West Virgina mine blast supervisor charged with conspiracy
22 February 2012
Former Upper Big Branch mine superintendent Gary May has been named in a federal document that signals a defendant is cooperating with prosecutors. He is the second Massey Energy employee to face prosecution in the case, which was brought after 29 miners died in the April 2010 explosion at the mine.
A total of 29 miners died in the April 2010 explosion at the Big Branch mine near Montcoal, West Virginia
U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said on February 22 that the charge was a significant step in the investigation of events at the Upper Big Branch mine and that the investigation was continuing. Further charges even higher up the corporate responsibility chain are thought to be a distinct possibility.
He has alleged that Gary May plotted “with others known and unknown” to put coal production ahead of workers protection and then cover up serious safety violations on numerous occasions during the two years prior to the explosion.
May is accused of taking part in a scheme to provide advance warning of government inspections and then conceal violations before federal agents could descend into working sections of the mine.
He is also alleged to have surreptitiously redirected additional fresh air to a particular area to conceal actual working conditions during a visit by Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors who were sampling levels of coal dust.
U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said the charge was a significant step in the investigation of events at the Upper Big Branch mine
Other items on the charge sheet include ordering the falsification of mine examination records by omitting a hazardous condition required to be reported and then repaired, and ordering the disabling of a methane monitor on a continuous mining machine at Upper Big Branch less than two months before the blast.
Reports about the explosion have already been released by MSHA, the United Mine Workers of America and an independent panel appointed by the former governor. The fourth and final report, by the state Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training, is being released later this week.
The first three concluded that Virginia-based Massey Energy — which has since been bought by Alpha Natural Resources — allowed methane and coal dust to accumulate, and failed to properly maintain and repair the cutting equipment that eventually created the spark that fuel needed to explode.
Clogged and broken water sprayers then allowed what could have been a minor flare-up to become a huge blast that devastated seven miles of underground corridors.
A total of 29 miners died in the April 2010 explosion at the Big Branch mine near Montcoal, West Virginia
All three reports said the explosion could have been prevented or contained if the mine had been sufficiently dusted with pulverized limestone to render the coal dust inert. AP says that in the year before the Upper Big Branch blast, 70 ignitions occurred at U.S. coal mines, and none resulted in fatalities.[
Attorney Goodwin announced a $210 million agreement with Alpha Natural Resources in December 2011, in connection with the criminal investigation of the fatal explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine. It is the biggest settlement ever reached in a U.S. mining disaster.
Last week, Goodwin urged a federal judge to make an example of the only other person charged so far, former security chief Hughie Elbert Stover. Goodwin is demanding the maximum possible sentence of 25 years in prison for actions he says contributed to the disaster. Stover is to be sentenced on February 29 for lying to federal investigators and attempting to destroy documents.
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