The idea of traveling a couple of miles into the earth to hack coal out of the ground is enough to make the brave-hearted queasy. The coal dust, the claustrophobia, the arduous hours. Add to that compromised safety, and the queasy get downright sick.
Two recent reports concerning coal mining conditions are nauseating. The first, an audit by the U.S. Department of Labor inspector general, found the Mine Safety and Health Administration slow to investigate complaints about life-threatening conditions. The second, by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, determined that a third of the emergency oxygen packs miners carry failed inspection.
The worst-case scenario would be MSHA neglecting to quickly check a safety complaint, an explosion occurring as a result of the reported conditions and failure of a third of the oxygen packs carried by the miners who survived the explosion.
On Jan. 2, at the Sago Mine in Tallmansville, W.Va., four of 12 miners who initially survived an explosion could not get their oxygen packs to work properly. All but one of the 12 later died.
After a May 20 explosion at the Darby Mine in Harlan County, Ky., killed five miners, a survivor told family members his breathing device worked for only 10 of the 60 minutes it's supposed to provide oxygen.
No one has contended in either case that MSHA neglected to investigate a report of unsafe conditions called into the main office. But the Sago disaster occurred on a federal holiday and the Darby explosion on a weekend -- the times that the Department of Labor said MSHA response delays were most likely.
That is because reports went to a call center that was staffed only by a machine on weekends or holidays. MSHA says it is making sure a human gets those calls now. That's good.
Still, it's scary that it took an audit for MSHA to realize that a call center for reports of life-threatening conditions must be capable of responding to emergencies.
It's also frightening that 25 years after federal regulations required mine companies to provide workers with the emergency oxygen packs, an evaluation determined a third of 400 that were inspected failed. This is particularly chilling because exactly one-third of the units malfunctioned during the Sago disaster.
After cleaning the units it collected from miners for inspection, NIOSH found damage -- like broken hoses and casing -- that it had missed initially. That suggests MSHA should demand the devices be routinely scrubbed and that miners watch out for themselves by insisting on clean, undamaged units.
Staffing an emergency phone and mandating reliable breathing equipment are simple and obvious steps. MSHA must wake up and smell the combustible coal dust -- then do something about it.
First Published: October 10, 2006, 4:00 a.m.
