Report cites failure to inspect mines, including where 6 died

Government investigators have found that the Mine Safety and Health Administration failed to conduct required inspections last year at 107 of the nation's 731 underground coal mines.

In a report released late Friday, the Labor Department inspector general also found "significant inspection and supervisory deficiencies" in the agency's inspections of the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, where six miners died in August and three more people were killed in a failed rescue attempt after the roof caved in.

The inspector general also concluded the agency had misstated the number of inspections it conducted, apparently to inflate its rate of completed inspections.

The report depicted an agency that had failed to devote enough resources to inspections at a time of increasing mining activity and that "did not place adequate emphasis on ensuring the inspections were completed."

The inspector general, Elliot Lewis, said about 7,500 miners were employed at the 107 mines that had not received the required inspections. The report also said inspectors had often failed to document many activities they were supposed to conduct, such as taking samples of coal dust or checking high-voltage circuits.

In his response to the report, Richard Stickler, assistant secretary of labor in charge of the mine-safety agency, said 70 percent of the incomplete inspections were at mines that were nonproducing, inactive, intermittent or abandoned.

The inspector general, however, insisted all of the 107 mines where required inspections had not been completed were active.

As one reason for the failure to do all the inspections, the report noted that the number of agency inspectors had fallen to 496 in 2006, from 605 in 2002, an 18 percent decline, while the amount of underground mining had increased by 9 percent. Stickler said the agency was faced with how best to use its limited resources.

The report noted that the agency's inspection budget had not kept up with expenses, rising by $1.1 million while its mandated cost-of-living salary increases rose by $6.1 million, to $84.9 million.

The inspector general also noted that agency internal reviews had found similar problems in inspections at three other mines where there had been fatal mining accidents. In the Sago Mine in West Virginia, 12 miners died in January 2006; in the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine, also in West Virginia, two miners died that same month; and in the Darby Mine in Kentucky, five miners died in May 2006.

The report said 147 required inspections had not been completed at the 107 mines. It found that southern West Virginia had the worst situation, with 85 of 165 mines not having had one or more required inspections.

And it found that although the agency had completed the seven required inspections at Crandall Canyon in 2006 and 2007, there were deficiencies in three of the inspections.

Records of an inspection of the Crandall Canyon mine were dated four months before the inspection started. The records covered "a requirement for the inspector to evaluate the roof control plan," said the report. The agency was unable to explain the discrepancy, the report said.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.