For now, Massey's parent company pays money.
But some executives may face criminal charges.
Alpha Natural Resources, now the parent company of Massey Energy, has agreed to a more than $200 million settlement relating to the 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners at Upper Big Branch mine:
Alpha, which bought UBB mine owner Massey Energy in June, will create a $48 million trust to fund mine safety research at academic institutions and $46.5 million in restitution for the families of the disaster victims.
Under the deal, Alpha will also pay $35 million to resolve pending civil penalties at all of its former Massey operations.
That figure includes the $10.8 million in civil penalties MSHA plans to announce this afternoon related to Upper Big Branch, officials said. Alpha has also agreed to pay the amounts currently on the books for all unresolved penalties for violations at what it calls "Massey legacy operations."
Some family members are not happy:
"It's so wrong," says Judy Jones Petersen, a Charleston physician whose brother Dean Jones died in the explosion. Petersen is upset by what she sees as a release of some criminal liability for the deaths of 29 men in exchange for a $200 million payment. "It's so absolutely wrong on the very deepest level of what is moral and right."
Ken Ward, Jr. of the Coal Tattoo blog lays out ways this settlement represents an advance from the penalties Massey faced after the deaths of two miners in 2006, in which executives were protected from prosecution. By contrast, this time, the government retains the right to prosecute Massey executives, though the settlement does resolve criminal liability for the company.
Of course $200 million isn't enough; the safety investments attached to the settlement, though, are promising. The big question that remains is if the government will follow through and prosecute executives who were responsible for the massive safety violations at Upper Big Branch—and, crucially, if the top executives who set the standards and expectations for the company as a whole will be prosecuted or if only the lower-level executives who carried out the priorities established by higher-ups will face criminal prosecution.