Upper Big Branch Mine News

Massey Energy CEO’s Hands-on Style Key in Deadly Coal Mine Blast Case

To beat charges that he recklessly ignored safety standards before his coal mine blew up, killing 29 men in the industry’s worst disaster in the U.S. in decades, coal executive Don Blankenship will have to overcome reams of evidence painting …

Upper Big Branch Foreman Agrees to Give Up License for 3 Years

A worker at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine has agreed to surrender his underground assistant foreman license for three years. The agreement settles allegations that Jeremy L. Burghduff didn’t turn on his methane detector when he was supposed to …

West Virginia Coal Dust Standards Not Enforced

State standards aimed at reducing buildups of explosive coal dust in underground mines but regulators haven’t been enforced. More than a fifth of the more than 5,500 dust samples taken from mines by state regulators since August 2011 didn’t comply …

Federal Prosecutors Say Alpha Mines Safer

Alpha Natural Resources has significantly cut its accident and injury rates in the six months since a landmark $210 million settlement that spared the company criminal charges over the 2010 mine explosion that killed 29 workers, federal prosecutors say. Alpha …

West Virginia Mine Blast Survivor Cases Linger With Alpha

Nine men who survived West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine disaster want to abandon mediation of their personal injury claims and start gathering evidence for trial because they say the mine’s new owner isn’t negotiating in good faith. The miners …

Panel Faults MSHA Enforcement Prior to Explosion

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration could have prevented or reduced the likelihood of an April 2010 explosion in southern West Virginia that killed 29 miners, according to a report by a team of experts released Friday. The independent …

Alpha to Pay $209M Over West Virginia Coal Mine Disaster

Coal miner Alpha Natural Resources has agreed to pay $1.5 million to each of the families of 29 miners killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia last year. The payments – part of a …