Operator says Sago Mine was a ‘safe operation’

BUCKHANNON, W.Va. – The operator of the Sago Mine said Wednesday that the company had spent heavily on safety improvements in the months before an explosion that led to the deaths of 12 miners.

Ben Hatfield, chief executive of International Coal Group Inc., said the company rebuilt two miles of primary escapeway, upgraded the mine’s rail transportation system and implemented employee safety training that exceeded legal requirements.

In the last six months of 2005, there was a 60 percent reduction in lost-time injuries at the mine.

“In my opinion, the Sago Mine was a safe operation,” Hatfield said.

Hatfield’s comments came a day after the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration released documents showing that 17 of the 208 alleged safety violations at the mine in 2005 were for serious problems, including the accumulation of “combustible materials” such as loose coal and coal dust.

Hatfield said, however, that company officials “have heard nothing in the course of all this debate about the safety violations that even remotely connects” with any possible cause of the explosion.

Officials have said the explosion likely occurred in an area of the mine that was sealed in December. While in the mine, rescue workers found that the mine seals – which were to be checked weekly – had been “blown toward the surface,” Ray McKinney, MSHA’s administrator for coal mine safety and health, said Wednesday in Washington.

Also Wednesday, Hatfield said the mine should be sufficiently vented of toxic gases in four to seven days, allowing investigators to enter for the first time since the disaster.

ICG has said it inherited many of the mine’s safety problems from its former owner and had been working to correct the violations. ICG formally took control of the former Anker Energy mine in November.

All of the 17 citations were for “aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence,” according to MSHA documents.

Tony Oppegard, a former MSHA official and mine safety prosecutor in Kentucky, said it’s that fact – not just the number of violations – that should be a concern.

“This type of violation indicates that the operator knew the condition existed and didn’t do anything to fix it,” he said. “It shows an indifference to safety or an extreme lack of care.”

In the last citation issued before the accident, dated Dec. 14, an MSHA inspector said a failure to address coal dust and excessive amounts of loose coal – in some places 29 inches deep – “showed a high degree of negligence for the health and safety of the miners.”