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Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Ind. Gov't. - State lacked coal mine inspections during 2005

An AP story available this morning via both the Louisville Courier Journal and the Indianapolis Star reports:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A state official acknowledges that required state inspections of Indiana's seven underground coal mines were not conducted for at least a year before the deaths of 12 workers in a West Virginia mine.

State law requires quarterly inspections of Indiana's underground mines, but state labor Commissioner Miguel Rivera said he called off those reviews because they duplicated work by federal inspectors and he wanted to devote resources from the state Bureau of Mines on other priorities.

"I made that call," Rivera told Indianapolis television station WTHR for a story Monday. "Our focus is on training miners and mine rescue."

Rivera acknowledged the lack of inspections after WTHR requested copies of state mine inspection for the past two years.

Rivera, who was appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels last year to head the Labor Department, sent a letter to the agency's sole mine inspector just days after the West Virginia deaths in January, instructing him to "commence inspection" of the Indiana mines at least four times a year.

John Alaria, who as deputy commissioner of the state's Bureau of Mines was the agency's sole employee, protested in a Jan. 9 letter to Rivera that he had been told for months to defer inspections to the federal agency and that one person could not handle the ordered work load.

"It takes a complete quarter to inspect one mine of any size in its entirety, let alone seven in one quarter," Alaria wrote.

Indiana is the nation's eighth-largest coal producer, with about 1,500 workers in the underground mines concentrated around Vincennes in the southwestern part of the state. Officials expect about 3,000 more miners to be hired as five new mines open up during the next few years. * * *

Rivera said it was "pure coincidence" that he ordered the resumption of state inspections so soon after the West Virginia deaths, saying he had been planning the move for some time.

"I don't see a need to duplicate those sorts of efforts," he said of the state and federal inspection programs. "However, the state Legislature has decided that's what we will do, so that's what we're doing."

Alaria inspected all seven mines in seven weeks after Rivera's order, spending no more than four days at any one mine, WTHR reported. The state mining bureau, which state law says should have a director and a chief mine inspector, has no workers after Alaria resigned last week to take a job at a mining company.

Access WTHR's report, including video, here. The site also has links to a number of documents.

The Louisville Courier Journal has had a number of recent stories on mine inspections in Kentucky.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 14, 2006 08:33 AM
Posted to Indiana Government