Mine Disaster Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Motion Seeks to Erase Ex-Massey CEO Blankenship's Conviction

Attorneys for former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship are seeking to erase his misdemeanor conviction related to the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in four decades. A former lead prosecutor called it a desperate act.

A motion filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Charleston claims federal prosecutors withheld information that would have assisted in Blankenship’s defense at his lengthy 2015 trial. It said the government produced reports and other information after the trial’s completion.

Blankenship, who has long maintained he didn’t get a fair trial, served one year in prison for a misdemeanor conviction related to the 2010 explosion that killed 29 men at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia.

Blankenship assembled a new legal team for the latest court filing, which said evidence withheld by prosecutors until after trial “would have tipped the balance in Mr. Blankenship’s favor.”

The motion, which seeks an evidentiary hearing, was announced by Blankenship through his U.S. Senate campaign. He’s running as a Republican in the May 8 primary in West Virginia.

Former assistant U.S. attorney Steve Ruby, who was the lead prosecutor at the trial, said in an email to The Associated Press that the motion is “clearly a political Hail Mary. He’s three weeks from an election, and it sounds like he’s behind in the polls. If there were any merit to this whatsoever, he’d have filed it while he was still in prison instead of waiting almost until Election Day.”

Current U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart, who was nominated by President Donald Trump last year, said his office wants to “ensure justice is the ultimate result and any response (to the filing) will be through our actions with the court at the appropriate time.”

Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of conspiring to willfully violate safety standards.

According to the motion, Mark Clemens, who oversaw Massey’s production, sales and budgeting, said in an interview previously undisclosed by prosecutors that “there was pressure at Massey to run coal, but not enough pressure to overlook safety.”

The motion said many of the documents involved interviews with people who testified at the trial. Among them was Christopher Blanchard, who ran the Massey subsidiary that oversaw Upper Big Branch.

Blanchard testified under an immunity agreement with the government but helped the defense during almost five days of cross-examination. He previously told Blankenship’s attorneys that he himself didn’t break any laws and denied being involved in a conspiracy with Blankenship to violate safety regulations.

The motion said most of the previously undisclosed emails were written by former FBI Special Agent James Lafferty, who testified about a variety of investigation topics, from Blankenship’s compensation to his frequent receipt of reports detailing Upper Big Branch’s violations.

The documents also cited former Massey safety expert William Ross, who gave a tough review of the company’s safety shortcomings. While talking about a 2009 meeting with Blankenship, Ross testified he told Blankenship that Massey couldn’t “afford to have a disaster.”

Four investigations found worn and broken cutting equipment created a spark that ignited accumulations of coal dust and methane gas at Upper Big Branch. Broken and clogged water sprayers then allowed what should have been a minor flare-up to become an inferno.

During the trial, prosecutors called Blankenship a bullish micromanager who meddled in the smallest details of Upper Big Branch. They said Massey’s safety programs were just a facade — never backed by more money to hire additional miners or take more time on safety tasks.

Blankenship’s attorneys rested their case without calling a single witness on his behalf.

UBB Sister: 'I Want to Remember My Brother, Not Just the Coal Miner'

On April 5, 2010, Howard “Boone” Payne went to work at the Upper Big Branch mine just as he had for years. He and 28 other men made their way miles underground to the mine’s long wall operation, spent hours mining coal, and prepared to wrap up their day when the unthinkable happened- an explosion that took all of their lives.

Six years later, Boone’s sisters Shirley Whitt and Sherry Keeney Depoy say there is still a void left in their family that cannot be filled.

“The last time we talked he was talking about he was going to retire in two years,” Whitt said of her brother who was 53 at the time. “He said if I don’t get out of there, they’re going to kill me, and to this day it haunts me.”

The conversation came just weeks before the mine explosion that killed 29 mine near Montcoal, W.Va. Upper Big Branch was the worst mine disaster in the nation in 30 years.

The explosion sparked a federal investigation that, in December, culminated in a guilty verdict for former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship– the company that oversaw Upper Big Branch at the time of the explosion.

Blankenship was found guilty of conspiring to violate federal mine safety laws, a misdemeanor that carries an up to one year prison term and a maximum fine of $250,000.

Federal prosecutors told the jury a story of a micromanager who promoted a corporate environment of ignoring safety laws, leading to the disaster. Blankenship’s attorney’s pointed to a safety program on the books at Massey as proof he was concerned with safety.

Whitt says she witnessed conversations between Boone and their father, a former coal miner himself, describing the conditions underground.

“He would have a cold and he would sound so horrible and would say, when you wade in water up to your neck in that mines and you wear those clothes, that’s just a part of the job,” she said.

Whitt and her sister will attend a Tuesday morning memorial to commemorate the disaster that took their brother and 29 other men.

Depoy described Boone as a hardworker who loved life, loved basketball, and was always just a phone call away. That’s how Whitt says she wants to remember him.

“I want to go over [to the memorial],” she said, “and just remember Boone as my brother and not just the coal miner.”

ACLU Brief Backs Media Challenge of WV Gag Order

The ACLU is supporting news organizations challenging a gag order in an ex-coal executive’s criminal case.

In a brief supporting the motion, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia Foundation says the order is prior restraint on speech. The organization filed the brief Thursday and distributed it to media outlets Friday.

U.S. District Judge Irene Berger’s order restricts parties or victims from discussing former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship’s case with reporters or releasing court documents.

The Associated Press, The Charleston Gazette, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting are asking Berger to drop or modify the order.

Blankenship is charged with conspiring to violate safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch Mine, where a 2010 explosion killed 29 men.

UBB Families: "We Want Answers"

Family and friends of the 29 miners killed in the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion in 2010 gathered in front of the federal courthouse in Charleston Wednesday demanding answers from the Department of Justice.

“It’s been four years,” said Sheeren Adkins, who lost her son Jason in the blast. “If they were going to find something, they would have found it by now.”

Family members were protesting the recent release of a film funded by Don Blankenship, the former Massey Energy CEO. The film, “Upper Big Branch: Never Again,” claims the explosion was caused by an inundation of natural gas through a crack in the mine floor.

Four federal, state and independent investigations have blamed the accident on unsafe practices within the mine.

The family members are calling on the DOJ to arrest Blakenship and the more than dozen other top Massey executives who plead the Fifth Amendment during the investigation.

Subjects in UBB Film Work to Separate from Don Blankenship

Families of the victims are bracing for another anniversary of the Upper Big Branch Disaster; an explosion that ripped so violently through an underground coal mine in Raleigh County it left metal and sent a blast of air miles from the source.

Former UBB miner and survivor of that fateful day, Stanley “Goose” Stewart remembered during a speech he gave about a year after the blast.

Stewart gave the speech at the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Four investigations into what happened on April 5, 2010 point to poor ventilation, poor rock dusting, and a corporate culture with a disregard for mine safety.

Then-owner Massey Energy’s investigation came to a different conclusion. The film called “Upper Big Branch: Never Again” was released earlier this week and makes a case for the company’s stance on what caused the explosion.

Mine safety professors from the University of Utah join Senator Manchin to say they were misrepresented in the film “Upper Big Branch: Never Again.” The film was paid for by former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship who claims it “looks at what really happened at the Upper Big Branch mine disaster” that killed 29 miners in 2010.

Manchin sent a letter demanding the documentary be removed along with all references to the Senator. Manchin told West Virginia Public Radio that he is angry and was lied to.

Manchin, says the company Blankenship hired to make the documentary, Androit Films, lied to his face when they approached him for an interview to talk about mine safety. He said they made no mention of the film’s ties to Blankenship. Manchin says he would have never agreed to be affiliated with a project backed by Blankenship.

Dr. Tom Hethmon, responded to reporters to say in part …

“My colleagues and I at the University of Utah's Center for Mining Safety and Health Excellence are outraged by the apparent manipulation of our interviews in this film. As a condition of our participation in the film, the filmmakers promised us that the documentary for which we were interviewed was about the advancement of mine safety standards in this country, and that Don Blankenship had no involvement, financial or otherwise, in the film's production”

In the documentary Blankenship, in part, blames MSHA for the approving the poor the ventilation system used at the mine at the time of the explosion.

“It’s other things like changing the way things need to be done underground, reducing ventilation, turning off miner’s scrubbers, creating an environment that’s unsafe for the miners and the government is doing that partially out of ignorance and partially out of the power that they have,” former CEO Don Blankenship said earlier this week on MSNBC.

MSHA conducted an internal investigation after UBB and admitted to shortcomings. MSHA released a statement about those shortcomings in March 2012. Some included misuse of examination books, lack of experience, lack of training, “not identify significant deficiencies in the operator’s ventilation and roof control plans” and more.

In January the federal watchdog released a statement touting 100 regulatory and administrative changes since UBB.

Blankenship implies that Massey’s investigation has been mostly ignored because of his reputation.

Blankenship has been politically outspoken in West Virginia and does not believe that climate change is man-made. Blankenship again from MSNBC.

“The company did a very good job at the mine,” Blankenship said. “MSHA was at the mine every day and the explosion happened because of a natural gas inundation.”

Former UBB miners and survivors recalled a different atmosphere underground.

Massey’s report also disputes the role of rock dust in the explosion. Saying that the mine was adequately rock dusted. Rock dust is used to neutralize the combustibility of coal dust in the mine.

In a message last night, former UBB miner Goose Stewart backed the other reports saying while miners did rock dust, “the overall general rock dusting wasn’t adequate”.

Stewart also said a mine that size should’ve had at least two machine rock dusters working at all times. Stewart remembers one rock dusting machine that was consistently breaking. He said his section ‘did their best to keep it dusted (usually by hand, no machine),” he said.

United Mine Workers of America International President Cecil E. Roberts has also responded to the film, calling it “self-serving” on the part of Blankenship and “a feeble effort by one millionaire to stay out of jail.”

“The so-called documentary produced by Don Blankenship is little more than a rehash of thoroughly discredited theories as to what took place at the Upper Big Branch mine, said Roberts.”It flies in the face of the conclusions four independent reports, including those by federal and state agencies, on the 2010 explosion that claimed the lives of 29 miners.

Roberts went on to urge the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate “all the way up the corporate chain of command, and ensure that all those responsible for the tragedy of Upper Big Branch are held accountable.”

Mine Commission Upholds MSHA Citations after Sago

A federal commission found that a mine operator’s failure to notify MSHA and mine rescue teams immediately after an explosion in 2006 was inexcusable. . Twelve miners were killed as a result of the infamous blast also known as the Sago Disaster.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration announced Tuesday that the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission overturned a decision by an Administrative Law Judge.

The Commission has overturned a decision by Administrative Law Judge Jerold Feldman involving the Wolf Run Mining Co.’s Sago Mine in Upshur County.

The Department of Labor said in a release that although the explosion occurred at January 2 at 6:26 a.m MSHA was not contacted until 7:50 a.m. Efforts to reach a mine rescue team member at his home did not take place until 8:04 a.m.

MSHA issued a citation to the mine operator for failure to immediately notify the agency of the explosion.

The overturned judge Feldman apparently agreed with the company’s reasoning for the late response, saying that commission case law permitted the operator a reasonable amount of time to investigate the event before contacting authorities.

Feldman also thought it reasonable for the operator to allow mine management to execute a rescue attempt first since they would be barred from entering the mine after MSHA arrived.

MSHA appealed and the commission agreed to reinstate the citations for “unwarrantable failure and high negligence.”, The commission upheld MSHA’s previously proposed penalties of $1,500 and $13,000 for two separate citations.