Sago Mine operator says firm spent heavily on safety

BUCKHANNON, W.Va. -- The operator of the Sago Mine said yesterday that the company had spent heavily on safety improvements in the weeks before an explosion that led to the deaths of 12 miners.

Ben Hatfield, chief executive of International Coal Group Inc., said the company rebuilt two miles of primary escapeway, upgraded the mine's rail transportation system, and implemented employee safety training that exceeded legal requirements.

In the last six months of 2005, there was a 60 percent reduction in lost-time injuries at the mine.

''In my opinion, the Sago Mine was a safe operation," Hatfield said.

Hatfield was speaking a day after the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration released documents showing that 17 of the 208 alleged safety violations at the mine in 2005 were for serious problems, including the accumulation of ''combustible materials" such as loose coal and coal dust.

Hatfield said, however, that company officials ''have heard nothing in the course of all this debate about the safety violations that even remotely connects" with the cause of the explosion.

Officials have said the explosion probably occurred in an area of the mine that was sealed in December.

Also yesterday, Hatfield said the mine should be sufficiently vented of toxic gases in four to seven days, allowing investigators to enter for the first time since the disaster.

The company has said it inherited many of the mine's safety problems from Sago's former owner and had been working to correct the violations. The firm formally took control of the former Anker Energy mine in November, but started work there as management consultants in June, Hatfield said yesterday.

All of the 17 citations were for ''aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence," according to the federal agency's documents.

Tony Oppegard, a former MSHA official and mine safety prosecutor in Kentucky, said it is that fact, not just the number of violations, that should be of concern.

''This type of violation indicates that the operator knew the condition existed and didn't do anything to fix it," he said. ''It shows an indifference to safety or an extreme lack of care."

In the last citation issued before the accident, dated Dec. 14, an MSHA inspector said a failure to address coal dust and excessive amounts of loose coal -- in some places 29 inches deep -- ''showed a high degree of negligence for the health and safety of the miners."

But the inspector who issued the citation did not think the violation would lead to a miner's death or permanent disability -- the two most severe risks that could have been cited.

None of the 17 citations listed death as a risk. One violation was considered highly likely to lead to injury.