Alabama Coal Mine Safety Record Worst in U.S.

The steel teeth of a monstrous machine rip chunks of rock from a coal seam hundreds of feet underground. A few feet away, miners work in the dim glow of their head lamps.

Overhead, steel shields supported by hydraulic lifts hold millions of tons of rock and dirt at bay. That popping noise, miners say, is the sound of rocks breaking under the enormous pressure, straining to fall.

Danger is everywhere in a coal mine, regardless of location. But regulators say the safety record of Alabama’s mines is so poor it defies explanation, despite recent signs of improvement.

Alabama produces less than 3% of America’s coal, yet records from the U.S. Mine Health and Safety Administration show it is home to seven of the 10 mines that were cited for the most safety violations nationwide last year.

State mines were assessed some $1.3 million in fines for violations ranging from ventilation problems to improper electrical equipment to fire hazards.

The other three mines in the top 10 are all in West Virginia, which produces about seven times more coal than Alabama.

Compounding Alabama’s problem was an accident rate 57% above the national average in the first three months of 1996, despite drastic improvements from last year. Nearly 13 people were hurt in Alabama’s mines for every 200,000 hours worked in the first quarter, MHSA records show, compared to the national average of eight injuries per 200,000 hours.

With some 4,500 miners working in the state’s nine big mines, MHSA reports show 842 injuries that were serious enough to require time off work or restrict a worker’s activity from January 1995 through late last June.

Five people died in Alabama mines in the last year, the most recent on Aug. 16 when a roof caved in. James Baker, a 25-year employee of U.S. Steel Mining Co., died in the accident at Oak Grove mine, No. 10 on the violations list.

The state’s mining companies contend that the 1995 numbers paint an unfair picture of an industry that has worked hard in recent months to improve its safety record.

The mines “are safer now than they ever have been, and they’re getting safer,” said Dennis Hall of Jim Walter Resources Inc., which runs four of the six mines with the worst records nationwide last year. The company said its rate of serious accidents is down 19% overall this year.

MHSA acknowledges that safety violations and accident rates are better this year. But the agency wonders if the reduction in citations is linked to the fact that there are fewer MHSA employees looking for violations than in years past.

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The number of federal inspectors patrolling Alabama mines is down by about one-fourth this year from ‘95, from 25 to 19. Budget constraints have prevented replacing inspectors who retired or transferred, MHSA officials said.

Hours spent on federal mine inspections in Alabama have also decreased by about one-quarter this year, to 14,219 in the first six months, so the MHSA state director isn’t sure how much of the mines’ improvement is real and how much is attributable to fewer examinations.

“The conclusion we’ve drawn is that the industry can do better, and from what we’ve seen there is a commitment to improvement,” said MHSA’s Mike Lawless. “I want to see it on more than one quarter of reports.”

Jim Walter Resources’ No. 7 mine, located west of Birmingham in Tuscaloosa County, led the nation in serious safety citations in 1995 with 452. Regulators issued another 51 citations for more severe violations, each resulting in the temporary closing of areas or operations within the mine.

The company’s No. 4 mine was second on the list, with 385 serious violations and another 26 that were more severe.

Jim Walter Resources and other companies blame their poor safety records on the depth of Alabama’s mines, some of which extend as much as 2,200 feet below the surface. Volatile methane gas is a major problem, they say, and regulators agree.

But federal regulators say deep, gassy mines operate in other states without the repeated safety violations and accidents that occur in Alabama mines.

“The depth in and of itself is not an excuse for not following the regulations,” said Lawless, who came to the state from West Virginia last fall.

“It appears to me that we have an industry that has come to accept accidents and violations that are above acceptable levels,” he said.

One Alabama mine stands out among its troubled counterparts.

The North River mine, owned by Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Co., has a better safety record than the state’s other big, subterranean mines. While seven of the nine are among the top 10 violators, North River ranks 127th.

Workers in the mine, located 600 feet underground along the Tuscaloosa-Fayette county line, describe an open corporate structure in which the rank and file is encouraged to fix safety problems without management intervention. That keeps little concerns from turning deadly.

“At other mines I hear of it’s a big deal to get anything fixed until the roof falls in,” said Jimmy Starns, head of the United Mine Workers of America safety committee at North River.