A matter of safety: Utah's coal mines repeatedly break rules

Despite Utah's long history of mine disasters such as the ongoing Crandall Canyon tragedy, Utah coal mines still consistently and repeatedly break even the most essential of safety rules.

In fact, federal inspectors have cited underground coal mines here with more than 5,000 safety violations since 2004, and more than 1,800 of them were considered "significant and substantial" threats to health and life.

Utah mines are fined hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for violations, yet the same problems recur time and again. And at least seven times in the past three years, inspectors even temporarily evacuated some Utah mine sections because of serious, imminent threats they found.

Critics say fines are too small and the threats of long-term mine closures too remote to be much of a deterrence to unsafe practices. Some operators may think shortcuts can make mines more profitable as they compete with razor-thin profit margins against foreign mines that may lack the safety measures mandated here, observers say.

Still, with all of that, and until the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster, coal mining in Utah had been safer in recent years than in the rest of the United States, according to a computer-assisted review by the Deseret Morning News of data about coal-mine inspections, violations, accidents and fatalities compiled by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

Utah's coal-mining accident rate had been lower, and its fatality rate was average, the newspaper's review shows.

Broken rules

Shortly after the initial Crandall Canyon collapse on Aug. 6, MSHA issued a statement noting, "All mining methods can be dangerous if applicable laws, regulations and approved plans are not followed." MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere added Thursday, "Most mining accidents and injuries are a direct result of a mine operator's failure to comply with mine safety and health regulations."

Despite that, rules often are not followed in Utah mines, according to federal mine inspectors. They cited at least 5,095 violations in the 13 currently operational underground coal mines inspected in Utah since 2004.

Of those, 1,843 violations, or 36 percent, were deemed "significant and substantial." MSHA says such "S&S" violations "could reasonably be expected to lead to a serious injury or illness." It also adds that MSHA takes each violation "seriously, regardless of whether or not it is an S&S violation."

Half of all the "significant and substantial" violations in Utah were for excess "accumulation of combustible materials," especially coal dust that could lead to fires or explosions.