Bid to Reopen Mine Divides Grieving Utah Town
By SUSAN SAULNY and CARA BUCKLEY
Published: August 22, 2007
HUNTINGTON, Utah, Aug. 21 — As relatives on Tuesday laid to rest one of three men killed here trying to rescue six trapped miners, this grieving mining town was torn over the future of the mine and the prospect of the lost miners’ being entombed permanently.
An official at the mine, the Crandall Canyon, said it could be back in business under a new name, after blocking off the area that collapsed on Aug. 6.
Robert E. Murray, president of the Murray Energy Corporation, a co-owner of the mine, suggested that other parts of the mine remained safe for work and that mining should resume.
“We would abandon any effort to mine there,” Mr. Murray said, referring to the site of the initial collapse where the six miners were trapped.
“But the reserves are in an entirely different place,” he said Monday night outside the mine.
Before mining could restart, the Mine Safety and Health Administration would have to approve a plan by Murray Energy showing that operations would be safe.
“We were shocked that the subject was even brought up,” a spokesman for the agency said late Tuesday. “M.S.H.A. remains 100 percent focused on the rescue effort.”
The suggestion that the mine might reopen inflamed the emotions of the families of the trapped miners. They questioned how the mine could be safe enough for work but not for rescuing their relatives.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/us/22mine.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
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