Mining Disaster-Questions CEO Bob Murray doesn't want to answer

While browsing FDL I came across this story Coal Mine Disaster: An Act of God, But NEVER an Act of Greedy Corporations

It gives a good background of the disaster that is Bob Murray. However the real gem was the link to a story from The Pump Handle which is an occupational safety and health blog which bills itself as A water cooler for the public health crowd.

The story is called Lessons from Sago at Crandall Canyon, or Not?

The author is listed as CMonforton. I'm guessing its this Celeste Monforton

Celeste Monforton
Celeste Monforton, MPH is a Research Associate at The George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services. Ms. Monforton worked at the US Department of Labor’s OSHA (1991-1995) as a policy analyst, and at MSHA (1996-2001) as special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Labor.  Her research interests include regulatory policy and its affect on implementing timely protection for workers from occupational health hazards. Most recently, Celeste served with J. Davitt McAteer on a special investigation of the January 2006

So this is obviously somebody who knows what she is talking about. Probably one of those folks who Mr. Murray wants you to ignore.

Here are the questions she recommends the media start asking.

For any reporters out there who may be stuck on questions to ask Mr. Murray or MSHA, I’ll gladly donate these to your efforts:

1. Do you engage in retreat mining at Crandall Canyon?  How do you know with such certainty that the disaster is unrelated to the retreat mining?

2. Where the men working this hoot-owl shift equipped with electronic tracking devices, and if so, is this why you are so certain you know their exact location?

3. What type of post-accident communication system (such as a secondary phone) was installed at the mine, as required by the MINER Act?

4. When you refer to a "chamber" where the miners might be located, is this a refuge chamber installed in the mine?

5. Is the seismic equipment being transported to the mine by the Pentagon, the same equipment described in MSHA’s June 2007 internal review of the Sago disaster as "obsolete" and a device that has "never located a trapped miner."  Or, is this new, improved equipment or a device on loan from another agency?

She also has written a piece on the rescue teams that have been deployed called Who are the mine rescuers?

Here are a few lines from that article.

Mr. Robert Murray, of Murray Energy and operator of the Crandall Canyon coal mine, reported that 16 mine rescue teams are assembled near the site.  One is reported to be from another coal mine operated by Rocky Mountain Power Company, but I haven’t found information yet on the names of the other teams.  In the U.S. today, there are 187 mine rescue teams registered with MSHA–103 specializing in coal mining and the balance trained in metal and non-metal mine rescue.  Of the rescue teams trainined for coal mines, 76 are listed as company-supported teams, 20 are sponsored by State agencies,  two are MSHA teams, and the rest have a mixture of funding-support.  The MSHA data shows that seven teams are located in Utah, including two teams from other coal mines in Huntington.

Obviously there is not proof of any wrongdoing yet. I also feel a little guilty about writing on this topic while people are still stuck inside. However,given the nutty behavior of Mr. Murray, and his impeccable right wing credentials, I have to believe something isn't Kosher there.

•  Tip Jar

  by CTMET on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:48:22 PM PDT

•  Tags-

  'Bo' == ??

  by ek hornbeck on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:52:08 PM PDT

  •  Never mind.

    Got it.

    by ek hornbeck on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:53:16 PM PDT

  •  Not Bo Jackson, or Little Bo Peep

    Just Bob Murray got cut off some how.

    by CTMET on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:53:42 PM PDT

    •  Happens a lot.

      Usually I just fix it, this time I couldn't figure it out.

      by ek hornbeck on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:56:30 PM PDT

•  Today this creepy guy was advising the families..

  not to talk to the press. No surprise there.

  by VolvoDrivingLiberal on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:55:55 PM PDT

•  OT, article on mining

  http://en.epochtimes.com/...

  Unions help a lot!

  by LNK on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:05:16 PM PDT

•  This is a sad case

  I am not sure if this is 100% true, but I had heard that the mine had not fared as well as it should have in recent inspections. I hope that the miners survive, but their chances of living seem pretty bleak at this point.

  by oceanstar17 on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:15:27 PM PDT

•  I heard this description of Murray on the

  news.  He wants people to call him "Honest Bob."  I know a lot of very honest people.  None of them want to be called "Honest _____."

  by illinifan17 on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:16:28 PM PDT

  •  You really just have to add

    an extra "o" to his given name.

    Being "green" and pro-alternative energy isn't just about protecting the environment. It's also about ending the horrifically dangerous industry of coal mining. Every ton of coal that's burned is, metaphorically at least, covered in a film of human blood. It's got to stop.

    by Wreck Smurfy on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:50:59 PM PDT

•  I know the area.

  I've driven by the cut-off road to the Crandall Mine countless times. Also, my daughter went to her first two years of college in Price, just north of Huntington.

  Watching Mr.Murray's "briefings" makes me have no doubt that he was up to no good. He seems to be more interested in blaming enviromentalists and scientists than to explain what procedures he was using to get the coal.

  It's not uncommon for mine cave-ins to cause what feels like an earthquake, my daughter experienced one while she was at school. The cave-in was miles away but the buildings shook and the ground jumped. There are lots of active and inactive mines around the Crandall.

  The more interesting briefing today was held by the Superintendant of Mines. He spoke of he concussion from the cave-in that stopped the miners who were trying to get through the face to get to the trapped miners. It blew them over and it was smaller than the one that cut off the mine. I really am not very hopeful, I wish I were. Retreat mining is very dangerous.

  I think that the seismic activity that they keep refering to is continuing cave-ins. The more load bearing pillars collapse, the more weight the others carry, I think they are failing.

  My husband was a hard rock miner for about 5 years. He was involved in the repair of a number of cave-ins. The supports in his mine were arched steel I beams. In one cave-in that failed the beams began snapping like cannon shots as the weight transfered, the pillars would act the same, IMO. With each failed pillar the weight transfer would go to the next set.

  This is an old mine. When the S of M was talking he spoke of breaking into an old closed off part of the mine, the air was bad and they were trying to set up a fresh air source. They keep talking about them having air for two days, that would mean that there is no fresh air shaft or line near them, self rescuers can help with bad air but can't make air. All they have is stale air.

  My questions are, why no secondary exit? Where is the fresh air shaft or line in relation to the cave-in or were they just getting their air from the portal? And most important, did "Honest Bob" always own the mine, or did he buy it to retreat mine in down to complete failure? If it's the second and he didn't set up as many fail safes as he possibly could, damn him to hell.

  The mine my husband worked in was new workings attached to an older working. The fresh air shaft and an exhaust shaft they set up was strong enough to keep a wind blowing through the mine at all times, and that was hard rock, not likely to have bad air. Coal mines are notorious for poison air. All mines can build up gases from the use of heavy equipment, when I see pictures of the portal of that mine, I have serious doubts that there was much in there for those guys.

  by high uintas on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:51:23 PM PDT

  •  Great post, high unitas.

    But with the amount of lying, global warming-denying, Hillary Clinton-smearing, and wingnut-enabling he's been doing, I'd say Robert Murray doesn't need to be damned to hell. He's already got a prime seat reserved.

    Let's just make sure that when this is all over, we pressure our legislators to open up the proper investigations to put him out of business and give these miners the justice they deserve.

    by blueintheface on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 08:12:33 PM PDT

  •  would you consider a diary

    on mining practices, from your own family's observation/experience?

    The best thing that never happened to me started when my grandfather, who was 16 and a 6th grade graduate at the time, got appendicitis symptoms while scuttling coal, down in the mine in Ashland, KY. He had to be taken out for the shift, was fired, had to take a factory job up north, and voila! I wasn't raised in coal mining country.

    My sister, however, is delivering babies and raising my niece (!) down home, and dammit, things are as bad or worse for her patients and their husbands as they were in 1939 for our grandparents.

    My point is simple: Coal kills, slow or fast. More stories about how and why are required if we're going to put coal out of a job and replace it with renewable, green, safe alternatives.

    by PhoenixRising on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 08:32:58 PM PDT

    •  My husband

      He's the one who needs to do the diary. I was the one at home, hearing the stories and praying that he'd come home. To this day if the phone rings in the night I'm on it before the ring ends. He never got seriously hurt, but it really was a scary time.

      In the end, before the mine closed he chose to move to a less dangerous job, scoop operator, because once he got some experience in cave-ins he was the one they called when ever there was one. He loved drilling, and blasting but cave-ins are too scary.

      All I know about mining is from listening to him and his friends and the old tramp miners who came here to open the mine. I know of the power of the concussion blast because one time someone accidentally dropped a front-end loader down the main shaft, about a mile and a half.

      The blast threw people in the side shafts as far as they could fly and broke arms and legs, then the vacume sucked them back towards the shaft. They started finding pieces of it after digging down about fifty feet!

      Right now, he is just putting his foot into posting, I quoted him on the FISA mess and it got him rec'd by MB! That stirred him up and he posted a comment on his own. I'll get him to write that diary one of these days.

      BTW, his was hard rock. Copper, gold, silver. There is no way he would mine coal, period. We learned a lot about it from other miners, it's an awful job. And you're right, if the mine don't get you the coal will eventually. Hard rock miners are still at risk for Silicosis(?) from the fine dust.

      He does have a lot of stories and info, like I said, I'll get him to put it down, it just might take time. Thanks.

      by high uintas on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 09:24:32 PM PDT

  •  Purchased recently

    At any rate, fairly recently.  Today's SLC Trib reports that retreat mining had been going on in the mine before Murray purchased it.  Here's the relevant quote:

    Despite Bob Murray's loud denials, his company is on record with the Utah Geological Survey that removing pillar supports has been going on in his Crandall Canyon mine since 2005 - under the former owners as well as under Murray.

    The whole article's good, and worth a look.  Does imply a recent purchase (2005 or later).

    by Land of Enchantment on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 11:52:13 PM PDT

•  See my diary and others earlier

  Great diary - I posted one earlier today -

  http://www.dailykos.com/...

  but yours has great new information.  I have been suspicious of what this guy is up to all along - I heard finally one friend of the miners interviewed today say that he thought they were doing retreat mining, that that's what he had heard.  But Murray's determination to shut down communication and control the story seems to be working - the press aren't asking any tough questions, and they're just accepting his version of events.  I'm really afraid for those guys underground, if indeed they're still alive.  I know it's a terrible thing to say, but really, I somehow doubt that Murray will be really all that bothered if they're not.

  by geordie on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:52:18 PM PDT

  •  I'm hopeful after the fate of the miners is

    determined (hopefully after they are rescued), it will all come out. The press is probably skittish about appearing to be vultures right now.... or they could just go on to the next Brittney story...

    by CTMET on Thu Aug 09, 2007 at 04:06:59 AM PDT

•  Coal boss should be indicted

  Murder for profit is the charge.

  There is little chance these coal miners are alive, or will survive another week.

  The Bush regime let the campaign-contributing coal-mining boss off repeatedly with slaps to the wrist.

  A jury should decide whether this is murder-- Murray's failure ---after he was effing warned by a federal mine inspector--- to provide at least two escape routes inside the mine. It wasn't profitable to do that and very likely, we will soon learn that six families have no husband, no father.

     One violation was for failing to adequately provide at least two escape routes inside the sprawling mine. No details were provided, but government inspectors did not think the violation was serious enough to recommend a fine.

  http://www.sltrib.com/...

  
  

  by skywriter on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 09:11:36 PM PDT

  •  No fine? Mama mia!!

    by Land of Enchantment on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 11:54:22 PM PDT

•  Yes, Celeste Monforton is the author of that post

  I'm affiliated with The Pump Handle - thanks for the links! You're correct about who Celeste Monforton is, and that they're her posts.

  In terms of media question #1, the Washington Post doesn't seem to be buying Murray's insistence that they weren't engaging in retreat mining:

  Despite the lawmakers' criticisms, Murray was back at the microphones in his characteristic sweater vest yesterday, dismissing the notion that the mine collapse was caused by a method known as "retreat" mining. The technique involves miners working their way out of a mostly exhausted mine by excavating coal in the rock pillars that support the roof of the mine. As the coal is extracted, the pillars and the mine roofs eventually fall down.

  The mine had a permit to use this approach, and Robert M. Friend, deputy assistant secretary of labor for the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said in an interview last night that while the cause of the collapse is still undetermined, it is clear that "there was retreat mining where these miners are." Of Murray's denials that retreat mining played a role, Friend said, "I can't speculate as to what he meant."

  by dcvote on Thu Aug 09, 2007 at 11:55:01 AM PDT

  •  Its always good to quote the experts like Celeste

    After all, what are we but a hate site run by a San Francisco liberal?

    by CTMET on Fri Aug 10, 2007 at 04:55:22 AM PDT