The Charleston Gazette, March 06, 2007, Lack of safety check cited in mine roof fall death
By Ken Ward Jr., Staff writer
Operators of a Monongalia County coal mine did not make sure the mine was safe before a December roof fall that killed a worker, state investigators have concluded.
Inspectors faulted Dana Mining Co. in the Dec. 17 death of mine electrician John Elliott, 26, of Newburg, according a new report from the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training.
"The active workings of the mine had not been completely examined by the pre-shift examiners before the miners of such shift were allowed to enter the mine," says the report, which was recently released to Elliott's family and then made public.
In their report, state inspectors also cited Dana Mining foreman Ken Losh individually for his alleged failure to perform a proper preshift safety check.
The death occurred at Dana Mining's Prime No. 1 Mine near Maidsville, outside Morgantown. James L. Laurita Jr. of Morgantown is president of the company, according to records from the state secretary of state's office.
At the time of the accident, Elliott, Losh and a third worker, Gary Mayle, were riding into the mine on a rubber-tired mantrip, according to the state report.
Mayle noticed the roof starting to fall, and told Losh, who stopped the mantrip and tried to back up, the report said. All three men jumped from the vehicle and attempted to run away.
Mayle made it out safely. Losh was knocked down by falling roof, but was unhurt and crawled to safety, the report said.
Elliott was hit by the roof fall and pinned against the mantrip, the report said.
The roof fall measured 28 feet long, 20 feet wide and 5.5 feet thick, the state report said.
Inspectors found that the roof in the roadway where the fall occurred "was not supported or otherwise controlled adequately to protect" against roof falls, the report said.
The report recommended that the company be considered for a "special assessment," which could result in a more significant fine.
One day before Elliott was killed, additional wooden roof supports, called cribs, were installed in the area where the accident occurred, an indication that the company was having roof problems there, the report said.
Two days after Elliott was killed, the company submitted a plan to install additional roof bolts in the same area, the state report said.
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The Boston Globe, GLOBE EDITORIAL, Dethroning King Coal, March 5, 2007
WITH PRESIDENT BUSH finally acknowledging climate change but still opposing mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, environmentalists have to content themselves with limited victories in the effort to curb global warming. There were two such signs of progress recently. First, Al Gore's film on climate change won an Academy Award for best documentary. Second, the buyers of the biggest utility in Texas have agreed to reduce the number of new coal-fired generating plants to be built by TXU from 11 to three. The success of the film and the green buyout demonstrate that both the public and the business world are ahead of the Bush administration when it comes to taking the threat of a warming planet seriously.
The report last month by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change left little doubt that humankind is remaking the planet's climate through emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that form a heat-trapping layer in the atmosphere. Changing this course on a global basis will require the kind of leadership from the United States that has been sadly lacking.
But the election last November brought to power on Capitol Hill senators and representatives who are determined to tackle this problem. Two of them, Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, have warned utility owners that coal-fired plants they are now hurrying to build will not be grandfathered under any legislation they pass that restricts carbon dioxide emissions. Coal yields more carbon dioxide than other hydrocarbons, but US utilities have plans on the drawing board to build 150 plants using this relatively cheap and abundant fuel.
Make that 142 after the negotiations between the TXU buyers and leaders of environmental organizations.
Whether the scaling back of TXU's coal plans will set an example for other utilities remains to be seen. Last week, a leadingclimate change scientist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, James Hansen, said the nation should put a moratorium on all new coal-burning plants and plan to "bulldoze" by midcentury any such plants that do not include technology for capturing and burying their carbon dioxide emissions.
The TXU deal would not pass muster with Hansen, but the agreement does include a commitment by the utility to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, support a $400 million efficiency program, and back mandatory national caps on greenhouse gas emissions. That puts TXU in the same camp as major corporations like GE and Du Pont, and leading presidential contenders in both parties. Thanks to the likes of Al Gore and James Hansen, the public and the corporate boardroom are preparing for the kind of climate change action that the Bush administration still shrinks from.
Observer-Reporter, Washington, PA, Monday, March 5, 2007
Nemacolin plant should proceed
Several environmental groups announced last week that they intend to file another lawsuit to halt construction of a waste-coal fired power plant in Nemacolin.
Group Against Smog and Pollution, National Parks Conservation Association and Sierra Club filed a notice of intent to sue the plant developer, Wellington Development LLC, in federal court.
Two of the groups, Group Against Smog and Pollution and National Parks Conservation Association, are seeking to appeal the issuance of the company's air quality permit in state court.
The groups will claim in their federal suit that Wellington did not begin construction of its plant before its air quality permit expired.
Stanley Sears of Wellington Development said the lawsuit is just another attempt to delay the project.
We agree.
The company received an air quality permit from DEP in June 2005. The issuance of the permit was subsequently appealed to the state Environmental Hearing Board, which dismissed the appeal.
The Group Against Smog and Pollution and the National Parks Conservation Association then filed a petition for review in December with the state's Commonwealth Court.
Briefs are expected to be filed on that suit this month.
We urge the court to refuse review, if for no other reason than to quiet the opposition from environmental groups whose goals, it seems, are to oppose anything put into the air other than pixie dust.
We recognize supporting a power plant is not a popular position, but we have supported Wellington's efforts because of the company's commitment to meet or exceed most environmental standards.
The $800 million plant is expected to burn more than 3.1 million tons of waste coal annually from the Nemacolin, Isabella, LaBelle and Clyde coal refuse piles.
We thought initially, and we do now, that the main benefit of this project was that it would placate both environmentalists and economists.
The lawsuits need to stop. Construction has begun, and we take the position it should continue.
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Daily American, March 3, 2007, Coal could help country be 'energy independent'
By ROB GEBHART, Daily American Staff Writer
Some people are hoping hydrogen someday powers cars. Others are looking toward technology that enables cars to run on electric.
Rep. Bill Shuster wants to see the region's coal do the job.
It could happen if technology that enables coal to be converted to liquid fuel is implemented in the state. Shuster, R-Hollidaysburg, is co-sponsoring legislation that would provide tax incentives for investors in coal-to-liquid-fuel plants.
Advocates of the technology say it is an environmentally friendly means of power production that would make the nation energy independent.
During a telephone interview, Shuster said a coal-to-liquid-fuel plant in Pennsylvania would be a great benefit to areas like Somerset County, which sit upon large coal reserves.
"Because Pennsylvania is such a large coal producing state, I think it's natural to build the facilities in the state," Shuster said.
The technology is as simple as taking a piece of coal and liquefying it into a fuel or converting it into a gas, Corey Henry, spokesman for the National Mining Association, said. Any coal in the United States is suitable for coal-to-liquid-fuel use. The fuel the process produces can be burned in the cars and trucks on the road today.
Shuster is promoting coal gasification as a means of making the country independent of foreign energy. The United States possesses 27 percent of the world's coal supply, he said. The National Mining Association has estimated the country's coal reserves are sufficient to power the nation for the next 240 years.
The legislation would authorize the Department of Energy to distribute loan guarantees for America's first coal-to-liquid fuel plants. To qualify for the loan guarantees, these plants must have a minimum production of 10,000 barrels a day and the loan guarantee program would expire once 10 large-scale plants are built or commercial production reaches 100,000 barrels of coal-to-liquid-fuel daily.
There are no technological barriers for creating coal-to-liquid-fuel plants in the United States, Henry said. The main obstacle is financial.
"The technology is proven, but it's not in use in the U.S.," he said.
Coal gasification has been used in other parts of the world for many years already, he noted. In South Africa, fuel has been created with coal-to-liquid technology for the past 30 years; during Apartheid, South Africa was forced to develop the plants because many countries refused to ship oil there. Today, the technology accounts for about 30 percent of the nation's fuel.
No plants have been built here because production fees are cost-prohibitive, Henry said. Cost estimates for the plants range in the billions of dollars.
Henry said it's his hope that the tax incentives offered by the legislature would encourage investors to build a "first fleet" of coal to liquid fuel plants. Once the technology proves profitable, Henry said he believes investors will stake the money on their own.
The government also has to subsidize coal-to-liquid-fuel plants to support investors in the event that petro-states try to manipulate the market, Shuster said.
Investors are worried that when a coal-to-liquid-fuel plant begins producing gas, petro-states will drop the cost of crude oil and undercut the market, he said. Right now, when oil costs $60 a barrel, investing in a coal-to-liquid-fuel plant makes economic sense to investors. But when the price of oil drops below $40 a barrel, it's harder for private investors to justify the expensive plants.
Plans for a plant in eastern Pennsylvania have been under discussion for the past several years. The federal government had pledged to contribute $100 million of the next budget to construction costs, but that money has since been removed from the budget by the Bush administration. The state's Congressional delegation and Gov. Ed Rendell cried foul and have since been working to restore the funding.
Shuster said the defunding has the potential to derail the project.
"If we don't have the $100 million, it's not going to move forward," Shuster said.
Pennsylvania coal companies are in support of the effort.
"There's a big potential for the expansion of the use of coal," if liquid fuels facilities would be built, said Stan Geary, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Coal Association.
The process can use coal of an inferior quality - coal that ranks low enough in quality that it cannot be burnt in traditional coal fired power plants because even scrubbers cannot get it clean, Geary said.
Yet the process of converting the coal to liquid is relatively clean, Geary said. It produces 85 percent less carbon emissions than traditional coal-fired power plants. And scientists are working on means to capture those emissions and sequester them in caves underground.
The technology has the potential to specifically benefit Somerset County coal mines, PBS Coal spokesman Hank Parke said.
"I think it's really going to be the future of the country being more energy independent," Parke said.
He said his main concern with the technology is that any plant that is built in the state would burn the type of coal Pennsylvania produces, and not be specifically designed for coal from Wyoming, for example.
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The Journal, March 05, 2007, Activist wants end to harmful mining
By EDWARD MARSHALL / Journal Staff Writer
CHARLES TOWN - Judy Bonds' family has lived in southern West Virginia for the past ten generations, but the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining is making her home a wasteland and endangering that part of the state's way of life, she said.
Bonds, a grassroots activist and 2002 recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize for North America, brought her message calling for such mining practices to cease to Charles Town Sunday during a special event.
Bonds, a co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, said coal companies in West Virginia are using three million pounds of explosives a day to blow up and "bomb the people" of southern West Virginia by blowing the tops off of mountains.
"It creates a wasteland on top which is devoid of trees and vegetation so when it rains the runoff causes flooding in the valleys and (to) the people," Bonds said. "We have children who sleep fully clothed at night because of the rain. We have people suffering from air pollution from the blasting effects."
She also said that after the tops of these mountains are blasted off and the coal is mined, the remains of the mountains are pushed into the valleys and the streams below.
"They've covered up already a thousand miles of streams," said Bonds, adding the people of southern West Virginia are being sacrificed for "so-called" cheap electricity.
"There's nothing cheap about it when you poison people," said Bonds, adding taxpayers will ultimatley be the ones to pay the bill for flooding and the effects of such mining practices on people's health.
"What we're trying to do is literally educate people all over America and other parts of the country about what happens when they flip that light switch on, she said."
Bonds rejects the friendly image of clean coal that is promoted by large coal companies in the state.
"Even if we could get marshmallows to come out of the smokestacks if you can't dig it clean, you can't burn it clean. They cannot dig the coal cleanly in Appalachia, in Southern West Virginia by blowing the tops off of mountains, by bombing the people that live there and covering up streams," Bonds said. "You haven't lived until you've seen black sludge going down the stream by your house."
Bonds has been involved in the cause to stop mountaintop removal mining since 1998, after a Massey Energy subsidiary moved into her "little hollow" where generations of her family had lived.
Before long coal dust blanketed the region and her grandson would be diagnosed with asthma.
"They started letting loose black sludge water down in our creek and there was fish kill. My grandson stood in a stream full of dead fish," she said. "It was nonstop coal truck traffic and trains with no regard for the people that lived there."
While many moved away, Bonds remained to fight until she found out about a huge sludge dam that was being built above her home.
"It was the irresponsible mining techniques of Massey Energy that brought me into this fight," she said.
Bonds is no stranger to the coal industry. Her father, grandfather, brother and cousin were all coal miners. Now she is a proponent for clean, renewable energy sources.
"This is an industry that could cause an economic boom to this state and it's forever. It's not like coal. It's infinite," she said. "There are alternatives; we just have to look at those."
Bonds, who said the coal industry contributed heavily to politicians, said people who want change should contact their elected leaders, both statewide and national.
"We want a change," Bonds said. "We want clean, renewable energy. We want a future for our children and a future for West Virginia."
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