Massey Miners: Disabling Monitors Was Common

[spanone]

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Miners who've worked in Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia say disabling methane monitors was relatively common and was justified by mine managers with false descriptions of mining regulations.

An NPR News investigation has documented an incident in February 2010 in which an Upper Big Branch electrician was ordered to circumvent the automatic shutoff mechanism on a methane detector installed on a continuous mining machine. The machine then continued to cut rock without a working methane monitor, a dangerous and possibly illegal act.

The incident occurred two months before the explosion that killed 29 mine workers. Running mining machines without methane monitors risks similar explosions.

Four former Upper Big Branch miners indicate that the February incident was not isolated. And they describe a Massey Energy practice that characterized mining coal without working monitors as accepted and even legal.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128555903

[Mopar151]

1. Massey will fire the managers

Blame it all on them.

[spanone]

2. calling eric holder, calling eric holder.....where's the DOJ?

[Canuckistanian]

3. Has Blankenship been charged yet?

WTF is going on with him? 20+ people die and there are no consequences whatsoever?

[spanone]

5. sounds like murder to me....25 dead

[izquierdista]

4. I think I know where

to send Cheney's nurses for training.....