Miner Killed in Harmony Mine Accident

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CoalRegion1
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Post by CoalRegion1 » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 5:21 pm

A 40 year old miner was killed today when a roof collapsed on top of him inside the Harmony mine near Mt Carmel, PA. Lets all keep him, his family and coworkers in our thoughts and prayers.


 
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Post by hophead » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 5:24 pm

Till DEP is done with this another mine will close. My sympathy to all who knew him.

 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 5:54 pm

Read the story here Dep is not the Problem MSHA the FEDs are They are the ones that have been shutting The Anthracite Deep mines down in PA And by the way this is the largest Anthracite Deep mine in PA Not good if they shut it down

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Post by mike » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 6:19 pm

It's to early yet to say for sure what way this will go as far as msha goes but the circumstances leading up to this are different than what happened at R&D. Harmony is a first class operation, I doubt anyone is at fault here. At R&D there were issues with ventalation and basic mining procedures. Not to mention there were problems with record keeping there. What happened at R&D was preventable, really if any one piece of the puzzle would have been different I don't think it would have happened.

 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 6:34 pm

Mike did you know him I know what your saying about the other Mine Mike but you know awell as anybody what msha are
doing and this is not the first death at that mine it is not good for anybody

 
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218Bee
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Post by 218Bee » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 7:56 pm

Very sad new, I'll keep the men who do this hard and dangerous work in my thoughts.
It's easy to think of fuel as a commodity, this reminds us of the real cost.

 
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Post by Freddy » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 9:25 pm

I'm sorry to hear this man died. My prayers go out to the family.

I know some are just doing it because it's a job, but I also know most do it because they love what they do. Who do we write to about not stopping these people from doing what they love as well as providing a fuel that's made in the USA?


 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 9:57 pm

Here's a start Freddy good luck getting anywhere The counties where the deep mines are in is Schuylkill co. Northumberland co. Dauphin co. & Columbia co.

http://www.msha.gov/

http://www.pa.gov/Pages/default.aspx?

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/me ... _alpha.cfm

http://www.pasen.gov/

 
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Post by mike » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 10:27 pm

J.C.
I didn't know the guy in the accident. It's a damn shame what MSHA is doing here. It would be one thing if the rules they were ramming down our throats pertained to us but they don't. In more than one case they make our mines more dangerous, a prime example being running the fans 24/7. Thats fine and dandy in the summer but come winter time our airways and slopes ice up. Once that happens you have to slither down the slope hanging on to a rope and chip the ice away just so the buggy can run. You don't even want to know how I feel about everything thats going on here with these mines.

 
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Post by gambler » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 10:32 pm

A friend of mine worked in a bituminous deep mine quite a few years ago and there was an accident and a miner was killed. My friend said that from the lips of the MSHA worker came the words "There is no such thing as an accident, someone is to blame for the death".

 
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Post by mike » Mon. Jun. 16, 2008 10:48 pm

That sounds like something some of our MSHA inspectors would say. They just don't seem to understand, or care that were not mining bitty here in the region.

 
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Post by stoker-man » Tue. Jun. 17, 2008 5:58 am

Deep mining is dangerous work, no matter how safe the workers are. There are always loose slabs and rocks falling from the back, where the roof bolts aren't used. Then you have the unstable back, which was hand-scaled in my time in the mine, right after the blast. I did that for about a year; it's a real art form.

There was nothing romantic about working at the 1500 foot level in a zinc mine, but the pay was good and I really liked my job, but after two years of too many close calls, I turned in my pick. The mine had a terrible safety record, with a high fatality rate up until the mid '70s.

 
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Post by Freddy » Tue. Jun. 17, 2008 6:31 am

Thanks for the links coalberner, I sent an email to the mine safety people: <removed dead email link> ...the address took a bit to find on the web site. They always make it difficult!

My letter:

Sirs and Madams,

I cannot afford oil to heat my home. I have just converted to anthracite coal. I am deeply concerned about the deep mines closing due to stiff regulations. Anthracite mines are much different than bituminous mines. I suggest you have "Anthracite deep mining rules" and a seperate set of "Bituminous mining rules". By forcing bituminous rules onto the anthracite mines you are taking away the only way I know of to heat my family. Please do not shut down any more anthracite deep mines. I suggest you form a panel made of anthracite miners and listen to what they have to say about how they are different, then change some of the safty protocols to match what they do and how they do it.

Thank you,

 
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coal berner
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Post by coal berner » Tue. Jun. 17, 2008 3:33 pm

Well Freddy The Problem is they had two sets of Rules & Regs one for soft coal and one for hard coal I believe in 1991
is when they Put the two together That is when all of the *censored* hit the Fan I think it was 1967 or 1968 when the Rules &
Regs book for Anthracite Mining was written everything was fine then some Genius came up with the idea of Putting both the Hard coal & soft coal Rules & Regs together in 1991 since then it has been nothing but Problems for the
Independent Anthracite coal miners Here is a link you can see from 1931 to 2006 just how many Deep mines there where just click on the year you want to look at Start from 1991 to 2006 you will see How many mines that have seen closed down when you pick the year you can look at Underground mines and surface mines look under Production reports lot of reading ;)

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Post by gaw » Thu. Jun. 19, 2008 9:00 pm

Thoughts and prayers go out to the Miner and his family. Nobody goes to work thinking this will happen to him or her but all miners are aware of the hazards involved in mining. Just think of this. If the poor fellow who lost his life would have died in a traffic accident on his way home from work that day it would have just been another traffic fatality. The fact that it was an accident in a mine has all kinds of investigators snooping around just wanting to nail someones ass to the wall. The fact that the man died is a tragedy for his family no matter how he would have met his untimely demise.

OK, I know we are drifting from the subject in the heading but I think Pennsylvania needs to get a Governor with some gonads to tell the Feds to get the "bleep" out of here. Anthracite is unique to Pennsylvania and we will regulate how to mine it.


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