We’ve just posted a new story on the Gazette’s website, revealing secret efforts by a U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration official to convince Massey vice president Chris Adkins (above) to send in a ventilation expert to fix persistent airflow problems prior to the Upper Big Branch explosion.
The story is online here, and below I’ve posted the email messages it is based on (click on the arrows in the lower left corner to view the document in a full screen):
The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s interrogation of EPA acting water chief Nancy Stoner seems to be winding down, as the GOP and the coal industry continue their efforts to discredit the Obama administration’s efforts to reduce the impacts of coal mining on Appalachian communities.
Testimony from the first panel of witnesses was about what you would expect, given last week’s initial day of this two-part hearing, dubbed, “EPA Mining Policies: Assault on Appalachian Jobs.”
– David Sunding, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, warned lawmakers that Clean Water Act Section 404 permits are a big deal — involving projects for more than $220 billion in investments economy-wide every year — and questions about EPA’s review of them for mining could ripple through other industries.
– Reed Hopper, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation (a group that generally attacks all government efforts to protect the environment or public health), testified that his group believes EPA’s decision to veto Arch Coal’s permit for the Spruce Mine was an abuse of power that erodes the rights of all citizens.
– Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association, told committee members that the Obama administration’s “war on coal” makes Appalachia “ground zero for the fundamental overreach of the Obama regulatory agenda.”
– Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, testified that his organization believes “the denial and revocation of 404 permits has already threatened our economy and our workforce.”
Today’s hearing went a little different from last week’s in some respects, though.
First of all, someone from EPA was actually given the chance to speak and explain the agency’s policies. Of course, the GOP committee leadership, contrary to long-standing protocols for congressional hearings, made EPA acting water chief Nancy Stoner follow the panel of industry witnesses. Traditionally, officials from administrative agencies usually appear first at such hearings.
Stoner made a strong statement about what EPA’s trying to do:
Appalachian families should not have to choose between healthy watersheds and a healthy economy — they deserve both.
Just got this press release from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration:
ARLINGTON, Va. – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration today signed a memorandum of understanding with the Interstate Mining Compact Commission to facilitate communications that promote and protect the nation’s mining workforce. With the signing of the MOU, MSHA and the member states of the IMCC pledge to consult, coordinate and cooperate effectively and efficiently in carrying out this goal.
The MOU was signed during a meeting addressing mine emergency response gaps and improving coordination between MSHA and member states during mine emergencies. It was held at MSHA’s Approval and Certification Center in Triadelphia, W.Va. Development of an MOU has been underway since MSHA and the IMCC first opened discussions in early 2010.
The release quotes MSHA chief Joe Main:
Good communication between federal agencies and state governments is critical to improving mine safety and health. The increased federal-state cooperation that comes from this MOU will help us promote a culture of safety in the mining industry, and encourage operators to live up to their legal obligations and moral responsibility to provide miners with a safe and healthful workplace.
In the wake of the troubling disclosures about MSHA ignoring its own mine rescue team members’ safety concerns and long-standing mine rescue protocols at the Upper Big Branch Mine last April, you have to wonder … is MSHA going to sign some sort of Memorandum of Understanding with its own employees who put their lives on the line to serve on mine rescue teams?
Remember what MSHA mine rescue team member Jerry Cook said about the agency’s actions the night of April 5, 2010:
They could’ve … they could’ve killed every one of us. At that time, we were expendable that night, that’s my opinion. They didn’t care what they did with us.
There’s a new study out from West Virginia University researchers that advances their previous work trying to understand the public health impacts of living near mountaintop removal mining operations (see here, here and here).
Emily Corio over at West Virginia Public Broadcasting reported on this first earlier today, and WVU’s Robert C. Byrd Health Science Center issued this press release on the study:
Research has shown an increase in health disparities as a result of coal mining in Appalachian communities. A new study conducted by the West Virginia University School of Medicine shows that the disparities are especially concentrated in mountaintop mining areas. Those areas have the greatest reductions in health-related quality of life even when compared with counties with other forms of coal mining.
The study itself, published in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health, concludes:
Residents of mountaintop mining counties reported significantly more days of poor physical, mental, and activity limitation and poorer self-rated health compared with the other county groupings. Results were generally consistent in separate analyses by gender and age.
Mountaintop mining areas are associated with the greatest reductions in health-related quality of life even when compared with counties with other forms of coal mining.
Further:
These disparities partly reflect the chronic socioeconomic weaknesses inherent in coal-dependent economies and highlight the need for efforts at economic diversification in these areas. However, significant disparities persist after control for these risks and suggest that the environmental impacts of MTM may also play a role in the health problems of the area’s population.
Authors of the study were Keith J. Zullig and, yes, our friend Michael Hendryx, both of the medical school’s Department of Community Medicine.
Using a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention four-question survey, researchers talked to residents in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia about their physical and metal health.
Researchers used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the world’s largest telephone health survey system. Residents were divided into groups who lived near mountaintop removal mining, those who lived near other coal mining and those who didn’t live near any mining.
Zullig explained:
Self-rated health and health-related quality of life were significantly reduced among residents of mountaintop mining communities in the unadjusted and adjusted models.
Mountaintop mining county residents experience, on average, 18 more unhealthy days per year than do the other populations. That’s approximately 1,404 days, or almost four years, of an average American lifetime. When mountaintop mining and other coal mining counties were not separated in a previous study, there were 462 reduced health-related quality of life days across an average American life.
Hendryx said that this study also looked at the health effects on both men and women. A common belief is that if coal mining causes health problems, those problems are mostly occupational related problems experienced by coal miners themselves, he said.
At first glance, the public release of hundreds of pages of witness statements from the state-federal Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster investigation appears to provide information focused only on the ill-fated search for survivors of that terrible explosion in April 2010.
Updated: See, for example, Transcripts Reveal Details, Drama, Troubles Of Mine Disaster Rescue Effort, a new blog post from NPR’s Howard Berkes pointing out some of what he’s found as he reads the documents.
But continuing to dig through the documents, it becomes clear there are other things there as well, including some testimony from both government inspectors and from Massey Energy employees that advances our understanding of safety conditions at the mine prior to the disaster.
For example, read the testimony of Mark Bolen, a Massey Energy mine rescue team member who also — like many Massey rescuers — served on a crew that performed special safety audits at Massey operations.
Bolen told investigators that he took part in a safety audit at Upper Big Branch sometime in 2010 prior to the explosion. And, he testified that the audit wrote up the mine for having a set of manual airlock doors underground, contrary to a Massey policy that required such doors to open and close automatically. According to his transcript, Bolen told investigators:
I remember discussing them, because as part of our company policy or guidelines, all our doors on our track are to be automatic. and those doors were manual doors, and we had discussed getting that corrected.
Now, remember that we’ve heard before about the airlock doors at Upper Big Branch, and questions about them are amount the major unanswered issues in the investigation.
Greg Wagner, deputy assistant secretary in charge of MSHA, criticized Massey’s frequent use of airlock doors instead of other ventilation controls at Upper Big Branch in this leaked memo last year:
… Instead of using overcasts, which allow for continual airflow at locations where miners are required to cross an aircourse, Massey used double doors that, if left open inappropriately, will cause air to stop reaching the working sections of the mine. Doors are easier and cheaper to construct than overcasts, but they can completely rob the working sections of air when they are left opened.
And, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had focused some of its coverage of Upper Big Branch previously on the question of whether the airlock doors had anything to do with the explosion:
Investigators now are looking at a series of doors set up inside the mine that appear to have been used to shift airflow and whether those shifts required advance approval.
Upper Big Branch was dotted with doors, including double sets designed to provide air locks that would prevent a shift in the flow of air, as well as others marked as regulators — doors specifically designed to allow a modification in the flow of air.
So, what do we learn from Bolen’s testimony on the airlock doors? He explains that the doors in question:
… Were not automated doors … I mean, they were not set up to be automated. They were manual doors that you had to get out and open. They did not have the jacks and there was no electrical provision, you know, there to make them automatic. So they would have had to have changed them out.
The explanation I got that the doors had been ordered. The appropriate doors had been ordered.
Greg Bosscawen, manager of renewable energy for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., walks past solar panels at PG&E’s Vaca-Dixon solar energy site near Vacaville, Calif., Tuesday, April 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Interesting new story out from my buddy Mike Casey at The Associated Press:
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Renewable sources such as solar and wind could supply up to 80 percent of the world’s energy needs by 2050 and play a significant role in fighting global warming, a top climate panel concluded Monday.
But the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that to achieve that level, governments would have to spend significantly more money and introduce policies that integrate renewables into existing power grids and promote their benefits in terms of reducing air pollution and improving public health.
Authors said the report concluded that the use of renewables is on the rise, their prices are declining and that with the right policies, they will be an important tool both in tackling climate change and helping poor countries use the likes of solar or wind to develop their economies in a sustainable fashion.
“The report shows that it is not the availability of the resource but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades,” said Ramon Pichs, who co-chaired the group tasked with producing the report. “Developing countries have an important stake in this future — this is where 1.4 billion people without access to electricity live yet also where some of the best conditions exist for renewable energy deployment.”
As explained in the IPCC press release:
The findings, from over 120 researchers working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), also indicate that the rising penetration of renewable energies could lead to cumulative greenhouse gas savings equivalent to 220 to 560 Gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (GtC02eq) between 2010 and 2050.
The upper end of the scenarios assessed, representing a cut of around a third in greenhouse gas emissions from business-as-usual projections, could assist in keeping concentrations of greenhouse gases at 450 parts per million.
This could contribute towards a goal of holding the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius – an aim recognized in the United Nations Climate Convention’s Cancun Agreements.
We were told earlier today that the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration was insisting that all questions about the controversial mine rescue effort at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine would have to be submitted in writing (see here, here, here and here)
… As it turns out, even submitting questions in writing isn’t going to get any answers out of MSHA chief Joe Main:
MSHA released the first round of transcripts to fulfill a promise to the families of the 29 victims, as soon as practicable after we were authorized to do so. We will continue to release transcripts when they are releasable, based on the progress of our investigation and an agreement we have with the Department of Justice. A number of questions pertaining to specific aspects of the rescue and recovery are difficult to answer at this time, primarily because we are still in the midst of an ongoing accident investigation, as is the internal review team. The Mine Act requires that MSHA conduct a thorough investigation into the cause of the accident; it does not require us to publicly release information such as witness interview transcripts. Prior to the Sago Mine disaster, MSHA generally did not release information pertaining to fatalities until a final report was issued.
Ellen Smith at Mine Safety and Health News might take issue with that last sentence … as Ellen wrote in The Washington Post following the Sago Mine Disaster:
In previous years, the agency released factual records as they became available. It did so after the 1984 Wilberg mine fire in Utah, the 1989 Pyro mine explosion in Kentucky, the 1992 Southmountain mine explosion in Virginia, the 1993 Magma Copper mine accident in Arizona and the 1999 Kaiser Aluminum plant explosion in Louisiana. It released some information from the early phases of its investigation into a coal mine impoundment failure in Kentucky’s Martin County in 2000.
The first time MSHA declined to release miner witness interviews was after the Sept. 24, 2001, explosion at a Jim Walters Resources mine in Alabama, which killed 13 miners — a mine tragedy overshadowed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. At that time, perhaps the media did not understand the change in MSHA’s policy or what it would mean.
Well, we’re waiting now to see if the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration is going to answer important questions about the mine rescue effort at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine.
If any readers missed it, the release by MSHA of testimony of mine rescue team members indicated those brave and dedicated individuals had serious concerns about the way the operation was being run. Some of them worried that politics was at work.
But this isn’t the first time that these concerns were raised, according to some records I obtained from MSHA through a federal Freedom of Information Act request.
Check out this series of email messages between Department of Labor officials and Sam Petsonk, who was then an aide to Sen. Robert C. Byrd:
This just in from Sen. Joe Manchin’s office …
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) today highlighted the critical role that coal will play in our nation’s energy future at the groundbreaking of the country’s first coal-to-gasoline plant in Mingo County, which is projected to create hundreds of new jobs and provide additional domestic resources to help bring down the price of gas.
“The price of gas has skyrocketed to more than four dollars a gallon in the last year, and there’s no question that West Virginia families are hurting,” Senator Manchin said. “West Virginia is a state where people have to drive to survive, and I know these high prices are hitting families hard. This country has to get serious about making energy independence a priority, which is why we must develop a national energy policy that harnesses all of our vast domestic resources and push forward with new technology – just like coal-to-gasoline – that will help us achieve energy independence within a generation. All West Virginians can be proud that Mingo County, West Virginia is at the center of a very exciting new frontier in energy technology that will help reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.”
According to Manchin’s office:
This coal-to-gasoline plant – the first of its kind in the United States – is projected to convert 7,500 tons of West Virginia coal into clean gasoline each day, which can be used to run cars, trucks, tanks and jets. It is expected to produce 18,000 barrels (756,000 gallons) of Premium 92 Octane gasoline each day. When it is fully operational, this plant is expected to create 300 full-time jobs. And, over a four-year construction period, its estimated that 3,000 skilled trade workers will be employed.
So, this one plant — if it’s every built — would produce about one-third of the gasoline that West Virginia uses every day, at least according to figures published by the state Division of Energy.
Now, Sen. Manchin doesn’t mention questions about the lack of financing (subscription required) for this project. He doesn’t mention lingering problems with the company’s state environmental permits — such as the fact that its stormwater permit for its construction not being issued yet.
And Sen. Manchin certainly didn’t mention the biggest question facing the TransGas proposal: The fact that it has no plan for capturing and storing its greenhouse gas emissions, meaning the fuel it produces could end up generating twice as much carbon dioxide as traditional fuels.
As it told families last week it would (see agency cover letter to families here), the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration has posted online transcripts of the interviews with about two dozen of the men involved in mine rescue efforts last April at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine.
The transcripts are posted here, and this is the news release MSHA issued with them:
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration today released 25 transcripts of witness interviews from the investigation of the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion that occurred in April 2010. These transcripts, from interviews covering mine rescue and recovery activities immediately following the blast, are now available on MSHA’s website at http://www.msha.gov. They represent the first set in a series of interview transcripts that MSHA, with the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice, plans to release over the coming months.
The first team underground consisted of members of Massey’s rescue teams followed by state and MSHA rescue team members. The transcripts released today are from interviews with five employees of Massey Energy who participated in rescue efforts, and 10 mine rescuers each from MSHA and the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training.
The transcripts describe how the rescuers were called to the Upper Big Branch Mine following the explosion, as well as their activities underground while searching for the missing miners, establishing communications with the surface and ultimately recovering the 29 victims. While the interviews primarily addressed those hours and days spent in rescue and recovery efforts, some reflect additional information.
“During mine emergencies, individuals who volunteer for these difficult missions place their own lives at risk and make decisions in the time of crisis to help save others,” said Joseph A. Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health. “As many mine rescue events of the past have indicated, confusion is not uncommon, and information is not always effectively communicated as rescuers search for survivors in a race against time and in a life-threatening atmosphere. This rescue operation was no different. We owe these individuals our gratitude for their willingness to respond to these difficult circumstances and to place themselves at risk for the sake of others.”
MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere told me this morning that the agency would answer questions about these transcripts only if the news media submitted those questions in writing.
Relatives of miners trapped in a coal mine wait outside it in San Juan de Sabinas, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, Thursday, May 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)
Here’s the latest from The Associated Press out of Mexico:
SAN JUAN DE SABINAS, Mexico (AP) — Rescue crews recovered the last of 14 bodies early Sunday from a coal mine wracked by a gas explosion last week, while Labor Secretary Javier Lozano called for an overhaul of mine safety in Mexico.
Mexican officials said the blast Tuesday was caused by a buildup of gas. The national mine workers union said the mine’s work force was not unionized and accused the government of allowing mines to operate with unsafe conditions.
The explosion was so powerful it also seriously injured a teenager who reportedly lost an arm as he was worked on the surface outside the mine. Lozano said earlier that the boy’s employment at the mine was an apparent violation of labor laws.
Photo by Vivian Stockman, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
When the Gazette published the answers candidates in Saturday’s West Virginia gubernatorial primary election gave to questions submitted to them by the newspaper, a few readers were pretty upset that a specific question wasn’t asked about mountaintop removal (see here and here).
Frankly, it seems pretty forward-thinking to me for the paper to ask the candidates about climate change and about diversifying the economy in our coalfield counties … but since readers wanted more information about the candidates on mountaintop removal, my friend Alison Knezevich sent the candidates a couple of questions on the issue. Updated: Here’s a link to Alison’s Sunday story summarizing the candidates’ answers.
Candidates were asked:
The scientific consensus continues to grow, based on peer-reviewed paper after peer-reviewed paper, that mountaintop removal is causing widespread damage to our water quality, our forests, and the coalfield communities near these mining operations. What specifically, if anything, would you do to change this, and start reducing the impacts from large-scale surface mining in West Virginia?
Would you support a phased-in ban on mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia? Explain why or why not.
The responses are below.
Republicans
Clark Barnes:
Reports based on scientific evidence do not support your question (which is really a statement), particularly reports provided by the West Virginia Division of Forestry. I would need to take the time to review the reports you have made reference to in order to determine their viability to the issue. There are many (so-called) scientific reports which are without fact, scientific proof or valid data. I would be happy to review the reports to which you refer and evaluate the evidence provided.
(We provided Mr. Barnes several citations to scientific papers, including the January 2010 article in the journal Science, but he did not provide a follow-up response with his further thoughts)
It will take a while before we’ve all had time to fully read and understand the hundreds of pages of mine rescue team interview transcripts that the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration gave to the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster families yesterday.
From what we’ve been able to see so far, the transcripts clearly outlined a major dispute between MSHA’s own mine rescue team members and Massey Energy officials about how the effort to search for potential survivors at Upper Big Branch was handled. And the testimony from MSHA rescue teams indicates that the agency’s then-district manager, Bob Hardman, sided with Massey, ignoring longstanding mine rescue protocols that called for having backup teams ready before rescuers risked their lives underground.
As I’ve read through more of the testimony last night and this morning, more details have jumped out at me, including some that indicates concerns about the safety of rescue teams wasn’t limited to the hours immediately after the explosion on April 5, 2010.
MSHA rescue team member Fred Martin told investigators during his interview that he was concerned about efforts much later that week — including a last push by rescue teams to see if the last four unaccounted for miners might have made it to a rescue chamber deep inside the Upper Big Branch operation. Martin said rescue teams felt almost certain that those miners had not survived the explosion, based on the condition of the mine and the victims they had already seen. But, Martin testified, there were political pressures to try to make it to the rescue chambers within 96 hours of the explosion, because of media and public perceptions that this was exactly how much time any survivors could have lasted in those rescue chambers.
Martin told investigators:
We felt that political pressure from the state level had us go in and look at this thing, whether it was safe or not … that was the consensus of several of the [Mine Emergency Unit] people, that we were kind of , you know, we were going to be — whatever happened to us happened to us, but they wanted to see what was in that box.
Pat McGinley, a member of the independent investigation team led by Davitt McAteer, asked Martin during his interview if the rescue teams felt that the search for survivors was not going to be successful, because all of the miners had perished:
To the MEU people, yeah, because I mean, those guys never knew what hit ‘em. I mean the ones I saw, they just — they never knew what was coming.
Relatives mourn next to the coffin containing the body of miner Francisco Reyes before a mass at a church in San Juan de Sabinas, Coahuila State, Mexico, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)
The news isn’t good out of Mexico, where Reuters reports:
Rescuers pulled a seventh body from a collapsed coal mine in northern Mexico on Friday as families gave up hope of finding seven other trapped workers alive after an explosion earlier this week.
Weary miners took turns round the clock to dig away rubble in the shallow mine shaft that collapsed on Tuesday after a methane gas explosion outside the town of Sabinas in the desert state of Coahuila bordering Texas.
“I’ll bring up my son’s body in pieces if I have to,” said miner Adolfo Gonzalez as he rested after an exhausting spell underground reinforcing and ventilating a tunnel to try to reach the remaining bodies. “I just want my son’s body,” said Maria Antonia Rios, reflecting a sense that no one survived.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s this:
A landslide at a opal mine in the small western Mexican town of Hostotipaquillo left three miners dead, officials said.
An emergency-management and firefighters’ spokesperson in Jalisco state informed Efe Thursday that one of the bodies had been recovered at the Pata de Gallo mine, while the other two men were confirmed dead early Friday.
Closer to home, West Virgina Public Broadcasting had a lengthy interview with NPR’s Howard Berkes about his continuing coverage of the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster.
Meanwhile, both Massey Energy and Alpha Natural Resources released their latest earnings statements, and the Motley Fool had some commentary about the proposed combination of the two companies. Also, the New York Times Dealbook blog had a piece about Wilbur Ross of International Coal Group and Arch Coal’s purchase of ICG:
It took seven years and it was a bumpy ride at many times, but the International Coal Group’s $14.60-a-share, $3.4 billion sale to Arch Coal is validation of Wilbur L. Ross’s bet on the industry.
We’ve just posted some breaking news on the Gazette’s website: MSHA has released to family members transcripts of more than two dozen mine rescue team members who took part in the effort at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine.
The story is posted here, and this is what we’re reporting:
Mine rescue teams from the federal government clashed bitterly with Massey Energy officials about how to safely search the Upper Big Branch mine for potential survivors in the hours after a huge explosion in April 2010, according to previously confidential records obtained by the Gazette.
U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration rescuers were worried about the lack of backup teams as they combed the sprawling underground mine, amid concerns about the possibility of additional blasts and other dangerous conditions.
But MSHA supervisors overruled their own rescue experts at the insistence of Massey officials, according to testimony those MSHA rescue teams provided during closed-door interviews with state and federal investigators.
“They could’ve … they could’ve killed every one of us,” said Jerry Cook, one of the top MSHA mine rescue team members. “At that time, we were expendable that night, that’s my opinion. They didn’t care what they did with us.”
This just in from U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin:
BECKLEY, W.Va. –Raymond C. Dawson, 57, of Raysal, McDowell County, West Virginia, pleaded guilty yesterday before United States District Judge Irene C. Berger to a felony in connection with a federal investigation at the Brooks Run Mining Company, LLC – Cucumber Mine located in
McDowell County. Dawson pleaded guilty to a single count information, charging him with making a false statement to special investigators with the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001.
U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin stated, “This prosecution continues this administration’s commitment to keep mines safe by holding accountable individuals who shirk their duties under the Mine Act.”
A coal truck drives out of downtown Welch, W.Va., Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Coal brought a large population to the McDowell County in the 1940’s. Now the population is shrinking and the county suffers from unemployment and poverty. (AP Photo/Jon C. Hancock)
Maybe it’s unfair to criticize the Republican leadership of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure for setting up such a one-sided, clearly scripted hearing aimed at piling criticism on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the Obama administration’s crackdown on mountaintop removal coal mining.
After all, the Democrats in the Senate held a mountaintop removal hearing that wasn’t exactly the most balanced affair around … and this is all just politics, right?
Wrong … this is supposed to be about governing. And that’s why I’m a little sorry I used a pithy headline on yesterday’s post, House hearing: Let the EPA bashing begin!
There are serious issues here on all sides, even if nobody wants to admit that the folks they happen to disagree with have legitimate concerns.
Coal miners are rightly concerned about their jobs and their families’ futures. Folks who live near mountaintop removal mines are rightly upset about the way these mines impact their lives. Scientists are troubled about the growing data showing mountaintop removal’s negative effects on water quality, forests and public health.
But it’s hard to take a hearing like this seriously when it is all so staged, such an obviously one-sided affair and carried out in a manner that does so little to point the region toward solutions that will help deal with the big issues facing the coalfields. And I wonder often if the vast majority of West Virginians — folks who don’t like mountaintop removal, also don’t like the idea of people losing their jobs, but don’t live their lives obsessed with hating coal or despising the EPA — are put off by the posturing from both sides.
Really now … how far do the industry’s repeated nonsensical arguments about bottled mineral water not meeting EPA’s conductivity standard really get anybody in understanding the water quality issues scientists are worried about? And why do environmental activists persist in trying to make out like coal companies are actually dropping bombs on the people of Southern West Virginia?
And that’s the way yesterday’s hearing went, though because coal’s friends in the GOP House leadership controlled the witness list, the industry’s side of this pointless political game carried the day.
This just in from Massey Energy:
JULIAN, W.Va., May 6, 2011 – In response to the recent U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) impact inspection results at Randolph Mine in Boone County, West Virginia, Massey Energy Company will conduct a three-day safety stand down at the operation.
Company officials will conduct the safety stand down after spending the past few days reviewing issues related to MSHA violations that occurred at the Randolph Mine last week.
During the stand down, which will take place on May 6th, 9th, and 10th, all miners will receive additional training on safety practices, proper ventilation procedures and mine plan requirements. This additional training will supplement an eight-hour safety-training seminar that MSHA required Randolph Mine personnel to attend on Monday, May 2, 2011. Production will be idled on all three days in order to conduct the training.
“We were disappointed in the results of last week’s MSHA inspection and I ordered this stand down to reinforce safe mining practices and provide additional training in safety, ventilation and the requirements of our mine plan,” said Massey Energy CEO and President Baxter Phillips.
Massey Energy previously conducted company-wide safety stand-downs on April 5, 2011 and October 29, 2010, to emphasize the need for all our operations to comply with the letter of the law.
I’ve been tied up today with the House hearing on mountaintop removal and a few other projects, so I hadn’t had a chance to check on the meeting about Massey Energy’s proposal to seal the Upper Big Branch Mine.
But judging from the reports out from NPR and The Associated Press, maybe I should have made time …
The AP reported:
Massey Energy Co.’s proposal to seal the West Virginia coal mine where 29 miners died in an explosion a year ago is off to a rocky start. Mine Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Amy Louviere says Massey refused to discuss the plan at a meeting Thursday. Massey wants to seal the Upper Big Branch mine, which hasn’t operated since the April 5, 2010 blast.
And according to NPR:
People attending the meeting tell NPR that Massey’s Charlie Bearse, who has led the company’s internal investigation of the Upper Big Branch explosion, objected to the presence of lawyers Mark and Rachel Moreland.
The Morelands are official representatives of coal miners in the broader investigation into the cause of the disaster. They also represent the families of victims of the explosion in two wrongful death lawsuits targeting Massey.
Right now, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment is starting the first of two days of hearings scheduled to bash the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to reduce the dramatic impacts of mountaintop removal coal-mining on the Appalachian environment and coalfield communities.
And as they did yesterday with a staged House hearing on mine safety issues, the National Mining Association is already out there with a press release touting its testimony at today’s committee hearing:
“The deliberate and disruptive policies that have slowed and stopped coal mines from receiving permits to open or expand have consequences that reverberate throughout the region. The consequences begin with the coal supply chain and spread to those that benefit from low-cost coal energy,” National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn told the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment in testimony today on the subcommittee’s inquiry into “EPA Mining Policies: Assault on Appalachian Jobs.”
The hearing will be pretty predictable, but one thing to watch for is how far Rep. Nick J. Rahall, the ranking Democrat, goes in ignoring the negative impacts on his district from coal mining in his effort to out pro-coal the Republians. And it will be fun to see if the National Mining Association is able to point to some actual peer-reviewed scientific research that contradicts EPA’s concerns about the impacts of coal-mining on water quality across the region.
One of the mining industry’s star witnesses will be Michael B. Gardner, general counsel of a company called Oxford Resources Partners, which operates surface mines in Ohio.
In his prepared testimony, Gardner brags about his company’s “dedicated, non-union workforce” and complains bitterly about how EPA officials have handled his company’s applications for Clean Water Act Section 404 “dredge-and-fill” permits. But a couple things jumped out at me about his testimony.
First, while Gardner objects that EPA has not operated in an open and transparent manner with his company, it seems that Oxford hasn’t had any trouble — thanks to help from its local politicians — in scheduling fairly high-level meetings with EPA staffers about specific permit issues.
Second, it’s worth noting that EPA in the end decided to do a more thorough review of only four of the eight Oxford permits it considered for potential placement on EPA’s list for Enhanced Coordinated Procedures.
Next, two of those permits have actually been issued. And the other two were withdrawn by the company — not rejected by EPA (see here, here, here and here).
Finally, while the coal industry wants to complain about what it says are permitting delays under the Obama administration, it’s worth noting that in all four instances, Oxford began coordinating permit activities with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers back in 2005 — when George W. Bush was president. It will be interesting to see if Rep. Rahall asks how much of any delay in permit processing was caused by Bush, as opposed to Obama …
Stay tuned … You can watch the hearing live by going to this link.
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