In an article yesterday, Laura pointed out some memos from Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship that surfaced as part of a law suit back in 2006. The first of these is extremely sharp and to the point.
To: All Deep Mine Superintendents
From: Don Blankenship
Date: October 19, 2005
Subject: RUNNING COAL
If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers, or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e. – build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills.
A week later, Blankenship was back with another memo.
To: All Deep Mine Superintendents
From: Don Blankenship
Date: October 25, 2005
Subject: MEMBERSHIP
By now you should know that safety and S-1 is our first responsibility. Productivity and P-2 is second. It has been the culture of our Company for a long time.
Last week I sent each of you a memo on running coal. Some of your may have interpreted that memo to imply that safety and S-1 are secondary. I would question the membership of anyone who thought that I consider safety to be a secondary responsibility.
The point is that each of you is responsible for coal producing sections, and our goal is to keep them running coal. If you have construction jobs at your mine that need to be done to keep it safe or productive, make every effort to do those jobs without taking members and equipment from the coal producing sections that pay the bills.
In the second memo, what Blankenship says boils down to “anyone who says I don’t put safety first will be looking for another job” (“members” is his quaint way of saying “employee”). To understand why Blankenship, a week after issuing the first memo, would feel the need to issue the second, you need a little insight into how an underground mine works.
In this simplified image, coal is represented by the dark area and the mined out areas are in white. In this type of mine, coal is removed in a series of "cuts" and "cross cuts" leaving behind "pillars" (the large dark squares) that serve to hold up the roof. (The Crandall Canyon Accident at operator Bob Murray's mine in Utah occurred when miners were instructed to "pull pillars" removing the necessary support for the roof.)
To provide fresh air into the mine, enormous fans are placed so that they drive air along the "mains" leading to the "face" (the place where the coal is being mined), which in this case is at the top of the picture. In this image, blue arrows show the air coming into the mine. As the air passes across the working face, it becomes polluted with dust, methane, ozone from electrical gear, burning oil, etc. This exhausted air is vented from the mine. In the case of an emergency miners exit in the opposite direction that the air moves. They walk into the breeze. That way, they're always walking toward fresh air and any fire deeper in the mine (which can leave toxic fumes as well as remove breathable oxygen) is unlikely to foul their atmosphere. To help the miners find their way out, the main with inbound air is prominently marked with reflective signs.
But looking at the simple map here you might wonder why the air circulates up to the face at all. Why doesn't it slip around through other passages and never reach the face? Well, some of it does, but the majority of air is directed to the face using barriers that are built to drive the air to the desired areas. Some of these barriers may be temporary structures made of heavy plastic sheets stretched over wood frames. Older areas of the mine may be blocked off with more substantial walls of concrete block with metal fire doors meant to constrain any explosion or fire. These areas have restricted access, and besides inspectors measuring the amount of methane in these areas few workers are allowed to pass through.
There are also places where one main may cross another, such as a place where the main carrying air into the mine passes over a belt carrying coal out. In such locations one tunnel may move up and the other down for a short distance. That way they can cross without blocking cross traffic and with a minimal mingling of air. These are called "overcasts."
When methane begins to build up in areas of the mine these different kinds of structures – seals, stoppings, and overcasts – are also used to direct air into the high methane area, diluting the gas and limiting the chance for explosion.
Why then is Blankenship’s initial memo so damning? Because with few exceptions, the only "construction jobs" to be done in the mine are buildings seals, stoppings, and overcasts. And seals, stoppings, and overcasts are the only way of keeping the miners supplied with good air and keeping the mine safe from high levels of gas.
What Blankenship is saying in the first memo is "stop worrying about providing good air, just get the coal out of the ground." Of course, this was in 2005.
In 2006 miners at another Massey mine died when the mine turned out to have faulty fire extinquishers and water lines that didn't work. The two widows from that fire were awarded a record settlement, but turned it down saying "Massey executives much farther up the line expected the Alma Mine to emphasize production over the safety of the coal miners inside."
But hey, 2006. Maybe Blankenship wrote new memos since then. Maybe he wrote new memos since the mine at Montcoal was cited multiple times for ventilation issues. Maybe he wrote a new memo since it was cited for failing to put up those reflecting signs to lead miners out of danger.
Maybe we'll get those memos soon.
In the meantime, Don Blankenship doesn't know how this could have happened.
Blankenship said that he didn't know of any steps his company could have taken to prevent the disaster, though the Montcoal mine had received 58 citations in February alone. Blankenship deflected suggestions that his company's coal mines are more dangerous than others.
"Eighteen of the last 20 years we've been safer than the industry average," Blankenship told Sawyer. "We're the leaders in safety innovation and continue to be more creative in the area of safety than any other company, in our opinion."
Creative. Yeah, that's an opinion, all right.