Coal's Allure

The number of West Virginia miners who work for contract companies, which hire out to do less skilled jobs, rather than the mine companies, has skyrocketed from very few in the mid-1990s to 22,454 in 2004. Only 18,037 miners are reported as working directly for the mines. Though contract companies must meet the same federal and state safety standards, there is concern that worker injuries are not accurately recorded against a mine, thus not accurately reflecting safety conditions.

Coal companies are scrambling to find workers. Many experienced miners are nearing retirement, and often they have kept their kids out of the mines. Classes are being set up to train new miners, but the UMWA worries that too many unseasoned miners could make for more accidents.

At the same time, under the Bush administration, the MSHA has lost some clout. The agency has switched from strict punishment of violations to what is called compliance assistance. Inspectors are supposed to talk with mine operators about improving conditions rather than forcing changes, according to Ellen Smith, owner and managing editor of the Mine Safety and Health News, a magazine that monitors MSHA. Nonetheless, the non-fatal injury rate has declined over the last decade, from 9.95 injuries per 200,000 working hours in 1995 to 5.66 in 2004.

In MSHA's first public statement on Sago last week, a top official said he believed the mine hadn't moved quickly enough to correct problems. "Evidently, their action plan hadn't matured where they were ahead of that type of issue," Ray McKinney, the agency's administrator for coal mine safety and health, told a West Virginia radio show.

Mine disasters have historically prompted safety controls and better mining methods. If the cause of the Sago accident can be determined, perhaps it will bring about not just safety improvements, but, just as importantly, mining that is sensitive to nearby communities and to the environment. In West Virginia, coal mining could become more an equal partner than king.

Over the past nine years, I have watched the partnership between local government and the coal industry take some first steps. Partly prompted by a series of landmark lawsuits over mountaintop removal, Mingo County economic development officials are creating a master plan for bringing new industry with good jobs with benefits onto the mined-out mountains. In Blair, in neighboring Logan County, Arch Coal Inc. even established a citizens' oversight committee to address problems with its new deep mine before they become unmanageable.

Bob Schultz is happy that his son Nick is no longer working for a contract miner -- having joined the union and been hired at a unionized Peabody Energy deep mine. He told Nick he'd either love mining -- or hate it. Nick loves it so much he is eager to join Peabody's rescue team, which helped at Sago. Nick is a fifth-generation miner. With him and other enterprising young people in the coalfields lies the future of coal -- and West Virginia.

Author's e-mail:cfdodge@msn.com

Penny Loeb, a freelance writer who lives in Loudoun County, is writing a book about West Virginia mining struggles for the University Press of Kentucky.