Inc., was cited for a total of 208 federal safety violations last year, up from 68 in 2004, according to the Labor Department. The largest individual fine last year was $440; the citations for combustible materials carried fines of $60.

When asked about the facility's safety record at a news conference yesterday, Ben Hatfield, International Coal's chief executive officer, said the Ashland, Kentucky-based company has improved safety conditions since acquiring the mine last year.

``We have no interest of getting into the finger-pointing of who is responsible for what, and what went wrong a year ago,'' Hatfield said. ``This is a mine that operated for some significant time before my company even had involvement with it; so much of the bad history that you're talking about was beyond our reach and ability to control.'' <snip>

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I've got an idea

I know these people will want to reopen the mine. I suggest that Wilber Ross be among the first down in the mine to check and make sure it is safe.

I just heard that the company knew the men were dead for a couple of hours before they informed the families. If I were the company folks, I'd watch my back for a long time. Because mountaineers remember things like this. That being said, I hope that the families decide to use lawsuits instead of bullets.

[Occulus]

10. lawsuits don't solve dick anymore

because companies get devastating jury awards reduced on appeal.

Here's what needs to happen: jury awards reached in civil suits need to be inviolate and NOT subject to appeal. If it bankrupts the company and forces it out of business, that's as good as a corporate death penalty and, if we're going to be treating corporations as persons under our laws, that is something they need to be subject to.

I would personally advocate the complete elimination of corporate personhood, and total revocation of all "rights" corporations hold. Make everything a privelege, including the act of doing business at all, advertising, buying/selling property (and corporate property should be considered a trust of the public, not corporate property at all), and on and on.

On this, I am a radical absolutist. Corporations should have no rights, period. They are not human and do not deserve them.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

12. At one time in this country, I believe corporations

could only have a "life" of something like 40 years. They weren't considered "persons" either.

[hamsterjill]

13. I think that's a great idea

In fact I think it is unconscionable that Wilbur Ross and Ben Hatfield weren't down there digging with the rest of the rescue workers from the moment they knew their people were in trouble. It's called "integrity".

If they HAD been, the sentiment about this horrible disaster might well be a little different.

My sympathies are with the miners and their families.

[ugarte]

2. Matt Lauer and others were so quick to deflect blame from the company

saying stuff like "Coal mining can never be made completely safe", as if that excuses companies for cost-cutting and breaking the law.

[onehandle]

7. Matt Lauer is not a journalist. Repeat often. nt

[Benhurst]

25. No, he is just an aging pretty boy who is losing his hair. No wonder

he's such a desperate corporate whore.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. Here is a big part of the problem:

The largest individual fine last year was $440

So, extrapolating from a total of 208 total fines and assuming that each carried the maximum penalty of $440, the highest the company paid for its inability to comply with vital safety standards would have been $91520. In other words, bubkis. Since the article states that explosives violations only cost $60, the actual total would be much lower. In other words, less than bubkis.


``We have no interest of getting into the finger-pointing of who is responsible for what, and what went wrong a year ago,'' Hatfield said. ``This is a mine that operated for some significant time before my company even had involvement with it; so much of the bad history that you're talking about was beyond our reach and ability to control.'

This despite a fourfold increase in citations on his watch.

[RockaFowler]

4. I heard this on Rachel Maddow's show this morning

The other problem I see is that this was a non-union mine. This is why we need unions in this country. They would have been fighting for these workers and the safety of everyone involved. The big question I have is that the largest fine was $440. That is unbelievable

[zapp]

5. ICG is simply about the money. Their spokesman said so last night.

at 3am..

:(




http://allthingsreconsidered.org

[liberalnurse]

6. Think of it this way......it must been much worse!

These are just the safety violations the inspectors found.......The ones the company didn't know to how to cover-up!

[The Stranger]

8. Enforcement? Liability? Penalties?

Forget it -- the Republicans have done away with those things, remember, they shrunk government until they could drown it in the bathtub and leave miners to die underground.

[Tempest]

9. Bush gutted mine safety regulations and threatened officials

This was back in 2003.

Bush threatened a mining safety official who spoke out against the gutting of the regulations and enforcement.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. So we have another NOLA?

[Tempest]

27. Yup

Bush appointed an inexperienced crony to head the department responsible for mining safety.

I'll have to look up who it was.

[LisaM]

16. Link or more information on that?

I'm composing an angry email right now and specifics would be quite useful.

[Tempest]

26. Two separate links

Gutting regulations:
http://www.ohvec.org/newsletters/woc_2004_10/article_29.html

Threatening officials:
http://www.mindfully.org/Heritage/2003/Mine-Safety-Whistleblower9nov03.htm


Sorry for the delay.

[hedgehog]

11. A list of citations can be misleading.

I've seen OSHA inspections that have missed glaring hazards and cited minor problems such as an extension cord draped across a walkway. The citations don't tell you what was found. How big is "A build-up of combustible materials"? How dangerous? Is it a bundle of oily rags in someone's tool box? Is it a pile of debris blocking an exit? You really have to be on the scene to know what's going on.

[Bridget Burke]

17. Well--apparently there were some real problems with the mine.

Should we blame the miner with oily rags in his tool box? He's probably dead.

I've heard a lot of people complain about OSHA. (We've got a few refineries down here. They do tend to blow up.)

[hedgehog]

23. I saw an article about the violations after I made the post

I agree that there seem to have been some real violations in this case. I think I was commenting on the knee jerk reaction that a lot of people seem to have. Obviously, there was an explosion, so there was at least one major problem. It's just that I've seen good outfits come out of an OSHA inspection with a long list of citations while bad outfits slide by because their manufacturing process has hidden hazards the OSHA inspector doesn't see.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. How has that area trended in the last few years politically?

Dem or Repub?

[arikara]

19. Doesn't really matter...

the working people get screwed either way.

[The Backlash Cometh]

30. Oh, it matters

Blue collar workers have been voting Repub in the last few elections because of the family value issue. Of course, the Repubs don't really offer family values, just hardship, and if they voted Repub, they know it now.

[bettyellen]

18. he bought the mine in Oct 2004, so the violations are his, injuries also

doubled in the year since he bought the mine. Violations more than tripled. Something seems to have been going wrong.


"The Sago mine had 14 injuries last year, almost twice as many as in 2004, according to the Labor Department, which supervises the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

``When the numbers are going in the wrong direction, management has not been doing its job,'' J. Davitt McAteer, the former director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said in a telephone interview yesterday from Wheeling, West Virginia, where he is a professor at Wheeling Jesuit University.

Ross, International Coal's Chairman, on Jan. 2 called the blast a ``horrible, freak accident.''

International Coal was formed by Ross after his purchase of bankrupt Horizon Resources Co. in October 2004."

[hedgehog]

24. I don't know what the recent history was, but I do know this.

When a plant or mine has been going downhill for a while, it takes more than a day to turn it around.In an old mine, how many miles of bad wire and how many bad supports needs to be replaced? How does a new owner know where to start. THere's also the culture problem. I've been there myself, training people to stop taking horrendous chances "because we've always done it this way". I'm not saying that this company was making the effort, but to be fair, we shouldn't assume it wasn't. Maybe this mine was too far gone to be brought back as a safe and profitable operation. Maybe it was mismanaged. Condemning those involved without knowing the facts though, is as bad as a whitewash.

[bettyellen]

33. but i think the mineowner misrepresented how long he owned the place

it wasn't last year, was it?
just trying to point out how things got worse, the conglomerate can defend itself, but lying is not a good way to start is it?

[0rganism]

20. Michael Moore should be all over this one

As far as documentary material goes, this is like the perfect synthesis of Roger&Me and Bowling.

[Felix Mala]

21. "And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away..."


It's always the same story. The mine owners get a slap on the wrist; the miners get their lives taken.

[NorthernSpy]

22. how can we make the rich stop killing us?

Seriously. I'm open to suggestions.

[NorthernSpy]

28. some info on mine owner Wilbur Ross and CEO Hatfield:

The number of (safety) citations increased sharply after ICG took over the mine from the bankrupt Anker Energy and reopened it in 2004. ICG is owned by billionaire New York financier Wilbur Ross, who has invested $4.5 billion during the last five years to buy up—in many cases at bargain basement prices—steel, textile, coal, automotive, rail and financial companies in the US, UK, France, China, Germany, Japan and Korea.

Ross, who is rated 278th on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans, specializes in acquiring steel mills and mines held by bankrupt companies and making them profitable by wiping out jobs, dumping pension obligations and renegotiating labor contracts to drive up productivity and cut labor costs. Fortune magazine recently called Ross, “The Bankruptcy King,” while BusinessWeek said Ross supervised a “growing empire of the damned.”

Many of ICG’s top executives, including CEO Bennett Hatfield, gained their experience at Massey Energy Company, which became the fourth largest coal company in America by spearheading the ruthless union-busting campaigns of the 1980s against the miners’ union. Massey was also a generous election contributor to Bush, who has, in turn, championed coal production and the deregulation of the mining industry.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/sago-j04.shtml

[hedgehog]

35. Now that's useful information.

Now you can properly call the guy a son of a bitch and mean it. I wanted to make certain this wasn't a case of someone trying to bring back an old mine who got in over his head.

[lebkuchen]

29. Did the miners write any goodbye notes

as one or two had done in the last big US mining accident?

Aside from saying their goodbyes to loved ones, those who had complained about the unsafe mine may have decided to put their thoughts on paper before dying.

[daleo]

31. Let's not get into arguments about who killed who

"``We have no interest of getting into the finger-pointing of who is responsible for what, and what went wrong a year ago,'' Hatfield said."

Late last night I heard a press conference on CNN with one of the mine executives. At the end, all he could talk about was how good the prospects for growth and investment in his company were. It was shameless.

[NI4NI]

32. Was the mine a Union workplace?

[wallybarron]

34. no