No communication = death
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Monday, October 8, 2007
Like a bad marriage in which husband and wife fail to communicate, the federal government's mine-safety watchdogs haven't been talking to each other. And the outcome, we have to conclude, is that Utah miners are dead as a result of the no-talking problem.
It's a heavy burden for any individual -- or government bureaucracy -- to carry: that your negligence probably caused the deaths of fellow human beings. But since no one can rewind history and bring those miners back to life, the job ahead is to make sure those responsible suffer the consequences and that going forward the issue of mine safety is dealt with in a more efficient, responsible and effective manner.
In testimony before a congressional committee Tuesday, it was revealed that a Bureau of Land Management inspector noticed structural deficiencies in Utah's Crandall Canyon coal mine three years before the Aug. 6 roof collapse that killed six miners, and the subsequent roof collapse that killed three more miners on Aug. 16; the latter three were attempting to rescue the first six.
But the inspector, Stephen Falk, was an employee of the Bureau of Land Management, which is the arm of government that OK's mining on federal land. This is different from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which oversees mine safety.
You wouldn't think so, logically, but in fact the bureaucratic distance between the two agencies is significant, since the BLM falls under the Department of Interior, while MSHA is a division of the Department of Labor.
What happened was that Falk took a dim view of the Crandall Canyon mine's practice of removing the coal "pillars" being used to support the mine's roof in an attempt to extract every last bit of coal possible from the mine. He predicted it would "result in hazardous mining conditions such as pillar bursts and roof falls." And, apparently, that's precisely what happened.
Trouble was, according to congressional committee staff, Falk's assessment was for internal use only and never passed along to MSHA. While that's lunacy on its face -- if you believe someone's in danger, you keep screaming until they hear you -- it's also worth pointing out that while the BLM's inspector noticed the dangers in the Crandall Canyon mine, MSHA, which would appear to have an even greater responsibility for the miners' well-being, evidently noticed either no problems or at least nothing substantial enough to stop the mining.
As one lawmaker said Tuesday, it reminded him of the CIA and FBI not communicating adequately concerning terrorist activity in the run-up to 9/11.
We agree. The BLM and MSHA should be constantly communicating when it comes to mine safety, and they should right now be reviewing any other internal inspections for warning signs about mines that are unsafe -- whether in Utah or anywhere around the nation.
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