Boone Circuit Judge William Thompson has approved an order to force Massey Energy to preserve any evidence — including documents and physical evidence — concerning the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.
The order was sought by Tim Bailey, a Charleston lawyer who represents the estate of Adam Morgan, one of the 29 miners who died in the horrible April 5 explosion at the Raleigh County mine. The order also requires Massey to allow representatives of the family the inspect the mine when federal and state authorities declare it safe for such inspections.
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Ho-hum, this order to ‘preserve any evidence’ should have happened at 4 PM April 5, 2010. It’s not like Massey Energy and Don Blankenship aren’t a known quantity in WV after years in court dealing with the Aracoma mine fire and countless MTR offenses.
On April 5, the FBI should have been sent in to secure all records at the request of Governor Manchin’s or West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw. Clearly the state’s highest offices are clueless or could care less. This is serial industrial murder, but I guess its still quasi legal in Westvirginiastan. Justice delayed is justice denied.
History proves in WV the life of a coal miner and his family’s welfare are of little concern to the entrenched leadership in this state of 2 million; it’s business as usual, just another bunch of NIMBY dead miners.
Rest assured the cleaning crews and lawyers at Massey Energy were hard at work on the evening of April 5, 2010. They’ve had plenty of experience dealing with investigations after the murders at Aracoma . Blankenship’s fingerprints will be removed from everything not published. The shredders have done their work. Don Blankenship will say it was the miners fault for going into an unsafe work place, they had ‘free will’; a twist on caveat emptor, only ‘worker beware’. He might even sue the estates of the miners for wrecking his business.
Like Aracoma, here’s the justice you should expect for the dead at UBB: ‘foreman charged knowingly violating a federal mine safety standard… faking mine safety records required by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration Massey…fined $1,000 for not conducting drills… wvgazette.com
West Virgina leaders, you are an ongoing embarrassment to civilized life and the rights of citizens and workers.
clay ton — I definitely agree with you on the protection and preservation of evidence at the UBB mine disaster scene — would be very easy for an experienced person to “corrupt” the evidence so to say.. I wonder if the site was closely guarded and are the people doing the underground
“ventilation systems rehab. work. are ‘authorized’ persons specifically trained for such sensitive work.. This situation makes me think back to a very similar recent matter—- What has happened to the investigation at Patriot Coal’s Federal No. 2 Mine regarding alleged destruction/falsification of safety inspection records of methane levels by Mine officials — that had the possibility of turning into a major disaster– but seems to have gone silent..?