Coal Mine keeps double-set of record books misleading Feds
United States Mine Safety and Health Administration investigators announced that Massey Energy, the owner of a West Virginia coal mine where 29 men were killed in an explosion last year, misled federal government inspectors by keeping a double-set of record books at the coal mine hiding hazardous conditions from the official record books where inspectors would review them.
Kevin Stricklin, administrator for coal at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, stated Massey Energy maintained a double-set of accounting record books before the deadly coal mine explosion, in which coal mine safety problems and hazardous conditions were recorded in an internal record book kept out of sight from federal coal mine inspectors while reporting differently in the official books presented to federal inspectors.
Stricklin pointed out that Massey Energy had practiced a culture of impurity and took systematic and premeditated measures to hide coal mine safety hazardous conditions from federal inspectors at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia.
The United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of West Virginia has already indicted two persons in this Massey Energy fraud case, including the Chief of Security for lying and concealing documents from federal inspectors and a foreman for lying in a document and to federal inspectors.
Massey Energy coal mine managers, including the former Chief Executive Don Blankenship, have not been charged. A total of 18 Massey Energy executives have refused to speak to federal investigators invoking their Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate.
Massey energy coal mine managers appeared to pressure and intimidate workers to omit hazardous conditions from the official record books inspected by federal coal mining inspectors. Workers at the Upper Big Branch coal mine were pressured not to report dangerous and hazardous conditions.
Massey Energy has now been taken over by another company, Alpha Natural Resources, who purchased Massey Energy several months ago.
Stricklin stated that the federal investigation disproved Massey Energy’s theory of the deadly blast that the coal mine explosion was caused by an event beyond its control.
Massey Energy received numerous citations for violating federal coal mine safety regulations before the deadly explosion which caused the death of 29 coal miners. The federal investigation found the deadly explosion was caused by an accumulation of coal dust which ignited methane gas inside the coal mine.
The federal investigation of Massey Energy is a stinging indictment of the American coal mining industry who places profits before safety of its workers and their communities.
