Word: coal
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...train some 600 young people a year in the basics of mining. "If a person chooses to do so, who am I to tell him no?" asks Thompson. He has considered what he would do if he lost his teaching position. "I would have to go back into the coal mines -- if I could find a job," he says. And what of his 10-year-old son Justin? "I realize that's not what I want my son to do," he says...
...Mine Workers of America contend that the MSHA has favored industry for a decade. They point out that the government agency has refused to publish its list of mines considered the nation's most dangerous -- once dubbed the "high-hazard list." The MSHA's chief, William Tattersall, a former coal-industry lobbyist, says his agency aggressively enforces the law. He estimates that most injuries occur because of momentary inattentiveness on the part of miners. Tattersall is bluntly pragmatic about mining's risks, economic and otherwise. He says, "The best advice you can give your children when you're raised...
Last spring the MSHA stunned the mining industry by announcing that the agency had found widespread fraud in its dust-sampling program, designed to prevent black lung. The tests are done to ensure that coal-dust levels in mines do not exceed 2 mg per cubic meter. The testing device consists of a small pump that draws air through a filter, which is sent to a federal lab and weighed for dust content. The MSHA said more than 500 companies at 847 mines had tampered with the filters. Civil penalties may reach a record $7 million. Last week 33 coal...
...Campbell, vice president of operations for the Pittston Coal Group, one of the companies cited for alleged tampering, bristles at talk of cheating on dust samples. "I've never seen anyone tamper with the dust-sampling system. It angers me that people say they try to beat the system. It's there to protect people...
...even worse scandal, miners say, is a federal law that makes it nearly impossible for miners with black lung to collect disability payments. Congress drastically tightened up on such compensation in 1981 in response to coal- industry pressure and fraud among miners claiming benefits. In the past, miners with 15 or more years of employment were presumed eligible. That provision is gone, and miners must prove that they are totally disabled. In the two-year period before the change, nearly half of black lung applicants were approved. Now just 4% prevail...