Retreat mining studied after deaths

CUMBERLAND, Ky. — Layers of rock overhead rumble like thunder. Dirt and pebbles rain down. A rock fall is imminent. So what is a miner to do?

"You run for your life," said Tim Miller, who toiled in Kentucky's mines for more than two decades.

People who work in underground coal mines know what it's like to have to scurry like gophers through the darkness to get away from falling rocks. Miners say that's part of the job, especially when it comes to digging coal from the very pillars that keep layers of rock from collapsing in on them.

Though it may seem strange to people outside the coal industry, generations of miners have been cutting away those pillars to increase coal production in a practice known as retreat mining. It's legal and considered standard procedure. But it has claimed the lives of 17 coal miners in the past seven years.

In Kentucky alone, four miners have been crushed in rock falls during retreat mining in the past 14 months.

"You're definitely playing Russian roulette," said Miller, now an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, which spells out in its contract that members can withdraw from any section of mine they believe is unsafe. "You remove those pillars, the roof is coming down. It's inevitable."

Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher has commissioned a study to look for ways to make retreat mining safer, an initiative he announced soon after two miners were killed in a rock fall three miles inside a mine near Cumberland, Ky., on Aug. 3.

Investigators said the mine roof gave way without warning in the Stillhouse Mining operation, burying the miners under a layer of rocks 20 feet wide, 20 feet long and 11 feet high. The body of Brandon Wilder, 23, was found within a few hours, but it took searchers more than three days to recover the body of 39-year-old Russell Cole.

About half of Kentucky's underground coal mines do retreat mining, said Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, which supports a study of the procedure.

However, Caylor said he believes retreat mining, also known as pillaring, or secondary mining, is important because it allows companies to get more coal than they otherwise would.