New Questions Arise About Mine Stability

[Wetzelbill]

New Questions Arise About Mine Stability

HUNTINGTON, Utah — As frustration mounts over the slow pace of the digging to free six trapped miners, more questions arose Tuesday about whether risky mining methods may have left parts of the coal mine dangerously unstable.

Some mining companies consider the "retreat mining" methods used at Utah's Crandall Canyon so dangerous, they will leave behind coal rather than risk the safety of their workers.

Video images taken early Tuesday showed miners working to clear a heavily damaged mine shaft. They were only a third of the way to the presumed location of the trapped miners _ eight days after a thunderous collapse blew out the walls of mine shafts.

A top mining executive estimated the digging would take up to another week.

"It's not fast enough for me," said Bob Murray, chief of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner and operator of the Crandall Canyon mine. "It's very painful."

Miners had advanced another 50 feet in the rubble-filled tunnel by Tuesday evening _ but they still have more than 1,200 feet to go, Murray said.

The slow pace is especially painful for a mechanic who usually works with the trapped miners but was called away shortly before the collapse to fix a truck.

"We don't want to lose 15 more going after six," Jameson Ward said in his first detailed interview since the Aug. 6 collapse. "But there has to be a way to go faster. It's just too slow."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070814/utah-mine-collapse/

[Wetzelbill]

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