The latest headline news item on the InfoMine news page tells of the tough conditions facing those trying to dig through the collapse rubble that blocks the way to their fellow miners, whose condition and fate we do not know. I for one am impressed by the courage and determination of the 80 shoring up walls and ceilings. Sure it’s frustrating and slow going. It’s difficult and dangerous.
Meanwhile far less dangerous activities are going on above ground: talking and writing about conditions that may have caused the collapse. Depending on who holds center stage the cause was one or more of the following: a natural disaster; mother nature and her earthquakes; mine-induced seismicity; retreat mining; pillar robbing; rock bursts; or other.
I suggest we suspend judgment on the issue of technical causation for now. The consultants’ reports are being dusted off. Experts are settling down to read the technical reports. Lawyers are gathering. Insurance companies are quaking. A lot of money rides on the conclusion of what caused the collapse. Some will get rich; some will be impoverished. There will be much legal fighting, I suspect. Unless the insurance companies step forward and pay up fast. (I saw a report that Emery County already plans to send the insurance company a $200,000 bill for extra services.)
What is interesting though is the question of just how finality on technical causation will be reached. Will we convene a panel of independent peer reviewers? Will we sort it out on TV talk-shows and radio stations? Will we leave it to the experts from the competing parties to fight it out all the way to the Supreme Court? I fear the latter–although I believe the industry would do well to set up an independent panel to settle things–maybe one of those prestigious National Academy of Science things?
One thing I would not do is leave it to MSHA. I am prejudiced there, I admit. I even found myself agreeing with this revolutionary sentiment:
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As many of us know from experience, dangerous working conditions are the norm, not the exception, for coal miners and many other workers. In their cutthroat competition for greater productivity and profits, bosses are pushing us to work faster, for longer hours, and cutting corners on safety. Working people cannot rely on MSHA or other agencies of the government, which acts on behalf of the wealthy employing class. Having an effective union is the only way to push back the bosses from forcing us to do whatever they want to get out production.
There are certain things government should do: one of them is regulating the normal (and generally healthy) human instinct to make a profit. That is why we have rules and regulations and government agencies: to protect the small man in the face of the rapacity of the BIG MAN. I can’t help but wonder at the number of fines MSHA levies, without doing anything. I saw they were fining mines for no toilet rolls in the bathrooms. I can agree that the absence of a toilet roll is most irritating; but damn it, what were they doing about fines that clearly indicated unsafe conditions? Seems the response was to issue more fines. Pretty irresponsible if you ask me. Why even the EPA can get out and run a removal action if they see bad things. Why can MSHA not act in a similar proactive way?
Thus let me turn to my main point: more defense of Bob Murray’s defense of miners. Let us assume his essential point is correct: namely that his managers engaged good consultants; the consultants provided sound advice; MSHA made reasonable decisions in allowing mining to continue; his miners worked properly and hard; and mother nature acted capriciously to our detriment. That leaves all free to focus on reaching those trapped. And it leaves to the lawyers the job of deciding which insurance company pays how much.
Murray is obviously old, crusty, opinionated, and on the wrong end of facts. My kids say much the same about me. But he is the face of mining. We have all worked with and for his ilk. He is the miner with energy, drive, and passion. He is what makes so many mines come into being, in spite of criticism, NGOs, environmentalists, journalists, and bloggers. Mining is not those pale professors pontificating from conference lecterns on the need for more funding and more intelligent students. Unless we can explain how and why mining is Bob Murray and how and why Bob Murray is mining, we have not penetrated the industry and never will engage the public to support mining. If we fail to celebrate his continued action and support of those shoring up the walls and ceilings, we miss the essence of mining.
But equally well, if we fail to reform the systems and agencies providing the small man protection from human nature and from mother nature, we fail the industry and society. There is a rough, tough, and interesting road ahead on this one.
Here are the links to the other postings on this event:
Defending Bob Murray and his Huntington Mine tenacity
Bob Murrays’ damage to the public face of the coal industy
Huntington Mine language debacle–why we should all learn Spanish
Huntington Mine’s Murray versus the USGA–Please leave the legal tatic ’till later
