Must bone and blood be the price of coal?

Question

Another accident today killed three miners, this time in an air shaft under construction in a southern Indiana coal mine.

Rescue efforts continue in Utah at the site of the mine collapse but hopes are fast fading for the missing miners.

Mine disasters have inspired many great ballads as in these verses concerning the Springhill, Nova Scotia mining disaster:

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia
Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine
There's blood on the coal and the miners lie
In the roads that never saw sun nor sky
The roads that never saw sun nor sky

Listen for the shouts of the bareface miners
listen through the rubble for a rescue team,
Six hundred feet of coal and slag
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam,
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam.

But it seems to me that what we should be writing are better laws. Bone and blood are too high a price to pay for coal.

What do you think?

Answer 1

As long as coal company owners and operators are just slapped on the wrist for breaking laws and contuinally violating safety standards men are going to die mining coal...men are going to keep getting black lung and coal is still going to be produced...I have seen mines operaters violate safety laws contuinously as long as there were no inspectors around....ventilation curtains not being hung until just before an inspector comes in the mines is common practice...taking longer cuts of coal than legal or bypassing electrical safeties to ensure that the equipement keeps running...the laws and fines that the government sets for coal companies arent hard enough nor are the fines enough to make a coal company fear being given a violation for not following the laws...I have been working in the mines for forty years and as long as there is not an inspector there you will do whatever the company tells you to do to keep your job and run coal...if you complain about a company doing the wrong things or violating safety laws you will be blacklisted from the mines and find it impossible to get another mining job...I have done much retreat minning like they were doing in Utah and this is very dangerous work but in all the years i have worked in the mines i have never seen a man hurt from this procedure or method of removing coal...I have seen more men hurt or killed while the mine was advancing within the coal boundary the minning company had permitted...If the general population wants stronger safety laws which it is possible for a mine to operate very safely then the fines for violating the laws need to be high enough to cause the mine operators not to violate the law to begin with...most fines and penalties are just minor slaps on the wrist to the coal industry...so blood and bone will be the price until the mining industry is made to be responsible....another good example is after you work in the mines and get blacklung disease a mining company will fight you tooth and nail to keep you from getting any kind of benefits for having this disease...when my father in law went to court for his black lung hearing the mining company said under oath that there was no coal dust in their mines for a miner to get black lung from...so you see as long as they can even go into our courts and fight you over whether you have black lung or not they sure will not follow safety rules until our government makes it so that if they violate them the owners and operates will be fined more than they are now or jailed and never allowed to operate or work in the mining industry then men will die..

Answer 2

BETTER LAWS
The problem now is some of the stupid laws written by lawmakers that have never worked a day underground.

Most miners carry 30+ pounds of safety gear on them every day underground.
Most of this equipment is never used by a miner.
99.99% of the miners have never had to use this safety equipment in there whole time working underground.many have worked 40+ years
More miners have been hurt by there safety equipment catching on things in the mine and injuring them.

For 30 years i HAD to carry a self rescue breathing unit that in the type of mine that i worked in would not have worked.
but due to the LAW i still had to carry it.



The US is by far the safest country in the world to work under ground.

We are to the point that more laws will not help.
most accidents now are due to acts of god or stupidity by the miners. and you cannot make laws to stop them.

Someday you may have mining equipment that can do all the mining for coal like this mine by remote control. But you will still have a few people that have to go underground to fix the equipment when it brakes down.

In other types of mines remote control equipment will never work.

I hope they find these miners alive. But it is looking like they were slabbed and in that case it was over quick.

when a 1000s tons of rock fall on you.
you never feel it.

It is 10 times more likely that you will be killed driving to work at the mine then you will die in the mine.

you work your days and draw your pay and hope murphy never catches you.

Answer 3

Personally, I also think that the environmentalists have added to the problem. In other countries (Germany for example) that are able to pull back the soil and harvest the coal without worry of a cave-in. I am no expert in it, but I wonder why we can't do that once again.

I also agree that we need more nuclear power.

Answer 4

My prayers are with the miners & their families - but very few miners get killed compared to other occupations . Construction , for instance ; some killed by inattentive drivers along our roads . Or , like yesterday in LasVegas,NV. , where a construction worker was killed when an accident cut him in half .

Answer 5

Coal mining is a dangerous job. Mines must be constructed with foolproof safety features and no expense should be spared to make them as safe as possible. Those poor men. And their families..........

Not one single life is worth a ton of coal.


To the Utah miners and their families:
May God bless and hold you safe in His loving arms and may He comfort and surround you with His loving grace. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

To the rescuers:
May God guide you to these men so they may be bought to the safe and loving arms of their families and may He keep you all safe in your work to free them.
In Jesus' name. Amen.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Answer 6

Why not? -Look at all the warm bodies its cost us to keep the oil fields in Iraq open the past 5 years. What makes coal any different? If we want our BIG cars, cheap electricity, and oversized houses to keep cool & heated- some people are gonna have to PAY for it. -With their Lives. :(

Answer 7

This is the way it will be until the public learns that nuclear power, wind power, tidal power, solar power are the solution...and put the pressure on the government to go the right direction....France has 80% of its electicity by nuclear power...

Answer 8

43,000 American men, women, children and babies die EVERY YEAR in the U.S. in automobile accidents (and hundreds of thousands suffer maiming/permanent injuries). So ... must bone and blood be the price of personal transportation?

Answer 9

always has been, always will be.