Associated Press photo
This is a photo of a note reportedly scribbled by Martin Toler, one of the 12 coal miners who died earlier this week after an explosion trapped them in the Sago coal mine in what Reuters calls "West Virginia's worst mining disaster since 1968." The note reads: "Tell all I [will?] see them on the other side JR," "It wasn't bad [I?] just went to sleep" and "I love you." Other notes reportedly were found with the bodies of the miners, but thus far only the contents of Toler's note have been made public.
Call in a handwriting expert
Call me cynical, but something doesn't seem right about all of those "Don't worry, I didn't suffer" notes reportedly written by the 12 coal miners who died this past week possibly as a result of corporate greed.
Why do I allege possible corporate greed? Because The Associated Press reports:
According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration:
Sago Mine had 208 alleged violations of federal mine rules in 2005, a number higher than normal for a mine of its size.
The 208 violations included 18 orders shutting down parts of the mine until alleged violations were corrected, but none serious enough to shutter the entire operation.
Eighty-nine citations and orders, or nearly 43 percent, assessed the lowest possible penalty of $60 each, and none exceeded $1,000.
Ninety-six citations were rated ''significant and substantial."
The mine's injury rate among employees per hours worked of 17.4 in 2005 is nearly three times higher than the national average of 6.54. [Emphasis mine.]
International Coal Group Inc., the owner, says it inherited many of the safety problems when it purchased the mine and has been working to correct the violations....
And because CNN reports:
Federal reports show the number of safety violations at the Sago Mine rose rapidly over the past two years, and in 2005 inspectors called 96 of them "serious and substantial."
Add reports of 11 roof collapses in the past six months, and a former top federal official for mine safety says any mine operator should see a red flag.
"That's a signal to you that says, 'You better do something at this workplace, before something bad happens,'" Davitt McAteer said.
McAteer, now a vice president at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, has spent most of the past 40 years involved with mine-safety issues, even helping to shape many of the national policies on this front. He argues that mining is a uniquely complex, demanding and potentially dangerous profession.
"As opposed to other industries," he says, "in mining, small problems mount up quickly and catastrophically."
The Sago Mine accident comes on the heels of seismic shifts in the mining business. In the 1990s, with coal prices low, industry experts said many small mines cut back production, went bankrupt or shut down. In the case of Sago, the industry slump opened the door for billionaire investor Wilbur Ross.
Ross made headlines and a fortune buying up failing steel companies in the past, and now his International Coal Group is doing the same thing in the mining trade.
By purchasing financially wounded companies, Ross's relatively new ICG has taken control of a substantial portion of the nation's coal reserves. ICG took over Sago only in mid-November, and company officials say they have already corrected many of the safety problems cited in past reports.
In the tense hours of waiting and searching, however, that was not a subject company executives wanted to discuss.
"We're not going to get into the violation history or finger pointing," said Ben Hatfield, CEO of International Coal Group. [Here the corporate CEO proclaims that he's going to set the agenda for discussion for everyone. (Hey, he's a corporate CEO! That's as good as Roman emperor for you, you proletariat!)] "That's in no one's interest at this point." [Well, actually that's in everyone's interest -- except for his and International Coal Group's.]
Federal safety records indicate the coal business has grown safer in recent years. Ten years ago, coal mines were claiming around 45 lives every year. Now the numbers hover around half that amount.
Injuries are down, too, even as production rises. Coal industry analysts say better technology has helped make the work safer; so have more concerted efforts throughout the industry to emphasize safety.
The National Mining Association represents many mining companies, although not the International Coal Group, and officials at the mining association say the Sago safety citations are not particularly unusual.
"When I looked at it generally," the association's Bruce Watzman said, "I didn't see anything that caught my attention as being so out of the ordinary. Some were paperwork errors, some reporting errors; (there were) a lot of violations but many were not significant to really impact miners' safety." [I don't know -- if all that he examined was paperwork, well, paperwork can be -- and is -- falsified.]
Watzman argues that while every safety violation should be taken seriously, many may involve lower-level problems that could not reasonably be expected to present an imminent danger.
Davitt McAteer says it is too early to know who, if anyone, should bear responsibility in this accident. But he has a word of caution about the booming coal trade in general, and any company that might seek too much gold too fast from the black rock:
"We've seen historically, the mine companies that operate on the margins and try to push all the costs down and the (profit) margins up in the short run tend to have tremendous safety problems." [Emphasis mine.]
An investigation into the Sago coal mine has just begun; in the end, International Coal Group might be let off the hook. But let's face it: Cutting corners can increase profits -- at least in the short run, because if something catastrophic should happen because of the corner-cutting and lawsuits result, the amount of money dished out as the result of settlements and/or lost lawsuits can easily exceed the money saved from the corner-cutting.
As part of the Sago mining-disaster investigation, I hope that someone makes a serious effort to ascertain whether the notes that International Coal Group claims were found with the bodies of the coal miners are legitimate, that the miners wrote the notes themselves.
Sadly, a Reuters news story indicates that even if the coal miners indeed wrote the notes with their own hands, they might have been coerced into writing them:
"I think he wanted to set our minds at ease, that he didn't suffer, and I just think that God gave him peace at the end," [Martin Toler's] nephew Randy Toler told CNN [of the note attributed to his uncle].
Randy Toler said [the] other [miners'] notes were likely written with his uncle's pen. Martin Toler, 51, was a section foreman with 32 years' mining experience.
"Coal miners typically don't carry ink pens, just the section boss does ... and I'm sure he would have directed them to do that. I'm sure he probably told them that it didn't look good and they needed to make peace with their maker."
I can understand if the miners didn't want their loved ones to think that they died an agonizing death, and I hope that their deaths indeed were as painless as Toler's note indicates they were.
But, if all of the notes found with the bodies indeed were written by the miners, I have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Toler was such a company man -- I mean, I'm guessing that you don't become a foreman if you don't kiss corporate ass -- that even as he was about to die, he wanted to protect the asses of his corporate masters, and so he ordered his underlings to write that their deaths weren't that bad.
And I still have to wonder: Could some or all of the notes attributed to the dead miners have been fabricated by or at the direction of the International Coal Group overlords?
I mean, after having announced that 12 of the 13 miners were alive -- and then having announced about three hours later that no, reverse that, 12 of the 13 miners were dead -- weren't those notes that reportedly were found with the miners' bodies some much-needed positive PR for International Coal Group? And wouldn't the miners' loved ones be at least a little less inclined to sue International Coal Group if they believed that the 12 dead miners at least "just went to sleep"?
Just asking -- because the corporately controlled mainstream media never will ask questions like these.
Information on helping the survivors of the 12 miners is here.
Update: The New York Times reports that West Virginia's chief medical examiner found that the 12 miners died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide poisoning is, to my knowledge, relatively painless -- I mean, people have committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide -- but the miners probably were breathing in more than just carbon monoxide, such as coal dust and other irritants. And apparently carbon monoxide poisoning isn't necessarily painless or uncomfortable, according to this from a Web site on carbon monoxide poisoning:
Mild carbon monoxide poisoning causes headache, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness and poor coordination. Most people who develop mild carbon monoxide poisoning recover quickly when moved into fresh air. Moderate or severe carbon monoxide poisoning causes confusion, unconsciousness, chest pain, shortness of breath and coma. Thus, most victims are not able to move themselves and must be rescued. Severe poisoning is often fatal....
Carbon monoxide is dangerous because a person may not recognize drowsiness as a symptom of poisoning. Consequently, someone with mild poisoning can go to sleep and continue to breathe the carbon monoxide until severe poisoning or death occurs....
I still question the death notes attributed to the miners.
9:22:16 AM 
|
