Digging Deeper

Back in September of 2008 I posted an article that has special pertinence this week. Stay with me. We will get to that after a few facts concerning this present explosion.

I’m sure you have heard of the mining disaster in West Virginia. It is the worst we have experienced in over two decades.

It is a regrettable situation, particularly as experts say all such accidents are preventable. If that’s true, why did it happen? Would you believe pure, unadulterated greed? Would you believe that the state’s supreme court played a role?

The mine is owned by the Massey Energy Company. This company was cited for 495 violations last year. During that same period production more than tripled.

Back to these accidents being preventable. Almost all of the deaths in coal mining are at nonunion mines. Why? Because union mines, by contract, have safety officers.

The coal industry is fond of telling us how cheap it is compared to other fuels. I guess it depends on how one calculates the price. What is the cost of 1,000 miners’ lives lost to explosions?

What is the cost of 50 miners coming down with black lung every week? What about the eventual deaths of these people with black lung after years of suffering? What is the cost of treating them? How much does coal really cost?

All coal mines produce methane. It has to be vented. Massey told its supervisors to not bother checking methane levels. Methane is the primary explosive material.

In 2000-1 this mine had 501 violations. Their three largest competitors combined had 175, while producing twice as much coal. Record numbers of violations don’t automatically translate into more money. It did last year because of the types of violations. They became more serious.

Massey’s CEO is Don Blankenship. He makes certain to keep his salary under a million. That is for show. It’s difficult to get a fix on his actual compensation. Forbes put his 2008 number at a little more than $11.2 million. The Associated Press put it at $19.7 million for the same year. Whatever, he is the highest paid executive in the industry. It is somewhat more than he pays his nonunion employees.

Mr. Blankenship has been described as a right-wing nut. He thinks Both Democratic and Republican politicians are out to destroy his America. You know, the America that stays out of his way with all of those ridiculous ideas about safety and taking the well-being of people into consideration.

Back to the Past, Present and Future

As I began this post, I recalled one from September 2008 that involved this same company and its CEO. Remember that West Virginia may be the only state that elects its supreme court. The episode memorialized in my post long predated this year’s U.S. Supreme Court’s travesty of monetizing free speech. Why did our Civics teachers lie to us? Anyway, here is the link to that other post, Free Speech – In Remembrance. Maybe I’ll look more prescient now.

What is the present-day significance of the event described in that former post? Just that if you get away with bad behavior once, you have less reason to behave after that. Calling the deaths of 25 human beings the result of bad behavior seems far too restrained. It should be treated as criminal homicide but that will eventually involve the court that Mr. Blankenship has already purchased.

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Tagged as: accident, associated press, black lung, civics, coal mining, disaster, don blankenship, explosion, forbes, free speech, massey energy, methane, mine, supreme court, union, violation, west virginia