J. Davitt McAteer
It is time to stop killing our children, husbands, brothers and sons in the name of mining.
It is time to stop killing our children, husbands, brothers and sons in the name of mining. The death on May 30th of Adam Lanham, age 18, of Mill Creek, is so revolting that it should shock the mining industry and the community at large.
How, after 150-plus years of mining deaths, do we still ask men and women in this country to put their lives at risk as part of their daily job?
How do we explain that an underground haulage accident snuffed out this young life? Deaths in mines today are merely replicas of deadly incidents which have occurred before, multiple times and in multiple other mines. The same hazards, the same causes lead to these deaths. We have not invented new ways to kill our miners.
Why do highly profitable mining corporations engage in business practices known to increase the risks and dangers these men face? The use of contractor employees by ICG (International Coal Group) in this instance, and by many other mining companies as well, is a practice known to increase miners' risk of injury and death because of ineffective training and supervision. Red hat or entry-level miners, such as Mr. Lanham, are at particular risk. ICG was not his employer. ICG hired Mine Temp LLC, of Morgantown, as a contractor who hired and "trained" Adam to work at the Sentinel Mine. His total mining experience was four weeks and five days; his risk of harm was higher because he was a contract miner.
But deaths in the name of mining didn't stop with young Mr. Lanham. On June 5, Gary A. Hoffman, 55, at Rivesville in Marion County, at the Robinson Run Mine owned and operated by Consol Energy, and on Tuesday, June 3, two other miners were killed in separate accidents in Indiana and Kentucky.
But where is the response and where is the corporate resolve from the mining industry to put an end to the senseless pattern? Many industry spokesmen complained bitterly after Sago, Aracoma, Kentucky Darby and Crandall Canyon that government at both the state and federal levels was adopting laws which were too onerous for the mining industry.
To his credit, last August, J. Brett Harvey, President of Pittsburgh-based Consol, called on the coal industry to end death in the mines by ending the corporate acceptance of and tolerance to fatal accidents.
Tragically Mr. Hoffman's death at a Consol mine only highlights the need to increase the resolve Mr. Harvey called for.
It is time to stop killing our children, husbands, brothers and sons in the name of mining. The death on May 30th of Adam Lanham, age 18, of Mill Creek, is so revolting that it should shock the mining industry and the community at large.
How, after 150-plus years of mining deaths, do we still ask men and women in this country to put their lives at risk as part of their daily job?
How do we explain that an underground haulage accident snuffed out this young life? Deaths in mines today are merely replicas of deadly incidents which have occurred before, multiple times and in multiple other mines. The same hazards, the same causes lead to these deaths. We have not invented new ways to kill our miners.
Why do highly profitable mining corporations engage in business practices known to increase the risks and dangers these men face? The use of contractor employees by ICG (International Coal Group) in this instance, and by many other mining companies as well, is a practice known to increase miners' risk of injury and death because of ineffective training and supervision. Red hat or entry-level miners, such as Mr. Lanham, are at particular risk. ICG was not his employer. ICG hired Mine Temp LLC, of Morgantown, as a contractor who hired and "trained" Adam to work at the Sentinel Mine. His total mining experience was four weeks and five days; his risk of harm was higher because he was a contract miner.
But deaths in the name of mining didn't stop with young Mr. Lanham. On June 5, Gary A. Hoffman, 55, at Rivesville in Marion County, at the Robinson Run Mine owned and operated by Consol Energy, and on Tuesday, June 3, two other miners were killed in separate accidents in Indiana and Kentucky.
But where is the response and where is the corporate resolve from the mining industry to put an end to the senseless pattern? Many industry spokesmen complained bitterly after Sago, Aracoma, Kentucky Darby and Crandall Canyon that government at both the state and federal levels was adopting laws which were too onerous for the mining industry.
To his credit, last August, J. Brett Harvey, President of Pittsburgh-based Consol, called on the coal industry to end death in the mines by ending the corporate acceptance of and tolerance to fatal accidents.
Tragically Mr. Hoffman's death at a Consol mine only highlights the need to increase the resolve Mr. Harvey called for.
These four deaths within days of one another demand that other mining company presidents and owners like ICG's Wilbur L. Ross, Jr. and Joseph W. Craft III, president of Alliance Coal, join Mr. Harvey and commit to stopping the killings and to cease using business practices such as contract mining which only heighten the risks miners face. Alliance Coal, a subsidiary of Alliance Resource Partners LP, is the Indiana mine where one of the Tuesday deaths occurred and also the site of the triple contractor fatality in August 2007.
Within less than one week's time, four miners have died, four families grieve and four funerals mark the needless carnage which haunts coal mining families of this country. It is time for changes. It is time to stop the deaths.
But it is not just recent weeks. Nationwide, 14 miners have died this year in coal mining accidents, double the number of deaths which occurred last year at the same time.
Unfortunately, while the coal mining industry is at record levels of profitability, many continue to resist safety and health legislation designed to prevent injury, illness and death and are increasingly engaged in business practices such as use of contract miners and bottom mining, which only heightens the risks miners face.
Today, many companies, rather than attempting to improve safety and compliance with the Federal law, aggressively challenge its application. Historically the rate of contesting citations by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration was 7 percent. Today, the industry contests 25 percent of citations issued, and 15 companies have contested virtually every citation that MSHA inspectors have issued in the last six months.
It is time to end death in the mines and the mining companies to focus on steps to do just that.
McAteer, a former director of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, is vice president of Wheeling Jesuit University.
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It rally hasn't changed all that much since that time, has it?
That said, ANY accident in the mill prompted investigation and corrective action.A death meant CHANGES IN EVERY CASE. Training, equipment,and practices were examined and usually changed.
NO ONE, from management to new hire, accepted it!!
I know mining is dangerous, but to see it as an acceptable risk is wrong. Try to fix every hazard as it appears,and mining will be LESS RISKY as time goes by.