Why Did They Have to Die?

A look at the Sago Mine incident and who should claim some blame

Andrew Baker / Columnist

A recent tragedy has spurred a nation to think about how it gets one of its most important resources.

Coal.

The dictionary calls it 'a natural, dark brown to black graphite-like material used as a fuel, formed from fossilized plants and consisting of amorphous carbon with various organic and some inorganic compounds.'

Wow, that sounds like some big terminology, but also sounds important. It's probably a safe bet that most coal miners don't know coal by that definition. They would know it by the dictionary's number two definition: 'a glowing or charred piece of solid fuel.'

That's right, solid fuel.

The nation now knows that is exactly what coal is. And 13 West Virginia coal miners, 12 dead and one lucky one who is in critical condition, knew coal only as an uneasy solid fuel that can make the area around them unstable and could blow up in their face at any time.

But do they care?

Most coal miners understand the dangers of coal mining, but know that they have to put food on the table somehow.
That is just the way it is in most places where coal is mined; it's not just a job, it's a way of life. Oh, and by the way, coal miners make an average salary of $50,000 a year and are some of the highest paid industrial workers in America, according to the Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy.

The Sago Mine has been one of the least safe mines in the country. In 2005, it accumulated 16 unwarranted violations, which are the worst of the violations that a coal mine can receive. The mine had a total of 208 violations last year, according to the Department of Labor, ranging from highly combustible materials inside the mine to roofs collapsing, 13 of which caused the mine to temporarily shutdown all or some of the sections inside.

This is not a reflection of the entire coal mining industry as a whole. It is one really bad apple in a group that is trying to turn one of the most dangerous work environments into a safer environment for their employees.

Over the past 40 to 50 years, there have been vast improvements in the coal miners' safety. The productivity today has tripled that of 1970, at the same time having 45 percent less work related injuries and 82 percent less fatalities. Since 1960, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, fatal injuries have declined even more by 92 percent.

To keep the mines from having the explosive methane gas lingering in the air, coal mines have put in place huge ventilation fans on the surface of the underground mines, constantly supplying the miners with fresh air.

Even with all the improvements to the coal mines and with all the Sago Mine violations, sometimes there is just nothing anyone can do to stop tragedies like what happened last week. The current reports on the incident have the explosion in Sago being caused by a stronger than normal lightning strike hitting a pole that went down into the mine and by chance hit a pocket of methane gas.

There is no doubt that there will be violations of coal mining laws. It is going to be dangerous no matter what happens, or how safe regulations try to make it.

In this situation, it seems like the mine is the sole reason to blame for the incident, no matter what. That just isn't true.

What about the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the section of the Department of Labor that is supposed to keep these things from happening? Yes, they did issue 208 citations to the Sago Mine in the year before the explosion, but it looks as if that wasn't enough to save the lives of 12, possibly 13 coal miners that worked there.

Most think that this failure leads to the top of the corporate chain, which ends at owner Wilbur Ross, who spends his days in his lavish office building in New York City, not going underground to mine coal in Sago.

The blame can't fall on him though. Well, not all of it at least. He is somewhat culpable.

The majority of the blame falls on the government. The MSHA was put in place in 1978 for a reason: to keep miners safe. Coal mining is a profession where people could easily lose their lives the moment there is a lapse in safety, which is the reason they should have been more demanding of the Sago Mine. Twelve people might have been saved if they had.

Handing out 208 citations for violations and fining the company only $24,155 the entire year (seems awfully low for such a huge money making industry and being owned by a company worth billions) was not the answer. Knowing that now doesn't help those who perished, but hopefully the governmental agency in charge will learn a hard lesson from their most recent failure. Really, it should be the most recent 12 failures.

The Charleston Gazette puts it best by writing, "These agencies were created for a reason. When they don't work right, people die. That problem must be fixed."

Contact Andrew Baker at pendulum@elon.edu or 278-7247.