Well, folks, postings on Coal Tattoo are going to be pretty scarce for a week or so … I’ll be back online full-time after Thanksgiving. Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday next week.

But first, one last blast with a roundup of coal-related news and commentary from the last week.

There were several stories this week that focused on efforts by West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller to stall consideration of the climate change bill while he works to get more in it to protect the coal industry. Those stories came from Politico and  The Hill.

Scientific American had a somewhat related piece titled, What will it take to force political action on climate change.  And thanks to Joseph Romm at Climate Progress for pointing out a Time magazine piece that pointed out that the science of climate change is growing much more dire as inaction to limit greenhouse emissions continues. Meanwhile, the Guardian points out that global temperatures could  rise by 6 degrees C by the end of this century. [Read more →]

An interesting development just in concerning Massey Energy’s Bee Tree Mine, the Southern West Virginia operation where environmentalists had hoped to put a wind energy facility instead of a mountaintop removal job.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials are investigating the Bee Tree site, examining Massey’s operation there without first obtaining a “dredge-and-fill” permit under Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act.

Yesterday, EPA regional officials in Philadelphia sent this letter to Massey’s Marfork Coal Co. subsidiary, seeking a long list of information about the Bee Tree operations.

Recall that Massey made a change in its surface mining permit from the state that the company apparently believed allowed it to — at least at this point — not need a 404 permit that could face EPA scrutiny before it would be approved by the federal Army Corps of Engineers. Massey had applied for a 404 permit, but then withdrew that application.

According to the new EPA letter, federal officials visited the site earlier this month and now are concerned that the site does need a 404 permit. The letter cautions Massey:

The activities underway at the site do not appear to have independent utility from the proposed mining project that is the subject of the Section 404 permit application. EPA is concerned that Marfork Coal Company may be committing signficant resources and conducting operations in reliance on a Section 404 permit that has not been issued. The Corps has not yet made a determination of jurisdictional waters and we have some concern that ongoing activities at the site could impact such waters if sufficient precautions are not exercised.

Updated:  Massey General Counsel Shane Harvey tells me the company has received EPA’s letter and is reviewing it.

Joe Main, the Obama administration’s assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, held a conference call today to outline for the media his priorities for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Mine safety advocates have high hopes — and high expectations — for Main, the former longtime mine safety and health director for the United Mine Workers of American union.

I’ve posted a recording of the entire conference call, and you can listen by clicking on this button:

And here are a few highlights:

– MSHA plans action “fairly quickly — as in the “next couple of weeks” –  on a plan that Main said will end deadly black lung disease. Main said the standard limit respirable dust in underground mines needs to be tightened and that previous recommendations that MSHA do so will be part of this overall strategy.

– Along with that, Main plans to generally “beef up” the “health” part of MSHA, including staffing changes aimed toward those issues.

– MSHA will be focusing some efforts on the types of violations it finds to be leading causes of deaths in mines.

– Main plans to re-examine the changes in mine emergency response and rescue that have been made since the disasters at Sago, Aracoma, Darby and Crandall Canyon, and working to fill in “gaps” that still exist in those programs.

– MSHA will be taking a hard look at its training requirements and industry training programs, given the huge transition in the mining workforce, with lots of retirements and many new workers moving into the industry.

– Main plans to put a new emphasis at MSHA on seeing that miners can play a strong role in enforcement, perhaps meaning the agency will do more to stand up for miners who speak out against unsafe conditions in their mines.

– Main said he is taking no position on the S-MINER Act, a set of supplements to the 2006 MINER Act that has been pushed by Democratic leaders in Congress and the United Mine Workers.

And here’s a quote that sums up Main’s general goals for MSHA:

… I think that we in this country can achieve zero fatalities. When you look at what we’ve accomplished, I think that is entirely possible

The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce is calling on the state’s congressional delegation — particularly Sens. Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockfeller — to refuse to advance health-care reform legislation unless or until the Obama administration stops what the Chamber calls a “war on coal/energy.”

In a press statement issued this morning, Chamber President Steve Roberts (above) says:

Since the start of the Obama Administration and the new Congress there has been a growing campaign against the mining and use of coal. This war against coal and domestic energy threatens our state and its citizens with increased poverty, lost tax revenues and economic disruption. This needs to end before irreparable damage sets in.

[Read more →]

Forty-one years ago today, 78 miners were killed in an explosion at Consolidation Coal Co.’s No. 9 Mine in Farmington, W.Va. The famous photo above was taken by longtime Gazette photographer Lawrence Pierce.

Readers might be interested to go back to last year’s Gazette, when my friend Paul Nyden wrote this story  to mark the Farmington disaster’s 40th anniversary. There’s also video, the front page of the Gazette from the day after the disaster, and we posted a copy of the official government investigation report and some analysis from Dr. Nyden’s dissertation of the Farmington disaste, all here.

And in today’s Gazette, new MSHA chief Joe Main has an op-ed commentary about Farmington, discussing the mine safety reforms that followed, and the other reforms that followed other disasters. Main concludes:

Each one of these remarkable legislative actions has saved countless lives and reduced the number of accidents, illnesses and injuries in the mining industry. Further improvements are needed, though, to achieve the health and safety goals that this nation’s miners deserve. We must continue our efforts to keep miners safe and healthy each and every day. The sacrifices of our fallen miners must never be forgotten.

Later today, we might get a glimpse from Joe Main about what “further improvements” he plans, when he holds his first discussion with the media since being confirmed by the Senate.

Stay tuned …

As a special session of West Virginia’s Legislature continues, lawmakers have passed two resolutions expressing their support for the coal industry, saying that:

… Recent events at the federal level, most notably the debate over “cap and trade” legislation in Congress and obscure regulatory actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, are casting a shadow of doubt and uncertainty over the future of the coal industry in West Virginia…

But lawmakers are also examining a little-noticed bill sent to them by Gov. Joe Manchin to make several changes in the Manchin energy bill passed earlier this year. The change are in HB 408 and the companion SB 4008.

Recall that Manchin’s bill was intended to require utilities in West Virginia to get a share of their power from alternative energy sources. But, some critics noted that the governor’s definition of alternative energy was so broad as to include just about anything.

The new bill is aimed at narrowing this definition a little bit, according to Manchin communications director Matt Turner. “We want people to use newer technology,” Turner said.

[Read more →]

Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., has issued this statement about a meeting she had today with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson:

I appreciated the opportunity to meet with Administrator Jackson to share my concerns about EPA’s role in approving mine permits in the Appalachian region.  Though broad disagreements remain, we had a cordial and substantive discussion.

I reiterated my concerns that the delay of these permits has real-world consequences on the economy and on West Virginia jobs. EPA decisions do not exist in a vacuum.

I also expressed my beliefs that continued uncertainty will only serve to hamstring miners and mining communities as they seek to plan and seek future investment in their local economies which depend on mining.

[Read more →]

This just in, via my buddy Gazette reporter Davin White:

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship will debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about environmental issues at a forum on the future of energy, Jan. 21 at the University of Charleston.

Read more on the Gazette’s Web site.

State investigators have cited a mine reclamation contractor for alcohol-related violations in the July death of a worker who drowned in a sediment pond at the Samples Mine in eastern Kanawha County.

On July 28, Mark Allen Gray, 28, died when he ran his rock truck off a haul road and into a sediment containment pond. (See photo above from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration). Gray was employed by Hawkeye Contracting Company LLC, which was performing reclamation at the site for Catenary Coal Co.

According to the new state findings, a toxicology report revealed that Gray had “alcohol present in the blood at a concentration of 0.08 percent.” Also, the report found “inactive metabolite from the consumption of marijuana was also found in the blood.” The report also said Gray had “carried on his person an alcoholic beverage in the form of a beer and an intoxicant identified as marijuana.”

State mine safety investigators report:

One opened, empty 12-ounce beer can was found inside the … truck operator’s cab … after the haul truck was retrieved from the pond.

Foreman Phillip Rife stated on two previous workdays he had detected what he believed to be the odor of alcohol on Mark Allen Gray’s breath. Security guard, Joetta Bowling, who was employed by Appalachian Security, stated that she witnessed Mark Allen Gray placing unopened cans of beer in his lunch box at the start of a recent workday. She did not relay this information to any Hawkeye Construction Company, LLC, management person.

[Read more →]

The Obama administration has just announced what it says are “immediate actions” being taken by the Interior Department to “strengthen oversight” state strip mine regulators and “to better protect streams affected by surface coal mining operations.”

One of these “immediate actions”?

Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement says it is going to publish an “advance notice of propose rulemaking” to gather views on how it should rewrite the federal stream buffer zone rule.

But wait … we already knew that — and we knew that this move by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar essentially delays any action to overturn the Bush administration’s weakening of the buffer zone rule until at least early 2011.

And, according to this release, the advance notice of proposed rulemaking  still hasn’t been published … the news release says it “will be sent to the Federal Register shortly.”

[Read more →]