Thursday, May 19, 2011
Investigation says Massey Energy did it
Following the disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine that cost the lives of 29 miners, an independent investigation has made its report. The report's conclusions make it clear why Bloody Don Blankenship took early retirement.
The report, issued Thursday by an independent team appointed by the former West Virginia governor, Joe Manchin, and led by the former federal mine safety chief Davitt McAteer, echoed preliminary findings by federal officials that the blast could have been prevented if Massey had observed minimal safety standards.The mine wasn't safe and that was the way the corporation wanted it. Another situation where people need to go to jail but won't.
But it was more pointed in naming Massey as the culprit, using blunt language to describe what it said was a pattern of negligence that ultimately led to the deaths of 29 miners on April 5, 2010, in what was the worst American mining disaster in 40 years.
“The story of Upper Big Branch is a cautionary tale of hubris,” the report concluded. “A company that was a towering presence in the Appalachian coalfields operated its mines in a profoundly reckless manner, and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk-taking.”
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