Mine safety regulations have failed to save miners lives

RESCUE operations to save six trapped, and presumably, dead, Utah miners in the Crandall Canyon mine have failed. So have the safety regulations designed to protect them.

How did this happen? After a string of mining tragedies – especially the Sago coal mine disaster in West Virginia – the federal government stepped up its efforts to keep trapped miners alive and to identify potential safety hazards. Apparently, the costs of violation still aren’t enough: the Mine Safety and Health Administration issued 116 “significant and substantial” citations against the Crandall Canyon mine over the last three years. Just last month, the mine was cited for violating mine evacuation rules.
Industry officials admit that they have been slow to adopt the new mandates for emergency communications technology. (They say the mandates are too expensive, of course.) When we hear callous comments such as those that have emerged from Murray Energy Corp. (the firm that co-owns the Crandall Canyon mine) officials’ mouths – they’ve said the mountain is too unstable to continue rescue drilling, but the company expects to resume operations in the same mine – we’re led to believe that the human cost of these tragedies may not yet be enough for them to take safety seriously.

So we ask, again, of the federal agencies that are supposed to prevent these tragedies: Where is the compliance? Why is the cost of safety so much higher than the cost of death?

San Francisco Chronicle