02-23-06,8:35am

In an era of information overload—24-hour news on your TV, computer, cell phone, BlackBerry, Bluetooth—it’s easy to become a bit hardened to tragedy. Shake your head. Say “that’s a damn shame,” and move on.

But nobody shrugged and walked away from a packed and overflowing congressional hearing room earlier this month when the widows, sons and daughters of coal miners killed in explosions and fires told their stories and the stories of their dead loved ones.

And if anyone has the right to question the Bush administration’s commitment to mine safety it is Wanda Blevins, whose husband Dave was killed along with 12 others in a methane gas blast in an Alabama mine in 2001, or Debbie Hamner, whose husband George Junior Hamner waited for hours Jan. 2 for a rescue that never came for 12 Sago miners in West Virginia.

Blevins, Hamner and others—including miners who have worked at union and nonunion mines—took part in a special coal mine safety forum organized by Rep. George Miller (Calif.) ranking Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, after Republican leaders refused to schedule a hearing on the recent rash of mine deaths while they were still in the headlines. A full-committee hearing is expected later this spring.

Below are some excerpts from several witnesses, including Blevins, Hamner, Sarah Bailey, Scott Lepka, Chuck Kinsell and Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts.

The full transcript of the hearing is available on Miller’s website. The USW International Union (USW) has posted the full testimony of Michael Wright, USW director of Health Safety and the Environment and Nancy Hutchison, Safety and Health coordinator for USW District 6. Also check out a report by the House Education and Workforce Committee Democratic staff on the Bush administration’s record on mine safety and its ties to the mining industry.

Wanda Blevins

Wanda was 16 and her husband, Dave, was 18 when they were married. He had 34 years experience in coal mining and was killed Sept. 23, 2001. He and 11 other miners at Jim Walters Mine No. 5 in Brookwood, Ala., were attempting to rescue another miner from an earlier explosion and were caught in a second, massive methane gas blast.

They told me that methane moves at like 500 miles an hour; that methane picked him up, it slammed him into the side of that mountain—to the side of that mine, then it brought him back. He landed up inside of a bus. He had over 20 skull fractures, even the orbits of his eyes. Then an eight-ton bus sat on him. He was identified by a single tooth—a single tooth.



And then Ms. Chao [Elaine Chao, U.S. Secretary of Labor] comes to Alabama. She stands on the football field there and she says: ‘I am standing on Ground Zero; we are going to get to the bottom of this explosion so that no other mines in America will ever face this problem.’



That sounded good to me then….But you know what, I’m sad again. I’m just tore up to pieces that here we go again, more miners, are they going to keep dying?



My husband should not have died in vain. And I’m asking you to become his voice.

Debbie Hamner Debbie and George Junior Hamner were married for 32 years before he and 11 other miners were killed in a Jan. 2 explosion at International Coal Group’s Sago Mine in Upshur County, W.Va.

I can’t believe our story’s over.

It breaks my heart to know that there’s modern technology that could have prevented my husband’s death and the Sago mines wasn’t equipped with it.



I’m left with so many questions. One is why wasn’t there a wireless communications system with the outside so that my husband and the other miners could have been told that the best chance for survival was to walk out?



Why weren’t the escape ways well marked so the miners could have seen their way through the smoke and escaped?

Why hasn’t MSHA required mines to be equipped with chambers or at least to require extra air supplies on the sections?



Sarah Bailey As the Sago miners waited underground for a rescue that never came, several wrote notes to their loved ones. Sarah Bailey read her father’s note.

Hi Deb and Sara. I’m still ok at 2:40 p.m. I don’t know what’s going on between here and the outside. We don’t hear any attempts at drilling or rescue. The section is full of smoke and fumes, so we can’t escape. We are all alive at this time. I just want you and Sara to know I love you both and always have. Be strong and I hope no one else has to show you this note. I’m in no pain, but I don’t know how long the air will last. Tell everyone I am thinking of them, especially Billy, Marion, Will, Bill and Peg. I love you all—Junior Hamner, 1-2-06.

Scott Lepka Lepke has worked in both union and nonunion mines and says workers in union mines have added layers of safety protection, not available at nonunion mines.



In the union mines, you have the right to a safe workplace, you have the right to withdraw yourself from a dangerous situation. You also have a safety committee that you can address about safety concerns or problems. In the non-union mines, you have the right to withdraw yourself under federal law. However, I can tell you from experience, most men won’t due to fear for their jobs, and most men don’t feel comfortable pointing out safety issues because if they complain too much, they’re singled out and given less attractive jobs or even fired.



Chuck Kinsell Kinsell currently works at a UMWA mine in Kirby, Pa., but has worked at the Sago Mine and other nonunion operations.

I got to know most of the 12 men that got killed in that Sago Mine. And with my experience working at those coal mines, it wasn’t a pretty place to work. And these men were brave to go into that place every day to take care of their families.

I can go on and on all day about the things that I’ve seen. Talking about gases: Someone mentioned about methane detectors on mining machinery. One of the coal companies’ tricks was to take a Wal-Mart bag and place it over what they call the sniffer [to prevent detection of dangerous levels of methane].



And that was one of their tricks. And that was enforced. I was the miner operator at one of those mines, and that’s what I was told to do.



Well, that’s what I did. I didn’t like to do it, but he [the foreman] said, ‘If you don’t like it, there’s the track. Get on the mantrip [a shuttle car to the mine’s surface]. You’re not going to have a job. We’ve got a stack of applications this thick.’



Coal is back in the spotlight because of the blood of too many miners….Coal companies are getting away with murder.

UMWA President Cecil Roberts



It is a failure of this United States government to not have protected the coal miners in the United States of America—is what’s wrong today.



Starting in 2001, we placed in charge of this agency—that’s supposed to protect coal miners—a coal mine executive, which has already been mentioned today.



In 1969, when Congress wrote this act, they would have never said, “We’ve written this act and we’ve come to grips with the fact that this industry can’t police itself, but now we’re going to create an agency and give it to the industry to run.



They would have never done that in 1969, but we did it in 2001.