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REPORT: UPPER BIG BRANCH DEATHS 'ENTIRELY PREVENTABLE' - Company Fined, No Criminal Charges |
| (12/12/2011) |
| By Bob Weaver Federal regulators say the death of 29 miners at Upper Big Branch was reckless disregard by Massey Coal in "a workplace culture that valued production over safety." A record $200 million fine has been levied against the current owner. "That amount of money is meaningless to a multi-million-dollar organization," said Jone Petersen, whose brother died at Upper Big Branch. "It's an embarrassment for MSHA and the Department of Labor. Nobody finds that to be acceptable. They should be automatically shut down," she said. The report released this week said the deaths were entirely preventable, while Massey Coal and its successors, supported by most of West Virginia's politicians, are calling for further de-regulation of the coal industry, affecting environmental and safety standards. Not unlike the behavior of Wall Street and American banks and their political partners in Washington, who took down the American economy several trillion dollars causing the worst recession since the Great Depression, no one has gone to jail. Charleston reporter Ken Ward said amazingly absent from the reactions offered by political leaders to yesterday's Upper Big Branch settlement and MSHA report was any mention of the failure of government inspectors and other regulators to prevent 29 deaths and in the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in a generation. While Washington gives lip service in denouncing the criminal behavior of America's money changers, in West Virginia, government officials rarely denounce the unscrupulous behavior of coal mining moguls. The state remains hostage to their money, taxes and the dwindling jobs they provide, while coalfield counties and the State still remains the poorest in the nation. Massey Energy was a company with a lengthy record of environmental and safety abuses, a proponent of mountaintop removal, having a history of $2.4 billion in unpaid fines. Following years of cat and mouse games and delays, in April, 2008, a federal judge approved a deal that required Massey to pay a small fraction of the levy, a $20 million fine to resolve thousands and thousands of alleged unpaid violations. In the Upper Big Branch disaster, Massey continued to deny any liability, essentially using the coal industries long-time "act of God" defense. See Deaths at UBB 'entirely preventable,' MSHA says by By Ken Ward Jr. for the Charleston Gazette Read Hur Herald coal history using SEARCH 'Massey'. The report can be viewed by clicking msha.gov/PerformanceCoal
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