Victims' kin question safety of Utah mine, blame owners

HUNTINGTON, Utah -- With hopes dimming for the six trapped coal miners, families and friends vented their frustration at the mine's owners yesterday and asked: Was it too dangerous to be working there in the first place?

At a funeral yesterday for one of the three rescue workers killed, a friend of one of the trapped miners confronted mine co-owner Bob Murray and accused him of skimping on the rescue efforts. He then handed him a dollar bill.

"This is just to help you out, so you don't kill him," the man said.

Murray's head snapped back as if slapped. When the man would not take back the bill, he threw the money on the ground. "I'll tell you what, son, you need to find out about the Lord."

It was an emotional exchange with an owner who had insisted that the rescue of the miners was his top priority since the collapse. It also showed more than just the frustration of people in this mining community in central Utah's coal belt, where most still speak in whispers when criticizing the officials whose businesses pay their bills.

Critics are calling the mine a disaster waiting to happen and pointing fingers at Murray Energy Corp. and the federal government as the agents of the tragedy.

Miners' advocates have accused the Mine Safety and Health Administration in recent years of being too accommodating to the industry at the expense of safety. They say MSHA was too quick to approve the mining plan at Crandall Canyon despite concerns that it was too dangerous to continue when Murray bought the place a year ago. "No one took the time to see that it was a recipe for disaster," Phil Smith, a spokesman for United Mine Workers of America, said yesterday.

In question is the decision to allow Crandall Canyon's operators to mine between two sections that had already been excavated using a mining technique that causes the roof to collapse.

In that middle section, the mine was cut like a city block, leaving pillars of coal holding up the mountain above. MSHA approved a plan allowing the operators to pull out the pillars, a practice called "retreat mining," which causes deliberate, controlled roof cave-ins.

Specialists said any investigation will focus on why MSHA agreed to that plan.

Those conditions are so unstable, some companies will leave behind the last of the coal rather than risk lives trying to pull additional pillars, specialists have said.

In addition to the questions about structure, specialists said the operators and MSHA should have been aware that deep mines such as Crandall Canyon are also prone to "bumps" -- an unpredictable and dangerous event that happens when settling layers of earth bear down on the walls of a coal mine. The force can cause pillars to fail, turning chunks of coal into deadly missiles.

Since his brother went missing in the mine, Steve Allred said he has received a wave of phone calls from people who said the mine conditions were unsafe.

"They tell me that they knew people that was very, very concerned about the conditions in that mine, the bounces, everything," said Allred, brother of trapped miner Kerry Allred.

He said his brother had expressed some concern. But, he added, "There is concern no matter which mine you are in."