Massey Coal Essay examples

Another possible path of action that Scanlan could have taken was to make his concerns public. Scanlan’s job is to serve as a public official. Therefore, in my opinion, it is all right in certain instances to make the public aware of potential dangers that may affect them and/or their loved ones. Scanlan had a lot of information and notes stating that the mine had hazardous conditions, were unsafe, and could possibly explode if the correct actions were not taken. This is the type of information I feel like the public needs to be made aware of. This could have possibly caused an outcry from the public to correct these conditions, as they are concerned about the well being of the people in the community and its workers.

In addition to long working hours, miners paid for the supplies including open head flame lights and detonators. The miners were more or less like craftsmen using their tools and self-acquired skills to produce the maximum output. Consequently, the explosives led to numerous accidents leaving the miners injured badly and dead in many instances. Numerous workers (about 60 each year) were killed as a result of these explosions. The families of the deceased were rarely compensated. Occupational hazards, deterioration in health overtime, inadequate pay in the form of “strips” resulted in conflicts between the labor and the management.

The immediate cause of the disaster is the result of a poorly maintained longwall shearer that sent a spark which could not be extinguished because of inoperative water sprayers. This spark ignited a pocket of methane gas that accumulated at the coal face over the course of a year because of poor ventilation. This resulted in an explosion that fireballed throughout the mine because of the accumulation of flammable coal dust that was not properly treated with rock dust as instructed by the MSHA. Although this was the immediate and most detrimental cause of the disaster, I believe Don Blankenship was largely responsible for the disaster. For almost twenty years, Blankenship had near-total control over Massey Coal Company, and later Massey Energy. During this time, he had decisive impact over the culture, policies, and practices of the company. He directed a management system that gave priority to productivity, which was running coal, over all other concerns, including environmental impacts, worker health and safety, and legal compliance. As a hands-on manager, he was completely and fully aware of everything that was going on in the company, all the way down to the last tank of gasoline or ton of coal. Therefore, he should bear the ultimate responsibility for the Upper Big Branch mine disaster.

William Alfred Massey is an African American mathematician and operations researcher. Massey is an expert in queueing theory. He was born in 1956 in Jefferson City, Missouri. Massey was the youngest son of Richard A. Massey SR. and Juliette Massey. His family moved to St. Louis, Missouri when he was only four years old. Massey’s favorite color when he was younger was blue. One of his favorite foods that he enjoyed eating was steamed crab legs. Also his favorite season is late spring. William Massey went to the public schools of St. Louis, Missouri and high school in University City. After Massey graduated from University City High School he received a Harvard book award and a

Earlier this year the Havasupai Tribe and a coalition of conservation groups sued the United States Forest Service for allowing Energy Fuel Resources Inc. to operate a mine under a 1986 federal environmental review without tribal consultation. The Canyon mine was previously in non-operational status due to low uranium stock prices in 1992. Opponents of the uranium mining operation want the federal environmental review updated and

The second accident at the "Timken Steel Faircrest plant" company which a is an employee fall down more than 40 feet which led to several broken bones because of just a small mistake. The problem is when he made a maintenance on a crane he wasn't ware Certified safety harness which it could safe his live from the risk. I used to do a maintenance on more than one cran and my company doesn't allow me to go without waring a Certified safety harness because they have to keep all the employees a way from all the risk and even if they didn't told me to ware it, I will not go up to the cran without it, do the fact that no one knows what will happen and even if I am good at this job, I have to work safely. I agree that this company should teach all

Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 : it established federal standards in the construction of refuse piles and dams by coal companies but these standards only protected the coal miners (and not the public who lived around the coal mines) while he was working.

In Jan. 2011, the EPA decided to veto the dumping of waste from the Spruce No. 1 Mine. But the agency’s efforts have so far been rebuffed by the courts as an overreach: Under the weird legal regime that governs mining, it’s the Army Corps of Engineers, not the EPA, which has the ultimate say-so over those permits. In 2012, the D.C. district court ruled that EPA lacked authority to veto the permit after the Corps had issued it. However, in fact EPA's decision is based on evidence from scientific research on serious environmental harm from mining. In May 2013, a coalition of Appalachian and environmental groups petitioned the EPA to set a numeric water quality standard under the Clean Water Act to protect streams from pollution caused by mountaintop removal mining . They claimed that “State politics and industry pressure have so far failed to end this pollution without such a standard and more and more streams and communities who rely on those waters are left vulnerable. We need EPA to act now.” The EPA’s authority over the Clean Water Act in respect to Spruce Mine No. 1 was finally affirmed by the Supreme Court in March 2014.

Secondly I believe Scanlan could have organized a strike for the workers of the mine. Inspector Scanlan was a former mine working who understood exactly what the mines workers were experiencing. Inspector Scanlan was a very honest man who did not seek to gain favoritism by hierarchy. Inspector Scanlan was focused on doing his job the correct way. Inspector Scanlan was not interested in bribes or becoming wealthy. I believe Inspector Scanlan had the mine workers interest at heart. Inspector Scanlan knew nothing was going to be done due to how corrupt the system was. Scanlan should have informed the workers to strike due to how dangerous the conditions of the mines were. A strike would have created headlines. A strike would have kept the workers out the mine until changes were made to ensure their safety. The owners of the mine would make changes because they needed the workers to operate the mine and

“Blasting itself produced immense quantities of mineral particles. The common practice of returning to the work face soon after the detonation of charges meant entering an area filled with particulate matter. (Derickson 3)” Also, as labors transported, unloaded, and cleaned the extracted material dust was inhaled even though they were away from the mine. So no matter what technique used the coal dust still made it in the air and into the miners’ lungs. There were no safety regulations in place about how long to wait after blowing up coal, no regulations about how many particulates in the air were safe, no mask or safety precautions and no mandatory venting. Although some of these things were easily usable to the safety the company felt it was too costly. “An elaborate system of fans and blowers was ‘too costly’, so the miner had to pay for the bad ventilating by ‘miners’ asthma’ and other ailments caused by bad air. (Derickson 4)” Basically the coal operators did not care enough about the miners safety to provide vents and things that could have helped the air quality.

Is coal power the best option for Australia, as current ‘green’ energy options are unable to support our power needs now and into the future.

It took many years for the commissions and unions to get the changes implemented. Today, regardless of OSHA enforcement, there are still workplaces with locked or blocked emergency exits. Due to the lesson that was learned in the Triangle fire, we now have organizations like OSHA, NFPA, state and local municipals that make code and enforce standards. Their goal is to ensure the safety of lives and property by enforcing the codes and standards of all workplaces

I learned that mines were abandoned and in this case we have the responsible helping out. In other cases like the Gold King Mine in Colorado that it was used in the early 1900’s, the responsible that abandoned the mines were from Canada and are no were to be found. The problem with these mines is that when they extract all the uranium and there is no need for the mines, these mines need to be abandoned and closed. Unfortunately, there was no cleanup process when the mines were abandoned. Leaving the areas contaminated and the water from the rain transporting the contamination to other areas. 100 years ago, there was no standard on how to properly abandon a mine. Now days, the EPA and the state environmental departments are responsible to enforce the proper abandonment procedures and make sure the closure will not contaminate nearby areas or the water used for drinking, crops, and other human and animal uses. The runoff of the mine contamination can increase the total dissolve solids (TDS) in the nearby waters, making it non usable for human consumption and fish

Frontline with the New York Times reports on one of the largest iron pipe foundry companies, McWanes Tyler Pipe, and the problem with the company. McWane Inc. was founded by J.R. McWane in 1921 on the desolate Birmingham Alabama soil. J.R built his water and sewage pipe manufacturing corporation to now one of the biggest privately owned companies in the nation. Creating water and sewage pipe by melting metal and casting pipe can be very dangerous and dirty if not handled with the right process and procedures. However, the workers say that the company ruthlessly tries to increase production by costing the safety of its workers and has succeeded at this with what McWanes calls “disciplined management practices”. This disgusting fact has lead the company to accumulate an abnormal amount of safety violations that include around 4,600 injuries and 9 deaths. The sad part about all this is most of the misfortunes have happened in the past couple decades when new age management and safety practices should have been a top most priority.

Some managers would go as far as hiring their friends so that they would have their own support system to which they would have control over that area of the mine. Having a company that is highly staffed with managers that does what they want can make it hard for the employees to come to work every day. This creates a hostile work environment to which the employees are in fear for their jobs, which in turn creates a high turnover in employees.