Dec 16 - Charleston Daily Mail

The federal government won't recommend changes in the way coal companies deal with electrical storms or seals on mined- out areas until its own report on the Sago Mine disaster is completed sometime next year, the nation's top mine safety official said.

Mine Safety and Health Administration chief Richard Stickler said his agency's report may take longer than the state's, but it will be the definitive document on the January tragedy that killed 12 men and will answer questions that, so far, no one else has.

Stickler, who met with The Associated Press at MSHA's Morgantown office, said he wants to deliver the report and a thorough presentation to the families of the Sago victims during the first quarter of 2007, but he won't rush the investigation.

"I think it's more important to have a quality investigation, however much time it takes," he said.

"Sago is a very complicated accident investigation. We're really trying to figure out what part lightning played and if lightning did play a part, how did that happen?" he said. "There's a lot of things we don't understand at this point."

A state report given to families earlier this week ruled out all possible causes for the Jan. 2 methane gas explosion except lightning, but investigators said they could not determine the route the electrical current took into the sealed-off, underground section.

When the families became frustrated with the lack of answers, the state canceled the public release of the document and said it would prepare a new presentation.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training initially told reporters parts of the report could be rewritten, but agency Director Ron Wooten later said his team would review the report only "to attempt to answer the questions."

Stickler indicated a partial answer on the cause from his team would not be acceptable.

"If it was lightning, how did it get in the mine? If you don't know that, you don't know how to keep it out, do you?" he said. "There's questions there we need the answers to."

But MSHA is not looking only at lightning.

Stickler said he spoke recently with the investigation team and demanded they assemble the world's top experts in every field they want to explore.

That includes computer modeling specialists with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who will study explosive forces and a theory called "pressure piling" that questions whether the geometry of openings in the mine could have created blast forces higher than regulators might have expected.

MSHA must "accurately determine all the root causes and how they interacted," he said.

The United Mine Workers doubts the lightning theory but said this week that if investigators believe it's the cause behind Sago, the state should draft regulations requiring evacuation when storms approach.

Coal companies prefer options that would not stop production in bad weather.

Stickler said MSHA is also looking at those options, including ways to create non-explosive atmospheres behind seals, leaving abandoned sections unsealed and strengthening seals. Federal law already requires lightning arrestors.

Stickler said he will be present when his agency's report is given to the Sago families, and that they will have the chance to question the investigators.

"We will give them copies of report, but not necessarily expect them to sit there and read the report and know what's in it," he said.

One thing the families should not expect, however, is a recommendation that MSHA change the way it oversees rescue efforts.

Some relatives and miners who survived the Sago blast blame MSHA for the 11-hour delay in getting mine rescue teams underground. By the time rescuers reached the trapped men 41 hours later, all but one who had survived the initial blast had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Stickler said MSHA is doing an internal review to determine what, if anything, it could have done differently. That report will be released one month after the investigation report.

But he cautioned against "second-guessing the people that were on site."

Stickler, who headed Pennsylvania's mine safety office from 1997 to 2003, said he was in the command center at the Quecreek mine, where nine men survived flooding and a 78-hour entrapment in 2002.

Neither MSHA, the mine operator nor the state was in charge, he said. All decisions were made as a team.

"If we have another accident tomorrow, I'll be there," he said. "And I'll expect the same teamwork."

 

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