Risking Death to Save Lives
By Clyde Weiss
Pennsylvania’s underground coal-mine inspectors place themselves in jeopardy to protect the workers in the nation’s most hazardous industry.
Waynesburg, Pennsylvania
Nearly 700 feet below the surface of the Cumberland Mine, a dull roar grows deafening as a powerful machine called a longwall shearer emerges from the murky darkness. Its spinning, carbon-tipped drum slices through the coal wall. Chunks of shiny wet rock — hosed down to minimize the threat of a coal-dust explosion — fall onto a chain conveyor that becomes a churning river of "black gold."
This is one of the most-productive underground bituminous (soft coal) mines in the United States. Helping to ensure the safety of the 425 who work here — plus some 10,000 coal miners throughout Pennsylvania — are people like Stephen "Buck" Strange. He is one of 42 underground mining inspectors with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, and all of them belong to AFSCME Local 2541 (Council 83).
Wearing a protective metal helmet with a battery-operated spotlight, Strange scrutinizes the shearing machine, the miners, the coal roof and "rib" (wall), ventilation, methane levels — everything — with a keen instinct developed over a career that spans 10 years as an inspector and two decades as a bituminous coal miner. "With one sweep of your head," he says, "you’ve taken a picture, and you think: Is there anything wrong here?"
This time, thankfully, there isn’t.
Deadly business
More than 103,000 U.S. workers lost their lives in all types of mines in the 20th century alone. Improvements in technology and mining techniques have significantly reduced death and injury. Yet this is still considered — by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the most dangerous industry in the nation. Although 19 coal miners were killed in accidents last year, only two of the deaths occurred in Pennsylvania.
The miners’ union takes safety seriously. Nevertheless, the men and women who descend into the depths are glad that state and federal inspectors are around to keep them (and their employers) on their literal and figurative toes.
"I’m probably walking today with both legs because of the inspectors," says Pat Burns, president of United Mine Workers of America Local 2300, which represents the Cumberland miners. "I had a bad habit of sitting over the edge [of a miner’s underground vehicle] with my feet out. The inspectors gave me a little bit of hell, and I learned my lesson."
Indeed, their mere presence makes the mines safer. "Can you imagine what people would do on the highways without the state police there?" asks Ellsworth Pauley, 57, who supervises five bituminous coal inspectors in four counties. Without inspectors, "you’d have the same thing here. Miners would take all the shortcuts they possibly could, and they still try to do that. We catch them all the time. Most of the violations aren’t life-threatening, but sometimes we run into very dangerous situations."
Shared hazards
The inspectors — who must have worked in a coal mine for at least 10 years before they can be hired for the job — face the same dangers as miners when they go underground. Only one Pennsylvania inspector has died on the job. He drowned in 1971 while conducting an inspection of a mine that had been closed and flooded after a fire. Inspectors also voluntarily expose themselves in such emergency situations as making rescues and fighting fires in the mines.
Larry Stowinsky, 48, one of the bureau’s rescue/first aid instructors (and an AFSCME member), recalls one such time: "We had water over our knees and [extinguisher] foam past our chins, leaving about a foot or so of air for your face — and that space was filled with smoke."
Inspector Lynn Jamison, president of Local 2541, once got stuck in a mine tunnel only 26 inches wide. "I had everything off except my belt, light and self-rescuer [an emergency breathing device]. I crawled to where I couldn’t go any further. I tried to crawl back, but my belt slipped underneath a roof bolt, and I got stuck." When he turned, his belt tightened on the screw. To escape, he squeezed forward enough to get unhooked from the bolt, "sucked in my air" and backed out. "It put a fear in me that took a while to get rid of."
Progress in safety
In 1877, Pennsylvania employed only three mine inspectors. Today, the bureau has about 50 inspectors and supervisors, plus four instructors. While the prevention of death and injury is not entirely within their control, they have made mine work safer.
"Now we see years with no fatalities in the state," says Jamison. "I think that speaks for itself."
With the Bush administration and Congress about to adopt policies that will increase coal production in the years ahead — adding to the number of miners placed at risk — the inspector’s job will be that much more critical. Proud of their jobs, they wouldn’t trade places with anyone. Says Stowinsky: "I’d like to think I have made some small impact on a miner’s safety."
Small impact? Listen to John Ealy, a miner for a quarter-century: "If it wasn’t for the inspectors, I wouldn’t even be underground."
