With the miners recovered, the search for answers begins in earnest:
The most confounding question for mining industry experts is what triggered the explosion early Monday morning, just after the first two teams of miners had entered the coal mine. A mined-out chamber perpendicular to the main shaft had been sealed off four weeks ago with twin seals two or more feet thick. These seals were blown out into the main shaft with such force that some debris struck a second team of more than a dozen men who were riding in on a rail car hundreds of feet away.
Three members of the second crew, in interviews Wednesday night, said they turned around and groped their way blindly back to the entrance on foot. Four rescuers met them partway down the smoky shaft with another rail car and brought most of them out. Three of the rescuers and the crew boss then went back down the shaft as far as the smoke would allow but could not reach the other team, which had been on the far side of the explosion.
One theory is that lightning from an early-morning storm had been conducted into the sealed chamber and had ignited the methane gas inside. A federal contractor, the Tucson office of Vaisala Inc., a Finnish company, measured two lightning strikes within a mile and a half of the mine in less than a second, said Nick Demetriades, the manager of applications and technology for the company’s lightning division.
The strikes, which occurred at 6:26:35.5 and 6:26:35.7 on Monday, apparently came not long before the explosion, which has been placed at about 6:30 a.m. The second of the two discharges of energy into the ground was four to five times more powerful than typically occurs, Mr. Demetriades said. Vaisala’s observations were first reported by The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia.
I think what is most interesting is that this occurred in a part of the mine which was sealed off and not in current use. The fact that it is sealed off would seem to make it easier to figure out why it occurred- if it were in active use, you would have to add a whole range of additional variables, including the most unpredictable variable of all- human behavior.
I fully understand that there will be those on a certain side of the political divide who are going to continue to do everything they can to paint this disaster as avoidable or the result of inadequate government regulation and enforcement. Fine. Let them make their best case for it, and if their accusations are born out in the form of facts, then there should be some changes. The trick will be getting them to acknowledge that they were wrong, should that turn out to be the case.
Several of you have written to me linking to one story or another, saying to the effect “I know this pisses you off to be pointing fingers in the face of tragedy.” No. Not at all. What pisses me off is what Scott Shields did the other day– pointing fingers and chucking bodies at people without any facts, and, worse still, while the miners were still in harms way. These poor men weren’t even dead yet, and these hacks were using their deaths as ammunition for their little political crusade against Bush.
I have no problem, if after an investigation, fingers are pointed at this administration, at MSHA and OSHA and the President’s appointments, at Governor Manchin and the state agencies, at the company or the employees- if they are actually to blame or if their actions led to the disaster. I just get sick and tired of people on both sides of the aisle shamelessly exploiting every death for their own partisan needs.
Sometimes, accidents do just happen.
Jill
Yes, sometimes accidents do happen, but underfunding the mining safety organizations and staffing them with coal industry executives was no accident.
ppGaz
While well-intentioned, this sentiment is about as useful as saying “I’m sick of bad weather.”
It’s the nature of the political systems we put in place. Why complain about it? In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that the “I’m sick of it” response, while rational, isn’t helpful. Underlying that sentiment is the stuff out of which crass manipulation is fashioned. Crass manipulation can happen … forever, not just at the time of the tragedy. Crass manipulation of 911 is still going on to this day.
It’s all part of the tendency to descend into bathos, a la cable news and “How does this make you feel” interviews. It’s all bullshit and it’s all for an ulterior motive …. profit, or political gain. So what? Recognize it for what it is and move on. Some people are going to fawn over sentimentality, and other people are going to get mad and start throwing accusations. That’s the way people are. Why wave our arms and stamp our feet about it?
Jim Allen
Since you’ve been pounding on Shields for his comments and holding them up as representing the left side, let’s use Sean Hannity as the representative of the attitude of the right:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/01/05.html#a6586
A former director of the National Mine Academy says, “I think it’s because of the current Bush administration’s policies toward mine operators and their reluctance to take the strong enforcement action that’s sometimes necessary.”
But none of his expertise and experience means anything, because he’s just a Bush basher.
John Cole
Jill- That is not evidence why the explosion occurred.
Jim- I don’t hold up Hannity as the type of ideal I would think you would want your sides pundits to behave like. Maybe you do.
Jim Allen
Johm I certainly don’t hold up Hannity as any kind of ideal any more than I do Shields. But perhaps you would be better served if you’d post your thoughts against stuff like that as quickly as you did against Shields. Certainly you can file it under “Republican Stupidity”, even if you don’t initially attribute it as an RNC campaign strategy.
Stormy70
Right. Do you always believe what the NY Times says?
slightlybad
Just for the record, 2001 through 2005 was the safest period for mining ever. The previous safest period was 1996-2000. Before that, 1992-1996. Deaths and injuries have been decreasing for at least 75 years. You can google those stats and find them (I’m too lazy to do it again).
This tells you nothing about the political qualities of the administration for any given period. It does tell you that mining technology and safety equipment have gotten better. It tells you that mechanization in mining has resulted in fewer workers underground. It tells you that more mining is being done by strip and mountain top removal techniques. It wouldn’t suprise me to see a small uptick in coal mining injuries in particular in the future — the rise in energy prices has the industry hiring more people and working more mines.
But if you’re trying to lay this at the door of the Bush administration, please reconcile that with the fact that 2001-2005 was the safest mining period EVER. I don’t give Bush credit for that — its mostly due to factors that he had nothing to do with. But he shouldn’t be getting the blame either.
Jill
John, I’m not talking about lax regulations being the cause of the explosion, but lax regulations may keep an unsafe mine open when it should be closed.
Nikki
That would be nice, especially as John’s “Shields” post initially had a title that conflated Shields’ comments with the DNC.
Blue Neponset
And he changed the headline when someone called him on it. What is your point?
Zifnab
When a mine has been issued sitations and warnings as much as this mine has, the default explaination is that one of the numerous safety violations was the cause of the accident.
The facts may bare out a different answer in the future, but for now, I can’t help but think it was one of those 96 serious violations they’d already been sited for that caused this tragedy.
Now, whether the accident was caused by company neglegence or a failure of the Bush administration to police company neglegence is another question entirely. Of course, if Bush did fuck up… again… I’d like to think people would have the balls to at least acknowledge it rather than say “You can’t blame Bush because that would be political.” Better than pulling a Hannity and cutting the mic when you don’t like the answer you’re given.
Uberweiss
What about the unions? Whenever this trajedy happened everybody was quick to jump the gun and blame Bush or blame the management company or whatever. What about the mining unions? It is there job to make sure that the mines that their people work in are safe. It is their jobs to enforce the changes or fixes that need to be made. It is their job to get on the managment company to make those changes. What were those guys paying dues for? The union should have relized that the mine was unsafe and made the managment company make the necessary repairs or whatever they do well before any of this happened. Unions now a days are more interested in lining their pockets with money then saving their own union members. The truth is also, that I could be very wrong on all of this and it could have been a freak accident. They have been known to happen. I think we should all wait, including myself, till we see what actually caused this terrible trajedy.
Nikki
Pb does the math to prove you wrong:
John Cole
Jim- I don’t want to have to listen to or read Sean Hannity every day. If you want to email me when he says something outrageous, and no one covers it, I will take up the cause. But right now, I saw the Hannity stuff was covered on about ten different liberal websites, including coverage on Crooks and Liars, so I see no reason why I should have to comment about someone I never listen to in the first place.
Stormy70
Bush is responsible for every bad thing happening to everyone, everywhere, according to some of the posters here. Don’t confuse them with any facts, it gets in the way of a good rant against Bush.
Orogeny
So, John, when the ex-director of the National Mine Safety and Health Academy says that the mine should have been closed because it was unsafe and that the apparent reason it was not closed was due to a “reluctance to take the strong enforcement action ” on the part of MSHA due to the Bush administrations policies, he’s just being a partisan hack trying to score points?
Ozymandius
Uberweiss, there was no union. This was a non-union mine.
nyrev
MSHA has an FAQ posted.
Incidentally, I don’t know much about MSHA. But one of the great frustrations of OSHA inspectors is that between the legal limits on safety inspections and the fact that many large companies treat OSHA citations the way many college students treat parking tickets (ie not paying for a parking pass is worth the risk of getting caught and ticketed) OSHA lacks teeth.
So while I tend to believe that the MSHA employees involved performed their jobs correctly, I also think that regulations need to be tightened up in order for MSHA to do its job more effectively.
ppGaz
No, of course not. But he’s a lousy president, making lousy choices and even lousier appointments. These things will have a price, and if people care about government, it has to be talked about.
Why we thought that electing an alcoholic business failure to the nation’s highest job would have a good result, I don’t know, but hey, that’s the breaks. We got him, and now we need to hold him accountable.
Stop complaining. Seriously.
slightlybad
Nikki,
The numbers that I looked at covered different periods, so that may account for some variation. They also covered the number of injuries, not just deaths. Even if you are correct, a variation of two one thousandths of a percent is not statistically significant.
jack
SAFEST MINING PERIOD EVER
Let’s focus on that, shall we?
No. We won’t. We’d all rather blame Bush, right? Even you, John. Point fingers at the administration–oh, yes, let’s have ANOTHER investigation, in which things will be declared ‘mistakes'(though crimes is the word so many want to use) And it’ll be Bush’s fault for underfunding this, or not seeing that or for some reason.
And anyone who points that annoying SAFEST MINING PERIOD EVER will get called a Bushco sycophant or some such silliness.
Doesn’t this ever become tiresome?
Blue Neponset
Of course he isn’t, Clinton is. Ask Darrell about FISA procedures and the war in Iraq if you don’t believe me.
Uberweiss
I read wrong. I am sorry, I got my information incorrect. Ignore what I had said about this.
Don Surber
Hear, hear.
I didn’t vote for Joe, but he is a standup guy and I seriously doubt that he would tolerate recklessness at the state mine office. He knows mining
As to the feds, the deaths and injuries have slowly wound down under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. No one wants dead miners.
To those who think Wilbur Ross, Ben Hatfield or Don Blankenship don’t care about their workers, tell you what, you pony up $2.25 million for the Sago Mine Fund like they did yesterday.
neil
SAFEST MINING PERIOD EVER
Let’s focus on that, shall we?
No. We won’t. We’d all rather blame Bush, right?
Right on. The ignorant libs all want to ignore this, just like they ignore the fact that January-August 2001 had the fewest terrorist attacks of any period in American history. But God forbid Bush get any credit for that, am I right?
neil
Oh, by the way, this seems relevant:
neil
Wheeling News-Register editorial
Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2004
Lines
Also, during the period from 2001-2004 the number of mine closures due to bankruptcies and other non-safety factors went up as well, which would reduce the total number of workers used to create the statistics..
jack
See? Bush lies! Nikki sure showed us.
.002(roughly) percentage points WORSE than the mines under Clinton–A-HA. More Republican prevarication.
I could ask how many of each number were actually miners. I could tell those 5 miners who’re still alive over and above the previous fatality rate that they STILL didn’t do better than the Clinton years, so take THAT, Bush junta.
But why bother? Carl Rove probably set the explosives himself. He did it in New Orleans. And he was flying those planes on 9/11 to insure that the Bush dictatorship would have TOTAL NEO-CON POWER.
In fact, maybe we shouldn’t even be talking about this. Rove might flip out and kill somebody
Uberweiss
Just one question; Will everybody who says this is Bush’s fault or it is his fault at least indirectly be able to admit they are wrong if this whole thing turns out to be the fault of a lightning strike? That makes me very curious. Of course I guess everybody will say that it is Bush’t fault that he didn’t do something about stopping lightning from striking.
capelza
Just an honest science question here…how could a lightening strike cause an explosion 13,000 feet (or whatever it was) below ground?
KC
What if John’s right and this was just an accident? Until things are sorted through, I’m leaning that way.
Lines
The only thing I see people blaming Bush for is a reduction is mining regulations and reduction of funds for MSHA, as well as appointing unqualified industy people to positions where they can do a lot of damage in the name of profit.
I’ve read Shield’s rant a couple times and there may be a way to kinda say he’s blaming Bush for this specific accident, but more like he’s using this accident to illustrate that a reduction of MSHA enforcment and regulations is a dangerous trend that people will want to watch for. Its only Republican assholes that are saying the liberals are blaming Bush for the explosion.
Zifnab
If the lightning strike caused an explosion in an area of the mine that was already deemed unsafe and considered a massive fire hazard, then no I will not admit that I was wrong. Because then the lightning strike was merely a catalyst that kick-started a problem everyone had been anticipating.
Much like how Hurricane Katrina wasn’t Bush’s fault but Micheal Brown was. Bush didn’t cause the lightning strike, but he did cause the shill government workers in charge of mine safety.
Uberweiss
My entire point is that everybody, including myself, republicans and democrats, have completely jumped to conclusions about what happened. Maybe we should all sit back and what to see what happened there before we all start pointing fingers.
How could a lightning strike cause an explosion 13,000 feet below the surface? All it takes is a tiny spark to ignite methane buildup, which in any mine, is going to happen. Methane buildup that is.
Lines
Uberweiss: You’ve chosen to focus only on the single accident while people are asking much bigger questions that go way past what happened this week.
Mike S
Not to attack you but Hannity has millions of viewers/listeners a day. MYDD has, according to site meter, 20,000 visits a day. And you have to wonder how many of those are because the whiners on the right were linking to him and spewing their usual lies about just what he said.
Jill
Woo hoo, Ross, Hatfield and Blankenship donated 2.25 million dollars divided by 13…I believe that either Ross or Blankenship are billionaires so please don’t hold them up as pillars of generosity.
srv
Not 13,000′ down. That’s how long the mine is. I think it’s only a few 100′ deep. The sealed off shaft may have been connected to the surface and the shaft they were in (if I read that all right).
Jill
13,000 feet into the mountain, 260 feet underground
srv
Maybe noble, or maybe they and the insurance company better be pro-active when they’re not getting great media coverage. The survival of this mine/business is at stake here.
I wonder how much a gas sensor in a sealed-off shaft costs?
capelza
Thanks for the answers….I just heard 13,000 feet. That makes more sense.
neil
This blogger, who is apparently a (former?) MSHA employee, says it’s MSHA’s fault that the bad information got out and stayed out.
In her post, she alludes to this:
Dirk Fillpot is a former Pat Toomey press secretary as recently as the 2004 primary election. Amy Louviere and Rodney Brown are apparently MSHA careerists — they were there as long ago as 2000.
Scott H
I have no problem, if after an investigation, fingers are pointed at this administration, at MSHA and OSHA and the President’s appointments… [Cole]
OSHA has no jurisdiction, which you would know if you would get your fingers out of your ears. Try MSHA.gov & Google. How many investigations, inspections & citations, expert assessments do you require? Oh, the one that confirms your bias?
To those who think Wilbur Ross, Ben Hatfield or Don Blankenship don’t care about their workers, tell you what, you pony up $2.25 million for the Sago Mine Fund like they did yesterday. [Surber]
Which would compare how to their contributions to Republican PACs? And how much is 13 into $2.25 million? How much have the “death and injuries slowly wound down” relative to the decline in mining employment? Or would the math be creeping too close to actual journalism? Death & dismemberment are cost of business to these guys. (Lordy, how I miss LT Anderson.)
It’s a beautiful world when the most dangerous part of your job is the drive-time traffic in Charleston (or Morgantown).
srv
Some quotes from a local that might be of interest:
Not sure if the ‘previous mine’ is the one that was sealed off.
CSMon Article
jg
Why do intelligent people lose their ability to comprehend when Bush is the topic of discussion?
No one is saying Bush caused the mine accident. No one is saying it wasn’t an accident.
Its very simple. This was an accident but maybe it could have been prevented. What would have prevented it? Who is ultimately responsible for the type of measures put in place to prevent industrial accidents? I’m not saying Bush is responsible for preventing industrial accidents, the people who own that industry are but we all know they are only going to do the minimum they can and still be pofitable. Someone has to force them somehow to do what needs to be done. Bush doesn’t believe government should do that. Thats how he’s responsible. Its indirect but its there.
Acting like anyone is blaming Bush for causing the accident is the same as calling someone evil. Its lazy and dismissive. And basically a chidish way of ‘winning’ an argument or just avoiding a subject that makes you uncomfortable.
Instead of ‘this is Bush’s fault’ how about ‘this shows that some government regulation is nescessary’. Any less uncomfortable?
ape
Before any tragedies, critics accused Bush of being a shill for his industry donors, and placing a fox to guard every henhouse (or else knocking down the walls entirely).
Read Franken & Iwins. This is NOT opportunism. Actually, wrong or right, its the heart of the left’s criticism of Bushism.
Why shouldn’t they continue this afterwards? The particulars of any disaster are technical matters for the relevant authorities. (Hopefully, unless you’re Bush, these include a reasonably well-toothed watchdog agency in industries where serious externalities are likely).
The principle of the need for genuine oversight, with rules written on the basis of the scientific consensus (rather than being cancelled out by the ‘junk-science’-battling doubt-manufacturers), remains. When industries remind us of their potential for externalities and catastrophes, it’s right that we think again about Bush’s attitude to regulation.
John Cole
Jackass, I am well aware what MSHA does. I included OSHA because I was presenting a laundry list to show I don’t care WHO is blamed, if they are in fact deserving of the blame.
Jeebus.
srv
The noble Wilbur Ross has already declared:
Prediction: we will hear the words “freak accident” out of the administration very shortly.
Uberweiss
I honestly couldn’t agree with you more. This is a very good point which a lot of people, including myself, should and continue to consider.
ape
JG –
re 12.57pm
spot on! we were surely trying to say exactly the same thing, although you managed it with eloquence.
Pooh
Uhm, folks, why are we jumping up and down on John here?
He’s not saying don’t give blame where blame is due, he’s saying let’s, you know, find out about it a little before we “start chucking bodies”. (For some reason, I’m getting Pythonesque images in my head…)
Upon consideration, I think he is overreacting, because this story probably does have political legs. Legitimately so. And waiting to plan the strategy until ‘we have all the facts’ strikes me as less than best practices. (If the facts turn out differently, obviously you go a different direction. But you have to have a gameplan). But his distate is certainly understandable. As a recent newcomer here it always surprises me when people accuse John of shilling, because he seems more objective about the administration than many so-called moderates *cough*althouse*cough*. (BTW, this site is so on the nose it’s scary.)
This doesn’t change the fact that Shields was a bit Hunnish.
Pooh
er that should be this site
Bob In Pacifica
Bush is guilty of nothing. There are no consequences, just unfortunate events without meaning. There is no meaning, only belief.
+++
If there had been a progressive President in place who pushed for mine safety, or emergency preparedness for natural disasters, or who read reports about the problems of, say, the levee systems surrounding New Orleans and made it policy to correct these problems and took an affirmative action against these things, not all potential for harm would be removed from the world. But one could weigh the actions taken with the results. Maybe we should have done more, maybe nothing could be done that would have prevent this disaster or that one. But we would have been in an area where reasonable debate could occur. With Bush and his policies, the best we get from the reactionaries is a quote of odds on levee failures, terrorist attacks and mine disasters: God spins the wheel and scoops up the chips. We are the chips.
Much of what lands around Bush is not due to bad luck. If you cut funds for building levees and the levees fail, that is an indication that you don’t care all that much about the levees and the people who live on the other side of them. You care less about levees and more about tax cuts to millionaires. If you fill up the mine safety agency with shills and hacks from the industry and then a mining disaster comes crashing down on a group of miners, you damned well should face scrutiny, and I don’t mean the kind of scrutiny you get from a suck-up bunch of shills waiting for their next Abramoff. You have proven that you care less about mine safety and more about energy corporations making more money. If you don’t bother reading or heeding memos about al Qaeda planning to attack inside America and they they blow up the WTC, then you should be criticized for your policies, for your priorities and for the job you do.
That is, except in the minds of true believers like Stormy and the Professor here in the land of the Burning Bush. In their world part of the worship service is to forgive the Father for His Fuckups. God Bless Y’all.
Scott H
Jackass, I am well aware what MSHA does. I included OSHA because I was presenting a laundry list to show I don’t care WHO is blamed
Jackass is a helluva rebuttal. So, let’s just blame Jeebus on your laundry list, okay? Miracle pulled. The snark about your job hit the thin skin much? Get on your knees and thank your Jeebus you don’t have to go work a job where death has corporation lawyers on its side – and all you have is the Grace of God.
I don’t want to troll you, Cole. Just tell me why the pointless rush to catch the phantom bullet for Bush? The facts on the page anywhere one cares bother to look. Twelve men dead, one kid brain damaged for life, and this is your jumping off point? Never mind. It’s your blog. Yeah. Whatever.
Maybe Surber, a working journalist, can call me a f*cktard, and I will be thoroughly routed.
Pooh
So, I’m guessing the call for a reasoned debate hit home.
Scott H
Jeebus, I have become a troll — because what I wanted to say was it is no “accident” when then conditions for the inevitable event are well documented – and the authority to enforce the abatement of these conditions has been thwarted. This is known – can be known – not so widely as it may be. Will the press pursue it? Probably not.
Bloggers ought to pursue, if no one else will, and with a vengeance. People are dead. It isn’t abstract. That is why I get agitated, and trollishly sucked into a distraction, when I read a bunch of what I see as waffling.
John Cole
Scott H-
The jackass remark was in response to the ‘fingers in your ears’ comment, and applies as well to your latest assertion that I am trying to ‘catch a phantomo bullet’ for Bush. I personally am sick and tired of Bush, and actually have pretty clearly stated I regret my vote in ’04.
I just want the repercussions from this accident to be based on fact, rather than suspicions and accusations. there are twelve dead here, and an honest accounting of what happened is deserved. Not, as many hope, simply partisan finger-pointing without any evidence ofwhat the real problem was.
BadTux
Regardless of whether mining in general is safer or not, it is clear from this *particular* mine’s safety record over the last couple of years, with hundreds of safety violations of which dozens were detirmined “critical”, that it was a disaster waiting to happen. The question of what happened in this *specific* incident is of disinterest to me mostly because regardless of whether this was an act of God or an act of negligence, that does not change the fact that the mine was unsafe and needed far more attention than the handslaps that the mine operator received.
For those who claim that the WV mine regulators wouldn’t allow an unsafe mine to continue operation, have you ever lived in WV? The mining companies, whenever the regulators threaten to come down hard on a mine, go to the workers and tell the workers that they will close the mine if the regulators keep wanting to do their jobs. The workers are given a choice of working in an unsafe mine, or working nowhere at all, and express the same to their legislators, who then intervene to save the miners’ jobs. The mining companies have all the power here, the miners have none. They can either work in an unsafe mine, or starve to death.
For those who state “well, okay, but that still doesn’t need overnment intervention, let the free market decide”: This situation is *already* the result of massive government intervention in the free market, specifically, the government grant of limited liability, the most massive government intervention ever. Since due to this government intervention the owners of the mine are no longer held personally and severally liable (i.e. no longer face the threat of prison for negligent homocide) if a man is killed due to the negligence of the mine management, they thus have every incentive to order the mine management to cut corners.
The fact that the majority of mine owners and managers resist that temptation according to the statistics posted elsewhere in this thread does not change the fact that some will not. Every government intervention has unintended consequences that often require *further* government intervention, and this is no exception. As long as we have the government grant of limited liability exempting owners of a company from personal responsibility for the actions of the company, we will need government oversight of corporations in order to protect the lives and safety of their workers and customers. The only alternative is to remove the government intervention (the grant of limited liability) and go back to the English common law situation, where the owners of a business were personally responsible for all consequences of a business’s operation, including the possibility of going to jail for negligent homocide if a worker or customer died due to the negligence of their management. Without consequences, a true free market does not exist and cannot work, and we get situations like unsafe mines that require yet *more* government intervention to handle.
– Badtux the Libertarian Penguin
jg
What happens when you add ‘tort reform’ to ‘limited liability’?
Pooh
The ‘best’ dive bar here has a slogan: “We screw the other guy and pass the savings on to you.” If you substitute ‘consumers/workers’ for ‘other guy’ and ‘corporate profits’ for ‘you’…
Seriously though, tort reform is an interesting subject which deserves serious discussion, not simplistic ‘award-caps’ or ‘liability-shields’. The ‘frivolous lawsuits’ rhetoric drives me batshit crazy, because you are assuming the conclusion that the lawsuits are frivolous. If a company is getting its pants sued off (looking at you MERCK), they may have done something wrong…
Personally, I think that more stringent enforcement of certain legal ethics rules would get us pretty far. If lawyers start getting fined for filing unfounded cases, they might be a little more circumspect in their choice of clients. Similarly, the system of awarding private punitive damages needs to be seriously re-thought.
Scott H
John Cole, I owe you lunch some time when I am in Morgantown. At least, an apology; it is your home here.
Everybody’s mad. I am livid. It needs to be unpartisaned, to contrive a verb, although it doesn’t look good for certain sides. There’s plenty of forensics – none of which will mean much if it is not pursued. I expect the coal operators to showcase a demonstration of abatements for a little while. MSHA scurries to highlight methane and diesel particulate dangers. I really don’t expect much from Acting Assisant Secretary Dye’s special investigation. They will be investigating what they already know – what MHSA knew, what the operators knew, what the miners knew. There is plenty of fault with the policies of the Department of Labor – maybe all of it. Still, I am willing to be surprised.
Anyway, I bolted from the Republican Party in 1996, after 24 years, because the trend that continues today was evident to me then. I wasn’t a prophet – you are actually younger than I was at that breaking point.
I abhor the partisanship in this case, I abhor the money and political clout that buys the delays and the immunity and the obfuscation, I abhor a weak press (I cancelled my newspaper subscription because of a Don Surber column, to be frank), and I am none too happy that I allowed my feelings to get way out in front of what I really meant to say.
So, sorry.
Lines
Can we have an open thread that bashes Don Surber? I mean, is there really a more partisan ignorant journalist out there that believes so highly in himself? Come on, John, we really need to let Don know just how much America loves him and his unusually high amount of ignorance and ineptitude.
p.lukasiak
Just one question; Will everybody who says this is Bush’s fault or it is his fault at least indirectly be able to admit they are wrong if this whole thing turns out to be the fault of a lightning strike?
um, no.
lightning strikes are predictable events.
methane build-up is predictable as well.
So, the company seals off an old part of the mine four weeks ago — without (apparently) taking the necessary steps to prevent it from becoming one giant chamber full of concentrated methane, and installing the monitoring equipment necessary to detect dangerous levels of methane inside the sealed off area.
p.lukasiak
Oh, did anyone else notice THIS….
The most confounding question for mining industry experts is what triggered the explosion early Monday morning, just after the first two teams of miners had entered the coal mine. A mined-out chamber perpendicular to the main shaft had been sealed off four weeks ago with twin seals two or more feet thick. These seals were blown out into the main shaft with such force that some debris struck a second team of more than a dozen men who were riding in on a rail car hundreds of feet away.
Now, go back and look at John’s earlier threads, where he says “we don’t know how it happened….”
Well, somebody had a pretty fucking good idea of what happened immediately after the explosion occurred. Maybe they didn’t know for certain where the “spark” came from….but guess what — we aren’t EVER gonna know for certain where the spark came from, and it DOESN’T fucking matter where it came from.
What matters is that all day Monday, all day Tuesday, and all day Wednesday, THEY knew what happened, and it wasn’t until Wednesday night that people who were lucky enough to be on the “right” side of the explosion started to talk.
John Cole
Some vast deductive powers there, Lukasiak.
Of course we have known since the explosion that something, well, exploded. We don’t know WHY or HOW.
Jaysus.
jg
WE don’t but someone does and probably knew since very soon after the explosion. IMO its pretty unlikely the operators of the mine were completely in the dark about the causes for very long. Its a mine, explosions are possible and so not completely unexpected or difficult to decipher afterwards.
jolly
Bush is responsible for nothing bad that happens. Everything he does is absolutely right and in the best interests of the country. God tells him what to do.
I know that because my DVD and bottle of scotch told me that.
Now go away. I’ve got hours of DVDs to watch. Don’t waste my time on stupid political affairs.
p.lukasiak
Of course we have known since the explosion that something, well, exploded. We don’t know WHY or HOW.
John, what we didn’t know until today was that the explosion occurred in an abandoned offshoot from the main mine that had some kind of double sealed two foot deep barrier.
There was published speculation that the explosion happened in a “sealed off area”, and that was it.
…and the mining company never said a word about the facts which were known for nearly 3 full days. Neither did federal or state officials (did they know?).
It wasn’t until survivors of the original explosion started talking to the media Wednesday night (and the timing of when they started talking would be interesting to know) that these details came out — note, NOT from the company.
Your whole schtick has been “we don’t know enough about what happened to judge.” Well, it turns out that it wasn’t a “mystery”….the information had been withheld from us.
So why don’t you cut the crap with this “wait and see” attitude. There was a cover-up of what happened—and when you know there is a cover-up, “wait and see” is the perfect prescription to sustain that cover-up.
My theory — the mine owners wanted to cover it up — if the miners survived, the explosion would be “no big deal.” If the miners died, an “investigation” could be launched, and by the time the findings were released it nobody would much care — especially if the findings were released late on Good Friday or something.
We’d be “waiting and seeing” just like you want, John…. and instead of action being taken, there would be more tragedies —
and you would say “wait and see” for the next one…
and the next…
and the next…
John Cole
P. Lukasiak- You really are off the deep-end. it has been widely reported that the explosion was in a sealed off area. It was all over the radio here, and I know for a fact that I knew on Tuesday that the explosion had occurred in a sealed off area.
Here is Anderson Cooper on Tuesday, but I knew about this well before then:
I don’t know why you feel like information is being hidden from you, and I don;t know how an explosion in a sealed off area of the mine proves anything. As I noted in the post here, it would narrow down some human possibilities.
I don;t know why you think this proves there is some sort of ‘cover-up,’ and why you think that this entitles you to rush to some conclusion as to what happened to cause the explosion.
It doesn’t. I am not sure why you are in such a hurry to make determinations as to what happened without a thorough investigation.
p.lukasiak
from the same transcript…
now, do you really think that Cooper was just saying “gee, we don’t know where the spark came from that ignited the methane that collected in an area that had been sealed off four weeks ago?”
If you read the rest of the transcript, there is speculation about what happened, and where it happened.
But it turns out that the company knew PRECISELY where it happened…
find me an account from before today that has this kind of detail…
and you’ll have a point.
p.lukasiak
….oh, and btw, are you sure you knew what happened… because this statement from your post…
which is a reference to the quoted material, sure as hell sounds to me like you didn’t KNOW that “this occurred in a part of the mine that was sealed off”….
John Cole
Paul- I don;t know when I learned, but I believe it was sometime Tuesday. It was around when the information that one miner had been found.
yes, I knew it for sure, and the reason I find it most interesting is not because it is new to me, but because it occurring in a sealed off portion of the mine really reduces (or would seem to) the ways that it could have happened.
Again- why are you in such a rush to determine the company is lying (when they have really said nothing to date), and why are you in such a rush to tell us what really happened before they can even investigate and come to a conclusion what happened?
Has nothing to do with a political agenda, does it?
p.lukasiak
yes, I knew it for sure, and the reason I find it most interesting is not because it is new to me, but because it occurring in a sealed off portion of the mine really reduces (or would seem to) the ways that it could have happened.
John, you probably made reasonable assumptions, based on what you knew — but the quote from Tuesday’s Cooper-rama could refer to secondary explosions…. and today’s story makes it clear that the crisis was caused by a massive explosion in a recently sealed off area.
The “recently” part is probably the most significant news, because this mine is under new ownership, and the “sealing” was done under that new ownership. I honestly don’t know enough about mine safety regulations to say this with any certainty, but I have a very hard time believing that such areas are allowed to be sealed in a way that allows methane gas to collect (and concentrate) in them.
Here’s a guess…. methane was detected coming from the “unused” area in sufficient quantities to make the rest of the mine dangerous. The cheapest way to deal with the problem was to put in an air-tight seal — but that was either considered very risky, or even illegal. But they did it anyway, because the “safe/legal” alternative didn’t meet the cost/benefit test.
**************************
there are a number of other things that bother me about this story….
apparently, the “trapped” miners weren’t actually trapped by debris, but the fact that they had only an hour’s worth of portable oxygen, and no way of knowing if they could get out, so they looked for a place with some decent air, and stayed put.
But why did that stop the rescue teams…. the initial teams were stopped by “too much smoke”….but smoke settles in a couple of hours — and I haven’t read anywhere that fires continued to burn in the mine.
can you explain this? Because, in addition to my usual “Bush hating” paranoia, I think there may be something very “wrong” with this whole story….
John Cole
Paul- I don’t know what happened, but unlike you, I accept my limited knowledge of mine safety and mine explosions, and thus see no need to make careless casual speculations about the cause of the explosion.
After their report is released will be the time for me to try to decide whether or not they were lying or did anything wrong. Not before anyone has even tried to explain what happened.
p.lukasiak
Paul- I don’t know what happened, but unlike you, I accept my limited knowledge of mine safety and mine explosions, and thus see no need to make careless casual speculations about the cause of the explosion.
honestly…. does it make sense to you that mine safety regulations would permit an area of the mine that is directly connected to the main artery to be sealed off like this — in a way that allows methane to collect and concentrate — and not be monitored?
Here is why I don’t think it makes sense… the “rail cars” rolled right past this seal. That means that if the seal is breached, a spark from the rails could ignite the methane leaking from the “sealed” chamber…and the ignition could travel through the leak and into the sealed chamber, and BOOM!
We know that isn’t what happened here. The dead miners were far enough from the explosion that their car was not damaged…and the second crew—the ones that got out, were still a couple of hundred feet from the sealed chamber.
I’m not asking you to speculate….just think and tell me if it makes sense. The fact that it doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean that regulations were not ignored…. regulations don’t always make sense.
Pb
Stormy,
Oddly, I trust what the New York Times says over much of what you say around here, and I don’t trust the Times that much.
Nikki,
You’re welcome.
jack,
You’re being a moron. If you ever do want to talk about actual statistics, numbers, or facts, well, you’re free to start doing so at any time.
p.lukasiak, John Cole, and the rest,
There’s some great background information and speculation over at Daily Kos, check it out.
garhane
Curious . You would place the burden of causation proof on someone (the miners ?) to show it was not a lightening strike. And this in a case where a vulture capitalist company had arrived, a year or so back, to pick the bones of a marginal mine and had already accumulated a record of 16 suspensions of operation due to concentrations of exposive gases. And then the mine had an explosion of gas. And the men died. So unusual in coal mines. Maybe it was the lightening, or global warming, or the tooth fairy. Let these hapless miners show otherwise to your satisfaction.
I was just wondering if you are an executive, or a former executive, of a Worker’s Copensation company or agency. You know, the outfits that have sought to deny for 70 years that miners get black lung from the mines. You most definitely have the touch.
John Cole
Grahane- That was incoherent. When you figure out precisely what you are accusing me of, come back and write it up again. All I have stated, repeatedly, is that we don;t know what happened and we should wait for the report to figure out where we stand.