Coal mine back in action after a partial shutdown

A typical workday would see 240 coal truck drivers making three runs apiece to the Sufco coal mine 30 miles east of Salina, Sevier County.

Those trucks were mostly idle Wednesday through Friday, when part of the mine was shut down following a rupture in the floor of the mine near longwall mining equipment.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration inspected damage in the mine and kept the longwall operation idle through Friday before allowing the mine to resume full operation.

No miners were near the equipment at the time of the "bump" early Wednesday, and there were no injuries, said Kim Link, spokeswoman for St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc., which owns the Sufco Mine.

MSHA subsequently ordered the longwall operation to remain idle until it had a chance to investigate.

"Given what happened at Crandall Canyon (Mine), they're very concerned about erring on the side of caution," MSHA spokesman Matt Faraci said Friday morning of the pace and scope of MSHA's investigation. "We're just thankful that nobody got hurt."

The bump scored a 2.8-magnitude reading on seismograph equipment operated by the Utah Seismology Stations at the University of Utah.

Arch Coal employs about 300 at Sufco, Link said. None lost work time during the investigation.

Most affected in the short term were the truck drivers who haul coal from the mine.

The mine does stockpile coal that kept some trucks operating during the partial closure. Kim Robinson, president of Robinson Transport, one of two trucking companies that haul Sufco's coal, said he had reassigned some trucks, but most were idle Friday. Trucking is interrupted for scheduled mine maintenance and other less-frequent unscheduled events.

"They have regular mechanical problems; once in a while they have to shut the mine down or something breaks and they're down four to five hours," Robinson said. "This one is larger than normal."

Link and Robinson agree the Sufco bump and subsequent investigation received more publicity than usual because of what happened at the Crandall Canyon Mine, where a major bump irretrievably trapped six miners in August and was followed by another bump that killed three rescue workers.

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