This just in from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration:
At approximately 2:30 am today, District 11 was notified of a fatal accident at the coal mine listed below. Preliminary information indicates that the operator of a haul truck hit the back of another haul truck. The operator of the rear truck received fatal injuries. A 103(j) order was issued. More information will be provided when it is available.
This death occurred at Mallards Creek Energy’s Kansas Mine in Walker County, Alabama. This is the 44th coal-mining death in the U.S. in 2010.
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My deepest sympathy for this truck driver and his family. However, the media needs to know that a coal miner is someone who extracts coal from an underground facility, not a truck driver. As always the media has blown this out of proportion.
Another coal miner dies – alone. We are well on our way to a record year for fatalaties in this industry, and yet there are no comments on this or the other story about a fatality today … but dozens on the issue of what the background should be behind the new WVU football uniform. I kind of wonder what THAT says about us as a state?
I agree with you Monty, the hoopla over a commerical about a football uniform was silly and wasted a lot of peoples time. One thing about the fatality record. 44 is no where near the record. 78 were killed in Farmington alone. The truth is 1 is way too many.
Jerry,
You’re wrong about that … read the law … the 1977 Act defines miner as:
“… any individual working in a coal or other mine.”
And it defines mine as:
(A) an area of land from which minerals are extracted in nonliquid form
or, if in liquid form, are extracted with workers underground, (B) private ways and roads appurtenant to
such area, and (C) lands, excavations, underground passageways, shafts, slopes, tunnels and workings,
structures, facilities, equipment, machines, tools, or other property including impoundments, retention
dams, and tailings ponds, on the surface or underground, used in, or to be used in, or resulting from, the
work of extracting such minerals from their natural deposits in nonliquid form, or if in liquid form, with
workers underground, or used in, or to be used in, the milling of such minerals, or the work of preparing
coal or other minerals, and includes custom coal preparation facilities.
That’s online at
http://www.msha.gov/regs/act/mineact77.pdf
Scott14 … Thanks for pointing out that 44 is nowhere near a record number of coal-mining deaths … It is the most since 2006, http://www.msha.gov/stats/charts/coalbystates.pdf … Ken.
Thanks for posting the truth that a surface miner is a coal miner just the same as someone who works underground. We both extract the same product if just in a different manner. We both feel deeply over our brothers who die on the job. Way too often statements are made that surface miners are just demolition crews or that underground miners are the real coal miners. Feel free to correct me Ken but I think that surface production is either above or even with underground production if you count large western surface mines.
Scott14, I guess I meant this year was on track to be a record year for fatalaties in recent history.
One thing I noticed about the MSHA fatalities chart that really, really sticks out – look at it, by state, straight across. How many states have had at least one mining fatality EVERY SINGLE YEAR for the last 15 years? Only three – Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Care to guess which state is No. 1 by a really wide margin? This is one list I wish WV wasn’t leading. Not only are we No. 1, WV has the dubious distinction of being the site of fully one-third of all coal mining fatalities in the nation. Does anyone else see something wrong with that picture? Our state regulators have failed the miners, our federal regulators have failed the miners, and our elected officials have failed the miners, because too many of them are still dying, too often, for no good reason.