Dozens of Coal Firms to Plead Guilty to Fraud in Tests

Dozens of coal companies and individuals have agreed to plead guilty to felony charges that they conspired to defraud a federal program that gauges miners’ exposure to coal dust, prosecutors said Monday.

The coal dust sampling program is required by law. Coal dust causes black lung disease and contributes to explosive conditions underground.

The charges were the latest in an investigation that began in March, 1989, and has expanded from a single episode of tampering to allegations that the program has been subverted by what Labor Secretary Lynn Martin called “widespread cheating” by the operators.

U.S. Atty. Michael Carey said 43 individuals and 33 coal companies in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky were charged with conspiring to submit false dust samples to the federal Mine, Safety and Health Administration.

Prosecutors alleged that Harry White and Ronald Ellis, employees of Triangle Research Inc. of Grundy, Va., helped the companies submit the false samples.

Representatives of Triangle, a coal mining consulting firm, would call a mine to verify that no federal mine inspector had been present that day, Carey said. Triangle then would send on behalf of the coal company a dust sample that had been taken at some place other than the mine site, often “above-ground or in a bucket full of coal dust,” Carey said.

White and Ellis face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison.