Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette photos Sergio Ibarra Gutierrez, 32, calls to his co-workers to haul up a bucket full of rocks and dirt from the "pocito" in which he's working. The mine, now 30 feet deep, should produce 30 tons of coal per day by October.

By Jerome L. Sherman
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette SABINAS, Mexico -- A 30-foot hole in the ground. A bucket. A steel cable. A six-cylinder 1976 Dodge engine. Four men, two under the age of 18.

In Mexico, this is a coal mine.

At least, it will be. The tiny operation is on pace to start producing 30 tons of coal per day by October. On a Saturday morning in August, Sergio Ibarra Gutierrez was working hurriedly to dig toward the rich seam that runs beneath this country's northern desert, just south of the Texas border. He hammered away at the bottom of the pit with a pneumatic pistol, wearing cutoff jeans, tan cowboy boots, and no helmet. Sweat poured from his shirtless torso.

Click photo for larger image. Esequiel Briones Ramirez, 19, works in a pocito in the northern Mexican desert. Mr. Ramirez has been working in the mines only for a few years.
Click photo for larger image. First Part Mexico's Mine Crisis: 'We want our loved ones' (09/10/06) Labor turmoil following disaster draws in USW (09/10/06) Copper, not coal is firm's specialty (09/10/06)

Juan Antonio Barrientos, a heavyset man with a black moustache and a red baseball cap, sat on a rusty stool under a nearby wooden shack, gripping a handle on the Dodge engine. When his co-worker was ready, Mr. Barrientos would pull the handle and the attached cable would hoist the bucket, filled with more than 200 pounds of rocks, from the hole.

The men were constructing one of Mexico's newest "pocitos," minuscule mining outposts with no more than 20 workers and, until very recently, a reputation for bypassing even the most basic safety standards.

Since February, Mexico has focused on the aftermath of a methane explosion that killed 65 miners at Pasta de Conchos, a modern facility with miles of tunnels and hundreds of workers.

But the pocitos, or "little holes," have their own history of tragedy. In September 2001, a methane explosion killed 12 miners in a pocito near the village of Santa Maria. The following January, a mine about 30 miles away flooded with water, killing 13 miners.

Those accidents pushed Mexico's federal government to expand its very limited resources for inspecting safety at the pocitos, often little more than holes in the ground with no ventilation, no communications systems, and no standards for removing highly combustible coal dust.

The tiny mines experienced a surge in the early 1990s, when the Mexican government eased land-use restrictions on collective farms. Farmers soon started renting their land to businessmen who were willing to excavate coal using a bare-bones approach.

The government, seeing the mines as a wellspring of new jobs, overlooked many potential safety problems. It even bought, and continues to buy, pocito coal for two huge power plants near the Texas border, which supply at least 8 percent of Mexico's electricity.

According to the Mexican Geological Service, the "carboniferous region" of northern Coahuila state, Mexico's only coal mining region, now has about 60 pocitos, with 25 under construction.

	For a multimedia presentation on the coal industry in Mexico, click on the image above.

"I've never seen anything like them in the United States," said Ken Ely, a former supervisor for the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration who is now advising the Pasta de Conchos recovery effort.

The pocitos each produce an average of about 1,200 tons of coal per month. The workers get paid about 40 to 50 pesos per ton, or $4 to $5. None belongs to Mexico's mine and steel worker union. But the pocito miners can make up to $160 to $200 a week, double what many unionized workers earn at major mining operations like Pasta de Conchos.

The labor secretary's office here still has just five work safety inspectors who must visit hundreds of mines and factories. In 2002, the geological service opened a local office to assist them, and it now has two mining inspectors of its own. They focus mainly on pocitos.

Juan Jose Lopez, project manager at the office, said he has seen significant progress in pocito safety standards over the last four years. The most dangerous mines have either closed or made changes. All now have at least a separate exit and basic ventilation systems. Managers also use handheld methane monitors to check gas levels at the start of each shift.

If pocitos don't follow those guidelines, Mr. Lopez's office seeks a stop-work order from the labor secretary. Three mines have been closed in recent months.

Yet the threat of closure isn't always a sufficient deterrent for the smallest pocitos, which may produce coal for less than a year.

"We go back to check, and the mine is gone. It's out of business," said Rogelio Aguirre Tovalin, manager of the labor secretary's Sabinas division.

Workers, not mine owners, also bear some responsibility for accidents. In 1998, Mr. Lopez said, two miners triggered an explosion when they tried to use a flame to repair a broken air hose.

Jorge Gutierrez, 31, started working on heavy equipment at a pocito owned by his father-in-law a decade ago. He now rents four sites of his own and has 55 employees.

Those mines, he said, have never had a death or a serious accident. The average worker earns about $160 per week.

Cables haul two workers out of the ground after mining for coal in a small mine -- or pocito -- in the northern Mexican desert. Click photo for larger image.

Each mine uses a car engine -- Mr. Gutierrez prefers Chevys from the 1970s -- to haul coal and miners from the depths of the earth. A cable attached to the engine runs to the top of a 20- to 30-foot metal tower and hooks onto a bucket.

One afternoon last month, Mr. Gutierrez inspected a mine while his workers surfaced from their shortened five-hour weekend shift. Coal dust coated their faces. The mine, about 60 feet deep, has four tunnels extending 180 feet. Those tunnels connect to an adjacent pocito, allowing some ventilation. Wooden posts hold up the ceiling.

Mr. Gutierrez said a broken cable is the biggest safety risk. He tells his workers to check and change the cables frequently. Simplicity, he argues, makes the pocito operation safer. And it encourages an entrepreneurial spirit among local coal mining businesses.

"In the U.S., they have too many regulations," he said.

Indeed, at Mr. Barrientos' emerging mine, just off of the main highway in the area, no inspectors have visited yet. He and his companions work with little oversight from the mine owner.

The day before, 17-year-old Mario Reyes Aguirre took a three-hour turn digging the pit.

"He's young. He should study," said Mr. Barrientos, 49. "I can't. I'm too old."

Mr. Reyes listened to the advice, and shrugged. He had left school two years before. Now he's married and says he couldn't imagine a future beyond coal mining.

Mr. Barrientos, with more than three decades of experience in the region's mines, played down the dangers of the profession, saying he'd never had a job at a pocito that experienced a fatal accident. Coahuila's highways are more dangerous, he argued, gesturing to a spot on the nearby roadway where a truck had flipped over a week before.

"I've worked in the mines many years," he said. "I'm not afraid."