{"id":3989,"date":"2010-04-06T16:14:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T20:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3989"},"modified":"2010-04-06T17:27:06","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T21:27:06","slug":"the-mines-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/06\/the-mines-2\/","title":{"rendered":"the mines&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/montcoal.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2010\/04\/06\/massey-deadly-mine\/\" target=\"_blank\">Deadly Record: Massey&rsquo;s Mine In Montcoal Has Been Cited  For Over 3,000 Violations, Over $2.2 Million In Fines<\/a><br \/>     ThinkProgress<\/strong><br \/>     By Brad<br \/>     April 6, 2010    <\/div>\n<p>    <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">Massey Energy is actively contesting millions of  dollars of fines for safety violations at its West Virginia coal mine  where disaster struck yesterday afternoon. Twenty-five miners were killed and another four are  missing after a explosion took place at 3 pm Monday at Massey  subsidiary Performance Coal Co.&rsquo;s Upper Big Branch Mine-South between  the towns of Montcoal and Naoma. It is &ldquo;the most people killed in a U.S. mine since 1984, when  27 died in a fire at Emery Mining Corp.&rsquo;s mine in Orangeville, Utah.&rdquo;  This deadly mine has been cited for over 3,000 violations by the Mine  Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), 638 since 2009:<\/div>\n<ul> Since  1995, Massey&rsquo;s Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for <strong>3,007  safety violations<\/strong>. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and  127 are delinquent.      <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">Massey is <strong>contesting over a  third<\/strong> (34.7%) of the 516 safety citations the Upper Big  Branch-South Mine received in 2009, its greatest count in the last 15  years.<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">In  March 2010, <strong>53 new safety citations<\/strong> were issued for  Massey&rsquo;s Upper Big Branch-South Mine, including violations of its mine  ventilation plan.<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"193\" border=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/UBB_Safety_Violations_2.png\" \/> <img decoding=\"async\" width=\"192\" border=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/UBB_Safety_Fines_2.png\" \/><\/div>\n<p>     <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">Massey  is now contesting $1,128,833 in fines for safety violations at the  deadly Upper Big Branch-South Mine, with a further $246,320 in  delinquent fines:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Over <strong>$2.2 million in fines  have been assessed<\/strong> against Massey&rsquo;s Upper Big Branch-South Mine  since 1995, with $791,327 paid. Massey is contesting $1,128,833 in  fines. Massey&rsquo;s delinquent fines total $246,320.<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">Massey  is <strong>contesting $251,613 in fines<\/strong> for citations for  Upper Big Branch-South Mine&rsquo;s ventilation plan.<\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Before  yesterday&rsquo;s tragic explosion, there have been three fatalities at  Massey&rsquo;s Upper Big Branch-South Mine in the last twelve years &mdash; one each  in 1998, <a target=\"_blank\">2001<\/a>, and 2003.  Massey&rsquo;s corrupt CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce board member Don Blankenship, has previously told employees that  it was more important to &ldquo;run coal&rdquo; than follow safety regulations.<\/div>\n<p>     <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">In  2002, President George W. Bush &ldquo;named former Massey Energy official Stanley Suboleski to the  MSHA review commission that decides all legal matters under the Federal  Mine Act,&rdquo; and cut 170 positions from MSHA. Bush&rsquo;s MSHA chief, Dick Stickler, was a former manager of Beth Energy  mines, which &ldquo;incurred injury rates double the national average.&rdquo;  On October 21, 2009, the Senate confirmed President Barack Obama&rsquo;s  choice to replace Stickler, Joe Main, a &ldquo;career union official and mine safety expert.&rdquo;  Massey&rsquo;s Suboleski is still an active  review commissioner.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">My Dad grew up in an Ohio River town not too far from Montcoal &#8211; a mining town full of [mostly Italian] immigrants &#8216;sponsored&#8217; to America by the mines at the turn of the century [before last]. It was a dark, harsh life. &quot;The mines were closed.&quot; &quot;The mines are hiring.&quot; But the worst was, &quot;There&#8217;s been a mining accident.&quot; The black faced miners and their wives, dressed in black, would gather on the porches awaiting the news &#8211; who made it out? who would never came home? Then soon back to work. Some of the saddest times were during the strikes. Apathy and alcohol, alternating with violence. The trains didn&#8217;t run. No one had any money. Then it would start over. My cousins mostly made it out of that bleak place like my Dad and one brother before them. They escaped as football players, or priests, or soldiers [or just about anything possible to find another life]. Some went to work for the &quot;Strip Mines,&quot; the ones that took off the tops of the mountains pictured above around Montcoal. It was better than going &quot;down the shaft,&quot; one cousin said. I guess that was right. My Dad looked at it as the price his father had paid for freedom and a better life for his kids. I guess that was right too. So now in 2010 &#8211; evil mine owners, unsafe mines, dead miners, new widows in black. This story seems very old to me &#8211; like it shouldn&#8217;t still be happening&#8230;  <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deadly Record: Massey&rsquo;s Mine In Montcoal Has Been Cited For Over 3,000 Violations, Over $2.2 Million In Fines ThinkProgress By Brad April 6, 2010 Massey Energy is actively contesting millions of dollars of fines for safety violations at its West Virginia coal mine where disaster struck yesterday afternoon. Twenty-five miners were killed and another four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}