Associated Press reported that the operator of the Utah mine that collapsed in 2007, killing nine people, has reached a USD 949,351 settlement with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration over safety violations.
Genwal Resources Inc an affiliate of Ohio based Murray Energy Corp denied that any of the violations led to the deadly collapse, which leveled a section of the Crandall Canyon mine as large as 63 football fields. From the start, Murray Energy chief Bob Murray insisted that the cave-in was triggered by a natural earthquake.
MSHA chief Mr Joe Main disputed the earthquake theory and said Genwal admitted it thinned a coal barrier it should have left standing to hold up the mine. He said the company also failed to revise a roof control plan after ignoring early signs of trouble. He said that "Our investigation found that it was not an earthquake, but the mining plan and the failure to act that caused the collapse.”
Genwal accepted 17 safety violations, with four of them contributing to the cave-in, he said. The agency dropped another 3 violations related to the collapse of a coal pillar in another section of the mine five months earlier.
Mr Main said that "They allowed the mine to deteriorate and ignored warning signs that contributed to the tragedy.”
The USD 949,351 fine was the third largest ever assessed for a US coal mining operation, said Patricia Smith, the US Department of Labor's chief lawyer. MSHA levied a USD 10.8 million fine against the operator of West Virginia's Upper Big Branch mine for a 2010 explosion that killed 29 workers. It fined Aracoma Coal Co USD 4.2 million for a 2006 explosion that killed two West Virginia miners.
Genwal and related companies previously settled wrongful death lawsuits, together with criminal charges that carried a USD 500,000 fine.
The collapse at Crandall Canyon was so powerful it registered as a 3.9 magnitude earthquake. It instantly entombed six miners nearly a half mile underground. Their bodies have never been recovered. Another cave in 10 days later killed two rescuers and a federal inspector during a frantic effort to tunnel their way to the trapped miners.
Source - Associated Press
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