In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, rescuers head to the blast site at the Xinxing Coal Mine in Hegang of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009. The number of dead in China’s worst mining accident in two years rose Wednesday after three more bodies were pulled out of the coal mine, state media said. China’s mine safety authorities have blamed crowded conditions, insufficient ventilation and slow rescue efforts for the high death toll in the gas explosion, which hit before dawn Saturday when 528 miners were under ground. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Wang Song)
An explosion last week in China killed at least 104 coal miners, according to the latest media reports. The disaster was another lesson for coal-hungry China, and media reports are blaming poor management and inadequate safety precautions. There was also word over the weekend of a flood that trapped 16 Chinese coal miners.
Closer to home, separate coal mining accidents in Kentucky and Alabama claimed the lives of two miners last week.
Leslie Trent, 37, died at TECO Energy’s Upper Second Creek Portals in Perry County, Ky. A second worker was also injured in the Tuesday accident, which involved a hoist boom falling during construction of a new mine shaft. The workers were employed by a contract firm, Frontier-Kemper Constructors. That same company was cited by MSHA in an August 2007 shaft accident that killed three people at a coal mine in Gibson County, Indiana.
And in Alabama, 53-year-old James Chaney died at the Jim Walter Resources No. 7 Mine near Brookwood, Ala. Early media reports, citing comments from MSHA’s public affairs office, were blaming the death on Chaney and another worker encountering an area of low oxygen during a fire boss run underground. A search for the two workers began late Monday night, and four rescuers were also treated at the hospital. When Chaney and the other worker, apparently a foreman, were found Chaney was non-responsive.
Meanwhile, there was a significant ruling last week in federal court regarding mountaintop removal coal mining. The Gazette ran the AP story, and you can read the ruling itself here.
I’m still reading this one, but as I understand it, U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers ruled that the federal Army Corps of Engineers wrongly issued mountaintop removal permits without allowing adequate public input. In particular, the Corps considers permits to be administratively complete and ready for public notice and comment before some key documents — most importantly the “mitigation plans” through which companies try to compensate for burying streams — are available for the public to examine and comment on.
And the West Virginia Public Service Commission issued a major ruling in the PATH power line case, which Eric Eyre wrote about for the Gazette. The ruling, which delays hearing in the case until October 2010 and a PSC decision until February 2011, is available here. Read more on The Power Line blog here, here and here.
Last week also brought a ton of climate change news.
First, there were the hacked e-mail messages that gave climate change skeptics more ammunition against scientists who say the world is warming because of human activities. More on this from Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog, and from Climate Progress here and here.
Then there was my buddy Seth Borenstein’s big AP story, “12 years after Kyoto, climate change much worse.”
And finally, the announcement that the United States would seek a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 when President Obama attends the Copenhagen climate summit next week.
I’d be interested thoughts on any of these developments, and in links to other coverage of them that I may have missed while I was out of the office last week.
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[...] Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » Catching up on last week’s coal news blogs.wvgazette.com – view page – cached In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, rescuers head to the blast site at the Xinxing Coal Mine in Hegang of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009. The… Read moreIn this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, rescuers head to the blast site at the Xinxing Coal Mine in Hegang of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009. The number of dead in China’s worst mining accident in two years rose Wednesday after three more bodies were pulled out of the coal mine, state media said. China’s mine safety authorities have blamed crowded conditions, insufficient ventilation and slow rescue efforts for the high death toll in the gas explosion, which hit before dawn Saturday when 528 miners were under ground. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Wang Song) View page [...]
Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. I was until I heard of the court ruling against FOLA. Where does it end. What do the enviromentalist want, the whole permit issued in the gazette. Thats fine if thats what it takes then so be it. One permit will only take up about a month of print. Well at least there wont be any communist talk on the opinion page.
Scott,
Hope you had a good holiday as well.
But did you even read Judge Chambers’ opinion?
Basically, all Judge Chambers said was that the public should get an opportunity to comment on the WHOLE permit proposal, including the mitigation plans that are central to allowing the mining to go forward in the first place.
What’s so unreasonable about that?
Ken.
Ken have you ever read a permit proposal. They state where to comment and also where to ask for more info. Acreage and seams to be mined and sometimes method of mining . Streams affected by discharges are also required. And yes I did read the judgement and I ask What does this prove. We have been mining ikes fork for 2 years.
scott 14,
Gosh … well, no, I’ve never looked at a mining permit application before. Maybe I’ll give that a shot.
If you read the ruling by Judge Chambers, then you’re just ignoring the issue it’s about … The legal theory under which the Corps of Engineers issues these 404 permits is that the companies “mitigate” the incredible impacts of the mining down to the point that they are no longer unreasonable and the permits can be issued.
But as Judge Chambers pointed out, the Corps does not make the mitigation plans — perhaps the key document in this legal theory — public and available for comment before it issues the permits. So, the public — which has an absolute procedural right to offer meaningful input in these permit decisions — does not get to offer comment on the mitigation plans.
One has to wonder if the industry and the Corps don’t really want the public or any independent scientists to examine and comment on these plans before the permits are issued. But Judge Chambers says that opportunity must be provided.
Whether or not you’ve been mining Ike’s Fork for 2 years or not is irrelevant to the decision. In the future, the Corps will have to allow public review and comment on these mitigation plans.
Sorry if you don’t get the logic there … but it seems pretty clear.
Ken.