Massey refused to address ventilation problems at Upper Big Branch Mine
18 May 2011Less than three weeks before 29 miners were killed in an explosion and fire ball at the Upper Big Branch mine last April a government safety expert tried to get top Massey executives to send the company’s ventilation expert to fix ongoing ventilation problems at the mine.
The attempt was made by Mine Safety and Health Administration ventilation supervisor Joseph Mackowiak at MSHA’s District 4 office in Mount Hope, West Virginia, and is documented in a series of emails obtained and disclosed last Thursday by the West Virginian Charleston Gazette . MSHA officials had kept the correspondence private.
On March 16, 2010, 20 days before the UBB disaster, Mackowiak wrote to Massey Vice President Chris Adkins:
“Low air on the headgate section again, despite last week’s shut down. I called Bill Ross, and he is on another project right now.
“I think they could use some help.
“Good luck.”
Bill Ross used to work for MSHA as the ventilation supervisor until he retired and went to work for Massey as a ventilation specialist.
Records show that Adkins never responded to Mackowiak’s request.
About an hour after Mackowiak’s email to Adkins, Ross sent an email to Mackowiak asking, “What’s the verdict?”
“I haven’t received a reply yet,” Mackowiak answered early the next morning.
In another email sent two hours later, Ross asked, “What did you say to him? I want to help out at the mine if they will listen?”
Mackowiak responded a few minutes later, “I emailed him and told him that the headgate was out of air again despite last week’s shut down. I called u and u were on another project, and they seemed like they needed some help.”
Mackowiak testified about this exchange to MSHA officials investigating the explosion, but those transcripts have yet to be made public. Both Adkins and Ross are among the 18 Massey officials who have refused to testify to state and federal investigators.
Mackowiak did not site Massey at the time, even though low airflow is a violation of safety regulations. Mackowiak could have ordered that section of the mine closed and the workers withdrawn until the problem was corrected.
The longwall face is 1,000 yards long. The longwall mining machine cuts back and forth along a set of railroad tracks that run alongside the mine face. As coal is mined, methane gas is released that must be vented out of the mine.
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