Coal mining: Why 29 men are dead

It was “a sadly familiar scene in Appalachian coal country,” said Patrik Jonsson in The Christian Science Monitor. First came the news last week of an underground blast at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., followed by days of frantic rescue efforts while loved ones gathered and prayed. Then came word that all 29 men trapped by the blast had died. Now, in the wake of the most deadly U.S. coal mining accident in 40 years, comes “the inevitable question: Who—or what—is responsible?” We already know the answer, said Susan Kushner Resnick in The Boston Globe. “Wealthy mine owners value profits more than lives.” The Upper Big Branch mine had been cited for safety violations 1,342 times since 2005, but it was cheaper for owner Massey Energy to pay the fines “than to fix what’s broken.”

Blame also the federal government’s “meek” oversight, said Michael Cooper in The New York Times. In theory, the Mine Safety and Health Administration enforces safety standards and can close mines deemed unsafe. In reality, its fines “are merely rounding errors” on mining companies’ bottom lines. And of the $123.4 million in major fines levied since 2005, only 8 percent has even been collected, because owners routinely challenge them. Last week’s disaster was “entirely preventable,” said the San Jose Mercury News in an editorial. It was caused by a buildup of methane gas in the mine, which was repeatedly cited for poor ventilation. Upper Big Branch mine is a grim monument to what happens when businesses succeed in getting government off their backs.

Undeniably, mining is “dangerous work,” said The Wall Street Journal. But in the last decade, the injury rate in U.S. coal mines has fallen by 45 percent while the fatality rate dropped by 62 percent. “A balance has to be struck between zero accidents and letting the industry function”—an industry, it bears mentioning, that provides Americans with 45 percent of their electricity. That pretty much sums it up, said Tawni O’Dell in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I grew up in coal country, and know firsthand that our society cares little for the “hardworking, hard-living, often hard-drinking men” who work in mines. They’re not “cute and helpless like baby seals,” and no celebrity or college students will stage protests to save them. We’ll just keep sending them down into the earth, day after day, noticing they exist only “when someone dies.”

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