Upper Big Branch - Never Again

breaking news in America's coal mining country we now know the coal mine that exploded Monday has a history of safety violations mr. tonight without tonight I'm tonight on April 5th the United States suffered the worst mine disaster in more than a generation nearly everyone reporting the Upper Big Branch tragedy said that a coal bed methane buildup ignited and created a coldest explosion we're 29 miners lost their lives their conclusion a poor safety record and failures by management led to the accident safety record at the Massey Upper Big Branch mine was troubling owners responsible for conditions in the Upper Big Branch mine should be held accountable for decisions they made and preventive measures they failed to take as CEO of Massey Energy Don Blankenship was responsible for operation of the mine as well as for the safety of its workers he believes the evidence points to a truth that has been buried it's the right thing to tell the truth get the truth out there and have it be the foundation for the path forward so this documentary is in a sense a request that the industry the unions the association's the government make an effort to truly identify what happened at UVB which has not been done by the government at least and to put in place procedures and technologies and changes and regulations that prevent it from happening again 7:00 a.m. Monday April 5th 2010 according to official reports two crews are underground inside the Upper Big Branch mine at 2:30 p.m. five safe readings of zero percent methane and nearly 21% oxygen are reported but rock dusting of the conveyer belts is requested 10 minutes later the same readings are reported and one of the crews begin their man trip ride out of the mine around 3 o'clock of fire ignites and the crew manually cuts power to the long wall Shearer between 301 and 302 p.m. an explosion erupts through the mine lasting for several minutes emergency crews and rescue teams raced to the scene and would later recover the bodies of 29 dedicated miners as the West Virginia office of miners health safety and training and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration searched for clues to find out what happened the McAteer report conducted by davit McAteer concluded the company's ventilation system did not adequately ventilate the mine as a result explosive gases were allowed to build up the company failed to meet federal and state safe principal standards for the application of rock dust while the evidence the government presented may point to these conclusions the forensic evidence points to another explanation if you just look at the burned gases from either a natural gas or coal bed methane it would be very difficult to tell that it was the difference between those two basically the violations that were written that ubehebe had nothing to do with the explosion except that they did force the mine to make ventilation changes that reduce the air flow on the long wall probably 60% politics still dominates the picture unfortunately forensic evidence proves mg got it wrong and the media ignored all other explanations to think that that condition after the explosion was actually the condition that existed before explosion is an insult to the miners natural gas is a gas it's it's soluble in the air it's it's volatile and it mixes in the air there's a procedure where you can call directly up to I'm sure if you think there's an emergency situation they have the authority to shut down the mind if they think it's a very dangerous situation so now the question must be asked is the energy from coal worth it the industry is neither small nor unimportant can politics make coal mining safer MSHA is dictating changes without adequate knowledge it's pretty common for us to see regulations put in place that are not actually based on good science or engineering principles and is it likely that miners would overlook common safety problems the minute he got into that black section he turned around go back and he'd say get that goddamn section Rock Dustin I'm not going to work in a section that is not Brock toasted the Upper Big Branch explosion killed 29 brave miners in April of 2010 the investigative reports blame a money-hungry masse energy for putting profits in front of safety but the company's former CEO Don Blankenship believes that by failing to properly evaluate the forensic evidence and make necessary safety changes this disaster could be repeated both sides can agree that while it is hazardous mining is important the nation mines 85 commodities everything from gravel and sand to gold and copper diamonds minerals all going into everyday life without notice electricity demand and use of electricity is directly correlated to the quality of life and so it's not just coal communities that benefit from coal production it's anyone that uses electricity in the United States coal America's industrial backbone sustained and propelled this great nation through the Industrial Revolution and carried the weight of technology into this century this abundant fossil fuel provides reliable and affordable energy for all creating jobs for depressed communities and bringing vitality to the American dream we know about all the wars that we fought for independence we know the more you know that they the stranglehold the British had on us and basically how we overcame all with that and in our own Civil War that we had through all of this the thing that made this country was the abundant supply of the natural resource of cold recently coal has taken a backseat to newer forms of energy such as renewable energy electricity is critical to our lifestyle and people talk about bringing on wind and solar well those are relying on natural resources but in reality those provides such a small percentage of our electrical needs in this country we still rely heavily on power generation so there is a general negative perception amongst younger generations that mining is we don't need mining it's dirty and you know it's not critical to our lifestyle this type of forward thinking has discounted the raw truth that our lifestyle is supported by mined material such as coal there's an old saying you either farm it or you mine it you can't fill 30 to 35% of the of the resources that we're using to make energy with when you don't have anything to replace it with and all you're going to do is drive the price so unbelievably high everything in society your cell phone medicines car yes the military protecting our shores on top of those computer gadgets we all love they're all based on pulling raw materials from the ground and delivering them to producers coal mine operators have kept costs and prices low by raising their productivity this increase in productivity has had a major positive impact on the United States economy statistics show about 2.1 million americans are in there living directly and indirectly from mining this generates 51 billion dollars in taxes from the mining industry and the total economic contribution to the country is in the hundreds of billions of dollars these numbers show that the mining industry is neither small nor unimportant coal mining began in the 1740s in Virginia today underground coal is mined by two methods there's room and pillar mining that you can think of as street and street developing a set set of streets and avenues that allow us access to the mine and it's done by continuous miners driving openings that are generally 20 feet wide and as high as that as the seam is thick the Upper Big Branch mine was a different kind known as a long wall mine we mined blocks out that are typically thousands of 1500 feet wide and typically 2 miles long we put a giant he slicer essentially at one end of it with that has a row of supports above it and this cheese slicer just comes back and forth and back and forth and the coal is literally mine continuously as coal mining technology has progressed so too has technology to protect those who work underground when it's been going on itit eighths for a couple hundred years some of the early practices we don't condone today your protection was a common practice in love mining operations so respiration dust control was not a big issue so you had a lot of black lung disease all of those things we've learned more about and have taken measures to minimize the impact of you know miners dust control is a huge part of our mining operations anymore mining ventilation is a constant concern in mining safety one of the most important tasks for mining engineers is to get enough fresh air into the mine for the machines to operate properly and most importantly for the miners who require a safe environment in which to work the ventilation system is designed in such a way that you can dilute and render harmless any methane that's emitted from the coal seam as you mind it in addition to ventilation other technology helps protect miners if methane levels get too high methane detectors mounted on mining machines will automatically shut these machines down until the air is cleaned by the mines ventilation system well here's the thing on some machineries today they have sensors on everything is done to minimize the accident incident rate and actually send that miner home safely at the end of the day statistically mining is among the safest industries in the United States it's safer than retail safer than many forms manufacturing and safer than many government jobs mining differentiates from these industries in that when accidents of high severity happen there tend to be worse outcomes with more severe injuries and even fatalities 29 miners lost their lives and two were injured in the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in April 2010 according to the United States Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration known as MSHA but tragedy was caused by a massive coal dust explosion that was secondary to a methane gas ignition MSHA claims that this was because of a pattern of safety violations at the mine the culture of the normalization of deviance the company had gotten away with so many a gradual approach over a number of years gotten away with so many infractions of standard safety practices that it became normal although Upper Big Branch was a non-union mine and the miners had Upper Big Branch twice voted not to unionize the United Mine Workers of America or UMWA weighed in on the disaster and I think it's something that I should point out to you and recall this pretty much industrial homicide union president Cecil Roberts reads further from the UMW a report the power of the explosion aided by poor ventilation ineffective water sprays accepts the excessive accumulations of flow coal dust and inadequate Rock vesting sealed these miners fate this is the account reported by the government the UMWA and the media however many independent experts tell a different story one that is based on forensic evidence the government's case against Massey energy seemed flawless but what scientific evidence disproves it coal dust explosion it hurts it it's like spraying water on a flower the fact that you have such a high amount of methane and ethane it seems to suggest that some other gas has politics made mining more dangerous at ubehebe the ventilation plan which Joe main the head of MSHA testified in front of Congress was not their plan was the only plan we could get them to approve the Upper Big Branch explosion claimed the lives of 29 miners MSHA believes that the evidence points to three major failings by Massey an unsafe level of coal dust in the mine inadequate Rock dusting and poor ventilation but these conclusions rest on only a portion of the evidence disregarding key details MSHA claims that high levels of methane from the coal bed served as the original fuel for the explosion which then caused a secondary coal dust explosion but the coal bed is not the only possible source of methane MSHA's own experts found more than just methane in their readings at the bandy town fan the primary exhaust port where the entire ventilation system of Upper Big Branch exited the mine coal bed methane is released during the normal process of mining coal but forensic evidence points to another form of gas leaking into Upper Big Branch and it too is highly combustible yeah they're both the same phenomena small amount of our hydrocarbons still gives you an explosion but a characteristic signal of a deep reservoir is higher concentrations of the heavier hydrocarbons the coal seam by itself when you do analysis of the methane emitted from the coal seam you get mostly almost completely methane kill methane on the other hand a reservoir of natural gas deep below the coal seam will give you typically a signature with higher consummate our concentrations forensic evidence indicates that natural gas inundated the mine through a crack that was found in the mines floor it's a very rare occurrence but apparently there's must be a high pressure reservoir somewhere near there where there's actually an inflow a massive inflow of gas from a nearby apparently gas reservoir although there were cracks in the floor at Upper Big Branch and despite Massey's insistence that they not be disturbed until they could be fully evaluated em she'll refuse these cracks to be fully evaluated it is likely the natural gas inundated the mine through these cracks but there's a failure of the strata natural natural gas reservoir at a high pressure once the strata failed would eject an enormous saw amount there'd be a huge disturbance it would hiss not only would it make noise but it kick up lots of rocks from the crack through which it's flowing MSHA states that Massey was insufficiently Rock dusting the mine Rock testing is the mandatory spraying of mine surfaces with pulverized rock to help prevent coal dust combustion normally coal dose is explosive so the regulations require that be alerted with rock dose to about 80 percent it's using limestone pulverized limestone find enough size so that it cools the flame and prevents propagation it's like spraying water on a fire the government's investigators say that Massey had a poor safety record and put profits before safety however there are some questions about some of those investigators according to a report a search warrant was executed on Mac at Sears law office in February 2012 in connection with a fraud investigation being conducted by NASA and the Department of Labor's office of racketeering and fraud he was also arrested on November 5th 1999 for DUI and leaving the scene he pled no contest eighteen months later to a charge of reckless driving there are also questions regarding the credentials of mg Chief Joe Maine furthermore in 2001 an explosion at Jim Walter Resources number five mine claimed the lives of 13 miners MSHA's explosion expert blamed inadequate rock dusting as a contributing factor independent explosion expert Martin Hertzberg also investigated Jim Walter number five and came up with different conclusions in the gym Walter's number five mine it was quite obvious you went in and at the entry of the mine everything was nice and white was completely rock dust the minute you got into the area where there had been an explosion everything was jet-black MSHA based many of its conclusions about conditions in the mind prior to the explosion by looking at the conditions after the explosion Hertzberg states that you cannot gauge Rock testing by looking at an explosions after-effects the explosion is such enormous disturbance in the mind the pressures are so high dust gets kicked around chunks of coal get bang into into equipment and pulverize you cannot tell that and it's an insult to miners to imply that they would go work in a section that looked as black as that the same empty explosion expert that pointed to improper rock dusting at Jim Walter was called to investigate Upper Big Branch where he also blamed inadequate Rock testing MSHA and politicians say that the miners were working in unsafe conditions because they were being intimidated this argument is flawed the minute he got into that black section red flags would go up he turned around go back and he'd say get that goddamn section Rock Dustin I'm not gonna work in a section that is not Brock Dustin that's enough evidence to tell you that you cannot determine conditions that existed before an explosion by conditions that exist after the explosion MSHA claims that Massey's ventilation plan was subpar but Blankenship says that it was in fact MSHA's plan and that the mine exploded just days after their requirements were fully enacted at ubehebe the ventilation plan which Joe main the head of elms had testified in front of Congress was not their plan was the only plan we could get them to approve so they're able to say they don't write ventilation plans but the truth of the matter is they don't approve any ventilation plan that they don't favor the US Court of Appeals agreed with MSHA that the agency could force a coal mine to accept the government's ventilation plan despite the company's knowledge of their own mind and engineering expertise what you find is that that the person will never put anything in writing other than the fact that he's rejected the plan but then he will Whirley tell the people what what it is that they have to put in the plan so they end up putting a plan in that's not really their plan it's his plan but then then then he turns around and says well it's your plan you have to live with it now because of these practices Blankenship claims that MgO Forest Upper Big Branch to downgrade their highly effective ventilation system and the law only requires 30,000 see a film of air we had 120,000 when we were operating the mind the way we wanted to operate it when we got through making the changes that the government wanted to make we were around 50,000 so even though we were complying with the law we didn't have nearly the amount of air that we believe was proper so when the government comes in and tells you that it's a better ventilation plan to take 60% of the air off the face then you know that they are not looking at it mathematically or scientifically I think it's common sense that if you have a coal mine that's performed well for 15 years and not had issues with its ventilation that you need to be careful about making a change in and when you come from Washington DC or some government office and start dictating to coal mines that they are going to make changes in the ventilation plan you need to have done your homework you need to have computer simulation of that ventilation plan change and you need to have consulted with other individuals that are knowledgeable in that field when you simply go in and use your power to force companies to do things that they have not done in the past it's not not reasonable current ventilation standards are only designed to protect against slow methane released from the coal bed and not from a high velocity gas lake because if you had a rapid release of natural gas even ventilators would would have a hard time coping with that that release if it's massive and yeah that would be a problem patience says they are mines in the US we now see that reporters unions and the government ignored the evidence that supports a theory that makes sense a theory that is backed by MSHA's on findings in the ventilation system is designed in such a way that you can dilute and render harmless any methane that's emitted from the coal seam as you mind it an inundation is a special situation in which a large reservoir of methane breaks through into them into the mind we typically have methane gases associated with coal mining we do have incidents that are geologic anomalies as we call them that we didn't anticipate going forward in the mining operation you may end up with a fault or a fracture system that is full of gas more than the typical rock we have to DP you go the higher the pressure and the deeper the reservoir the higher the pressure and the faster the flow inundation is evidenced by the types of gas that are present when it occurs cold that gas in the coal seams at Upper Big Branch are virtually pure methane however natural gas contains ethane and the government found enough ethane at the ventilation exhaust to confirm a natural gas inundation using MJ's own bandy town fan data which recorded high levels of ethane independent experts conclude the presence of natural gas rather than coal seam gas the fact that you have such a high amount of methane and ethane seems to suggest that some other gas this is more like a natural gas it looks like natural gas from what you've given me it seems reasonable that the natural gas could be the cause of this so despite our best efforts in our geology and our information we drill in trying to understand to avoid those accidents but occasionally it happens and it's unpredictable unanticipated and it's simply unfortunate accent what it happens but while official reports accused Upper Big Branch management of creating a culture of putting profits over safety then why did Blankenship create some of the best safety innovations in the industry but Massey I probably was personally responsible for dozens of safety enhancements on equipment is MSHA blocking the use of safety innovations experts say that government regulatory agencies should become more proactive in supporting new ideas and innovations this would certainly be welcomed by the industry instead these agencies often see how many dollars they can rack up in citations even elected officials were not told by MJ that natural gas was present at Upper Big Branch you know I never heard that I always assumed that there was a methane that I'm in favor of increased production we have to plan for the future what I want to do is work with West Virginia to figure out how we can seize that future but to do that that means there's going to have to be some transition we can't operate the coal industry in the United States as if we're still in the 1920s or the 1930s of the 1950's we've got to be thinking what does that industry look like in the next hundred years after the Upper Big Branch accident killed 29 miners the US government added more regulations for mining which are meant to protect miners and to promote a safe work environment but experts are concerned about how these rules are developed we have a regulatory system developed in the 70s with dates from the 60s 50s and earlier meanwhile the technology and our knack for managing it has drastically changed while the regulations have not it's pretty common for us to see regulations put in place to regulate the mining and extraction industry that are not actually based on good science or engineering principles Blankenship believes MSHA regulations and findings are not balanced because they have no direct oversight Yamcha sort of has a a dictatorship over what's going on in the mining industry and same thing is true in accident investigation though instead of having a you know two individuals in the government one to regulate the mines and one to inspect accidents or investigate accidents we have just the one so effectively I'm sure is able to investigate themselves and therefore any time they have an investigation it's going to be the company or someone else's fault and not theirs the truth of matter is MC imposes a lot of regulation and policy on coal mines that are not well thought out and that many times reduce the ventilation and damage Divine's ability to be safe as opposed to help them safety and Upper Big Branch was the top concern for the Massey corporation in fact the company established safety guidelines that surpassed government requirements Massey had a productivity program productivity standards we had a safety standards program and the safety standards program was s1 that safety is job one and productivity was job - so is s 1 and P 2 according to WS AZ television an independently conducted confidential survey of Massey underground miners found that 91 percent believe that the companies s1 or safety first program makes Massey mine safer places to work than competitors mines and safer than required by law but there were people that were intimidated and afraid and it was production ahead of safety the way the perception and what I took away from talking to the families that lost their loved ones those 29 miners the majority of them believed that it was production first production second production last more so than we're going to shut this down stop until we make it safe and I heard that story over and over again I don't have the facts and proof but I'm sure the investigations will prove on that out but Massey I probably was personally responsible for dozens of safety enhancements on equipment things as simple as reflective clothing all the way up to staircases being put on large trucks instead of ladders so the men were less likely to fall off the staircase than the ladder in addition to cameras being on the equipment I grew up in the coal mining area I put gasoline in Coal Miner's cars from the time I was seven or eight years old I played baseball in a coal field leagues with them I knew him very well and so did the other people of Massah we were local we were related we understood the issues we knew the challenges so we were very passionate about it he never lived in Richmond Virginia where headquarters was because he preferred to be in in West Virginia and where the where the company was actually mining coal so that he could be on in on everything that was going on at every every coal mine unlike most CEOs Don Blankenship does not work out of a high-rise in a big city he operates out of a trailer in belfry Kentucky just across the river from Mingo County you can go through the s1s one book and you can see the the standards that were set over and above the the requirements of the law that's really what the Esper s-one program was all about it was about doing things that were that were above the law not not complying just not just complying with with the law and Donn followed it up years ago probably 20 years ago I recommended to him son and others that we develop a proximity device because a lot of coal miners were being injured or killed by being hit by equipment and the idea was to put a transmitter on a belt of a coal miner that would detect the equipment near him and cause the equipment to shut down and they were very resistant and very disinterested in those types of proposals if the government ignores these types of innovations how can the mining industry protect miners some of the regulations need to be replaced or just canceled clean lately it's true that industry has the responsibility but the larger question is will the government take their responsibility to support the industry's efforts in safety we owe them action we owe them accountability we owe them an assurance that when they go to work every day when they enter that dark mind they are not alone they ought to know that behind them there is a company that's doing what it takes to protect them and a government that is looking out for their safety but if a tragedy can be prevented it must be prevented that's the responsibility of mine operators that's the responsibility of government and that is the responsibility that we're all going to have to work together to meet in the weeks and months to come well it's a hollow promise you're not going to prevent accidents from happening unless you fully understand what caused the accident experts in the field of chemistry and geology and and people with a lot of experience in mining and gas production agree that this was a natural gas explosion it's clear that it was and unless we accept that it was a natural gas explosion and get away from the political agenda we're not going to make improvements in mine safety that are necessary to keep the political promise that this won't ever happen again we can set here and blame the sins of the past or we can try to fix it and I'd rather try to fix it because I can't I can't go back in time and change it but I can make sure we don't repeat it many experts believe if new regulations are created based on popular theories instead of sound science safety will not improve the media Congress and the average person find it hard to fathom that MSHA and other regulatory agencies don't have the right regulatory design that realization has to come first and so it is necessary that the government in the industry study the geology in and around UVB and other mines that are having these massive natural gas innovations and try to determine what geological characteristics lead to these types of inundations and then to try to foresee there happening and then to try to formulate ideas and policies that would prevent an explosion from occurring should they happen experts agree that rules are necessary but experts insist rules should never be four rules sake there has to be a bottom line regulations are simply not structured to keep bad things from happening they need to change immature doesn't have a research scientific technology department it's it's designed to to make laws and enforce them a come upon the coal industry to obey the MSHA law and if you do that you you the assumption is that you're safe the common complaint among mines MSHA emphasizes very small matters and doesn't focus on the big issues it's just like the UVB explosion there's so much that was learned and so much more that could be learned and that could be done to make a natural gas explosion less likely but the government's more focused on politics and and on maintaining their power over coal companies than they are and actually improving coal miner safety Blankenship believes that MSHA's decision to reduce air flow and Upper Big Branch was irrational and says that MSHA has many irrational policies such as the forests idling of continuous minor scrubbers you're cutting the coal which creates dust with a machine and when that dust is sucked in to a you know like a vacuum cleaner and that air passes through a filter and Cintiq simply comes out the other side so a good part of that dust collects on the filter and it has two or three positive effects one is it increases visibility which is always important to is it prevents the dust from getting into the lungs and causing black lung and three it takes that coat dust out of the returned airways which reduces the chance of an explosion and respirable dust is what causes the lung problems when when you're mining and why in the world they would want they would force a company not to not to run that scrubber is beyond me MSHA continues this policy even today I'm not aware of that I'm glad you made me aware of that and I will check into it I was not aware that they're shutting down basically the scrubbing all knows they're simcha mandate forces miners to shut off equipment that they know protects their own health and safety after being denied the opportunity to speak with mg ahead Joe main mass E minor buddy mayor told the mining accident news the scrubber is the best tool that ever came along I've already put in 32 years but these younger guys are breathing dust all the time and they're going to suffer black lung yet he ain't got a couple minutes to talk with us there's no logic that I can find in Helms you're requiring mines to shut those scrubbers off speaking to the same publication Massey miner Sean Turley said you almost feel like a guinea pig without dust controls on these continuous miners all the coal miners are breathing in dust the whole shift those scrubbers took away that problem it just don't make sense some of the regulations need to be replaced or just canceled completely they change rules about things like belt air and bleeding of the gob and fire bossing and so forth unilaterally and without it being well thought out and oftentimes it's to the detriment of coal miners safety instead of to the benefit they have come to perform more like a police force trying to get someone to them something wrong as opposed to bringing a separate set of eyes to the man to help find a better answer or to point out issues that need to be corrected many times it causes a lack of focus on true issues while blocking some innovations such as scrubbers MJ's also simply not supporting others Blankenship believes that modernised mapping of old underground mines would dramatically improve safety but mga is not pursuing it probably a great example of the government in Hampshire being behind on technology is in mapping you know we still have very inadequate mapping into industry we had the incident of people cutting into gas wells cutting into old mine works because we don't have these maps digitized and in a centralized database you know the Mine Safety and Health Administration simply hasn't been if you will an advocate of the use of technology to improve safety the media the government and the unions accused Massey Energy of putting profits above safety but Blankenship knows that safe mines are profitable so one thing I'm smart enough to know that keeping your sole coal miners safe and not having accidents is very profitable so even those that think very badly of me and think that I'm solely focused on profit should understand that I also know that profit can only be derived from safe coal mines but way beyond that you know I've been in the coal mining community and involved in coal mining all my life and so too has all the people at Massey and the people that were working at this mine and the idea that somebody in New York or Washington or someone in the media cares more about these coal miners than we do makes no sense at all I mean we know in many cases their families and their sons and daughters so we have passion and we have an understanding of the economics of mining and our record on what we did to be creative an area of safety speaks for itself even though don blankenship no longer works in the coal industry why does he continue to fight for miners safety and if you recognize that over the over the years that was a very important part of Don's character is that he wanted all all people to be treated as human beings 29 miners died in the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine on April 5th 2010 an outcry against Massey Energy blamed the companies allegedly lacks safety standards for the accident in the five years leading up to the disaster Massey had been cited by the government for more than 1300 safety violations early on officials pointed to bad ventilation and coal dust buildup as key problems am she accused massive cutting corners and allowing coal dust buildup to fuel the explosion but ignored forensic evidence that proved the accident was caused by a massive natural gas inundation and the gas that came out of this mine was clearly natural gas that came out of the strata of the earth MSHA accused Massey of improper and insufficient rock dusting in effect questioning the common-sense of every miner the minute he got into that black section he turned around go back and he'd say get that goddamn section Rock Dustin I'm not gonna work in a section that is not practicing MSHA failed to account for the force of the explosion when accusing Massey of faulty rock dusting dust gets kicked around chunks of coal get bang into into equipment and pulverize MSHA zone inspectors reported the mind to be sufficiently rock dusted in the weeks and days prior to the accident moreover they neglected to report that they required the company to change its original ventilation system decreasing its performance by 60% and the law only requires 30000 see a film of air we had a hundred and twenty thousand when we were operating the mind the way we wanted to operate it when we got through making the changes that the government wanted to make we were around fifty thousand in the months prior to the explosion MSHA inspectors spent an average of seven hours 15 minutes per day in the mine in spite of this they never addressed their own responsibility for the safety of the mine before or during the time of the accident when asked to comment about their findings MSHA refused to be interviewed for this documentary because of Don Blankenship said Loma don blankenship the man directly blamed for this tragic accident believes that he has always done his best to live up to his responsibility for minor safety he personally introduced dozens of safety enhancements that are now the standards of the industry and this documentary is further evidence of his taking his responsibilities seriously even at great risk and expense to himself so he always referred to the people who work for him as members of the company and if you recognize that over the years that was a very important part of Don's character he wanted all people to be treated as human beings and it was he was very sensitive to that he was one of those members and that's why he he lived with and and and it lived in the same environment there in the cold communities the purpose of the documentary is to try to get people to focus on what actually happened at UVB and to make improvements in the safety of coal miners Don also hopes that this documentary will encourage today's mining companies the government the United Mine Workers of America University engineering professors and students consulting experts and industry associations to do the same the United Mine Workers and the Mine Safety and Health Administration are living in the past you know they don't see things for what they are because they're blinded by their dislike for business and dislike for certain individuals and they don't look at the physics of things and the technology that's the most important thing that we recognize that accidents happen they can be prevented but they can't be prevented with propaganda and politics they can only be prevented with physics and technology the best way to honor the victims of UVB is to based on going policy and safety procedures on the truth of what happened at you BB first of all we need to recognize that the victims at you BB were good people and they were doing the best they knew how what is incumbent upon us now is to learn more and be able to use this accident in honor of them to formulate better safety practices going forward and you BB case it's clear to me we had a natural gas explosion and that nothing that the industry is doing is going to prevent it from happening again despite the politicians promises to the contrary and that's what this documentary is all about that if you're truly going to improve coal mine safety or industrial safety or even environmental stewardship you first have to know what happened and what you can tangibly do that will prevent it from happening again if we don't do any more than we've done qbb will happen again you

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Views: 229,701

Rating: 3.7833829 out of 5

Keywords: Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, Never, again, Mine Safety And Health Administration (Government Agency), msha, coal, coal mine, mine, disaster, West Virginia (US State), Don Blankenship (Organization Leader), United Mine Workers (Organization), Obama, Joe Manchin (U.S. Congressperson), scandal, coverup, cover-up, government, risk, safety, energy, clean coal, explosion, Barack Obama (US President)

Id: 0NYOBEQWIlg

Length: 49min 30sec (2970 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 24 2014