Page 3 - Ventilation Problems News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Three months ago about the wrong-way air flow at the vents near the escape routes? >> that's incredibly serious. i mean, first of all, there's going to be probably charges brought against that fore manor supervisor who claimed he knew about that for three weeks. they can do that under section 1-10-c of the mine act. it's responsibility. there certainly could be criminal charges filed. it's a flagrant violation. it's high negligence. it's reckless disregard. they knew it. that air in that escapeway should be fresh air, breathable, fresh air and not contaminated with coal dust or methane. >> is ...

Imminent danger order was issued on 12/14/09. it wasn't terminated until february 2nd. we can't get details from them, i'm sure, right now. they're busy doing the rescue. the press people are overwhelmed. but something was going terribly wrong with this mine. there were withdraw orders because of the ventilation problems. they had to take minors out of the mine or out of sections to fix the problems. there is no doubt that ventilation problems were plaguing this mine. >> that raises the simple question, why wasn't it shut down, plain and simple? >> well, and that's a good question. under the 1...

>> what are the implications based on that news this afternoon about the citation three months ago about the wrong-way air flow at the vents near the escape routes? >> that's incredibly serious. i mean, first of all, there's going to be probably charges brought against that fore manor supervisor who claimed he knew about that for three weeks. they can do that under section 1-10-c of the mine act. it's personal responsibility. there certainly could be criminal charges filed. it's a flagrant violation. it's high negligence. it's reckless disregard. they knew it. that air in that escapeway should...

Violations. what is going on here? >> you know, i don't know. that certainly would not have happened at a mine where the workers were represented by a union. we have local union safety committees that make sure that issues like high methane levels, coal dust accumulations, ventilation problems. if something like that's going on at a union-represented mine like it was going on at this mind, likelihood is we would have withdrawn from work. >> what's the next move? what can come out of this investigation? >> well, i think we need to -- the first and foremost find out exactly what happened here. f...

Ventilation problems. >> correct. >> problems that could lead to the kind of buildup of methane gas, correct? >> correct. so talk us to about those violations, which are very serious violations and then the way a company can sort of kick the can through the appeals process. >> well, the company can appeal msha's citation, but the bottom line is they still have to correct the condition for which they were cited and they have to correct it in the amount of time that msha gives them to correct it. so when i was looking through the ventilation violations, most of them were corrected the same day w...