2 die in W. Virginia mine cave-in

Workers were trapped; operation cited as ‘pattern violator’

The entrance to Brody Mine No.1 in Wharton, W.Va., is closed on Tuesday. Two workers died after a cave-in at the mine Monday night.
The entrance to Brody Mine No.1 in Wharton, W.Va., is closed on Tuesday. Two workers died after a cave-in at the mine Monday night.

Two people were killed late Monday after being trapped in a collapse in a coal mine in Wharton, W.Va., the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the mine's operator said Tuesday.

A spokesman for the federal agency, Amy Louviere, said in an email that the Brody No. 1 mine had a ground failure, a term that federal safety experts said indicates that a mine roof lacked the support needed to prevent it from caving in.

The miners killed were Gary Hensley, 46, of Chapmanville, and Eric Legg, 48, of Twilight. Louviere said their bodies had been recovered and federal safety experts were conducting an investigation at the site, which is south of Charleston.

Officials had yet to determine the precise cause of the collapse, she said, but emergency technicians at the site said the mine's two side walls caved in.

A spokesman from the mine's owner, the St. Louis-based Patriot Coal Corp., said in an email that Hensley and Legg died in a "severe mine burst" as they were conducting retreat mining operations, in which pillars of coal supporting the roof are removed.

Retreat operations are usually performed in mines where coal deposits are largely played out. In August 2007, six miners doing retreat mining at Utah's Crandall Canyon died in a collapse and 10 days later, three rescue workers were killed in another cave-in.

The Brody mine has a history of federal citations for safety violations, according to inspection reports on the safety and health administration website dating to January 2011. It had been deemed a "pattern violator," a rare designation reserved for the industry's worst offenders.

Federal officials notified Patriot in October that the mine exhibited "repeated violations of mandatory health or safety standards."

Forty-six citations, including 16 in 2013 and 2014, were for unwarrantable failure to comply with safety rules, which the agency defines as "aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence."

Such violations generally refer to safety hazards in which "it was plain or obvious -- ones that the operator knew or should have known about and did not correct," said Tony Oppegard, a lawyer in Lexington, Ky., who is a former adviser to the head of the federal mine-safety administration and a mine-safety prosecutor for Kentucky's Office of Mine Safety and Licensing.

In the 12 months that ended Aug. 31, 2012, the mine was cited for more than 250 significant and substantial violations, meaning that they were reasonably likely to cause a serious injury.

The Charleston Gazette reported Tuesday that federal audits in 2012 and 2013 uncovered 37 injuries to miners that the company did not report to federal safety officials.

The "pattern violator" designation subjects the mine to greater scrutiny from regulators, and it's the strongest tool the Mine Safety and Health Administration has, said Kevin Stricklin, the agency's administrator of coal mine safety and health.

"We just do not have the ability or authority to shut a mine just because it has so many violations," Stricklin said Tuesday.

Asked for comment on its safety record, a Patriot Coal spokesman referred to the company's latest annual report. Patriot's subsidiary purchased the mine Dec. 31, 2012.

From April 1, 2013, to March 31 of this year, the mine was cited for 192 safety violations, including 33 for high or reckless disregard for miners' health and safety.

Federal records show that the mine, which employs about 300 people, produced 1 million tons of coal last year, a substantial amount in a region that has been mined intensively for scores of years.

The Brody mine was one of only three mines last year to earn the "pattern violator" label, which regulators have put greater emphasis on since the 2010 Upper Big Branch explosion killed 29 miners about 10 miles away.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration has taken several steps to improve its enforcement of safety regulations after that explosion, the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in 40 years.

In January, the agency announced that it had addressed the 100 recommendations published in a 2012 report by a team of experts appointed by then-Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Last week, the agency reported that eight miners died in accidents in the first three months of 2014.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael Wines of The New York Times and by staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/14/2014

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