"Labor Department disbands mine safety legal teams" by Kimberly Kindy | Washington Post, April 07, 2013
WASHINGTON — As the third anniversary of the Upper Big Branch mining disaster passes, legal teams assembled by the Labor Department to force mine operators to improve safety are being largely disbanded.
The move is being heavily criticized by some members of Congress, the miners union, and families of the 29 Upper Big Branch miners who were killed in the April 5, 2010, explosion.
‘‘They should have made the cuts somewhere else. This was to make mines safer,’’ said Gary Quarles, whose son Gary ‘‘Spanky’’ Wayne died at Upper Big Branch in West Virginia. ‘‘Here we are, and it is about to be the third anniversary. . . . We thought something good might come out of it. This is wrong.’’
That's your government for you in the 21st-century, Americans.
After the explosion, legal teams were hired to deal with a backlog of contested mine safety citations. The number of unresolved appeals had grown to 16,600, and Massey Energy, then owner of Upper Big Branch, had the highest contest rate of any coal mine in the nation.
By contesting citations from the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, mine owners were able to avoid racking up high numbers of serious violations that would place them in the agency’s ‘‘pattern of violation’’ program. There they would be more closely scrutinized, and their operations could be restricted or even shut down.
And as long as citations are under appeal, the agency cannot issue the heavier fines allowed under the law for repeated violations of the same safety hazard.
In the five years leading up to the explosion, Massey Energy had received 1,422 citations for safety violations at the Upper Big Branch mine and was assessed $1.89 million in penalties. Massey, which has since been sold, was contesting 25 percent of the citations at the time of the explosion.
But now two of the five offices of the legal effort are being shut, and 30 of the 74 lawyers hired for the effort will be laid off by June 1. The Labor Department said the program was intended to be temporary and its shutdown has been accelerated by budget cuts.
Yup.
See:
Sunday Globe Specials: Defending Sequestration
Yeah, I am kind of sick of it. How can you tell?
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Related: West Virginia Seep
Also see:
The Good Stewards of Government
Alphabet Agency: It's Fun Working For the FAA
Not very worried about "terrorists" and "hijackings," are they?
What do they know that you don't know? That the "terror" is all fake, a government-created, funded, and diected entity with the ma$$ media as a propaganda mouthpiece?
Time for some real terror:
"Smaller fertilizer plants fall through regulatory cracks; Several agencies check in but don’t work together" by Ramit Plushnick-Masti and Jack Gillum | Associated Press, April 21, 2013
HOUSTON — Safety inspections were rare at the fertilizer company in West, Texas, that exploded and killed at least 14 people last week.
This is not unusual.
Small fertilizer plants nationwide fall under the purview of several government agencies, each with a specific concern, and the agencies are not required to coordinate with others on what they have found....
Related: Slow Saturday Special: FDA Finds More Problems at Compounding Pharmacies
Are you $ick of the excu$es?
The plant in West had ammonium nitrate, the chemical used to build the bomb that blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people....
Huh?
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Oregon Acid Trip
You see what is there when you come down?
No federal agency determines how close a facility handling potentially dangerous substances can be to population centers, and in many states, including Texas, many of these decisions are left up to local zoning authorities.
Oh, now I see why they blew it up. More federal involvement in everything, that's the goal.
And in Texas, the state’s minimal approach to zoning puts plants just yards away from schools, houses, and other populated areas, as was the case in West.
Yeah, it's okay to put schools near fertilizer/munitions facilities; just don't have any weed on you.
What a fucked-up country we are living in.
That plant received a special permit because it was less than 3,000 feet from a school.
State and federal investigators have not yet determined the cause of the disaster, which occurred Wednesday night after a fire broke out at the site after work hours. The explosion could be heard miles away and was so powerful it registered as a small earthquake.
The West Fertilizer Co. stored, distributed, and blended fertilizers, including anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate, for use by farmers around the Central Texas community. The plant opened in 1962 outside the rural town of 2,800, but development gradually crept closer.
Donald Adair, the plant’s owner, said in a statement Friday, he was cooperating with the investigation, and expressed sympathy for the victims.
Over the years, the fertilizer company was fined and cited for violations by federal and state agencies.
Last summer, the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration assessed a $10,000 fine against West Fertilizer for improperly labeling storage tanks and preparing to transfer chemicals without a security plan. The company paid $5,250 after reporting it had corrected the problems.
The Environmental Protection Agency also cited the plant for not having an up-to-date risk management plan. That problem was also resolved, and the company submitted a new plan in 2011....
Look at the EPA, diddling around with a "risk-management" plan!!!
The company’s last contact with regulation may have come as recently as April 5, when the Office of the State Chemist inspected the plant. But that agency focuses mostly on ensuring that commercial fertilizers are properly labeled and blended, said Roger Hoestenbach, the office’s associate director.
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Related: Slow Saturday Specials: The Strange Tales of the Texas DAs
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Many in Texas still homeless after factory blast; Cause of explosion at fertilizer plant is being analyzed" by Paul J. Weber and Christopher Sherman | Associated Press, April 22, 2013
WEST, Texas — The explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. leveled about 50 homes and destroyed an apartment complex and as many as three schools in the city of 2,800 about 80 miles south of Dallas.
Nearly 70 federal and state investigators are still trying to determine what caused the fire that set off the explosion, assistant state fire marshal Kelly Kirstner said. Authorities say there are no signs of criminal intent.
The blast rocketed shrapnel across several blocks and left what Kirstner described Sunday as ‘‘a large crater.’’
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Robert Champion, the special agent in charge for the Dallas office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said investigators plan to enter the crater in the next few days and start digging in search of an explanation.
Slow is the normal way of life in West. But the last several days for many of its residents have melded into an anguishing and frustrating stretch of wait-and-hear, whether about the safety of family and friends, or the fate of their homes....
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