Crandall Canyon Mine Owner Showed ‘Callous Disregard for the Law’

The owner of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah where six coal miners and three rescue workers died last year showed a “callous disregard for the law and for safety standards, and hardworking miners lost their lives,” says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The committee issued its report on the disaster today.

Kennedy says the U.S. Justice Department should begin a criminal investigation into the circumstances that led to the Aug. 6 collapse that killed six miners—whose bodies have never been recovered—and the Aug. 16 deaths of the three rescue workers.

The committee report also charges that the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) failed to protect the Crandall Canyon miners by “rubber-stamping” a dangerous mining plan. Says Kennedy:

The committee’s investigation has revealed that the owner of Crandall Canyon mine, Murray Energy, disregarded dangerous conditions at the mine, failed to tell federal regulators about these dangers, conducted unauthorized mining and—as a result—exposed its miners to serious risks. MSHA also unconscionably failed to protect miners by hastily rubber-stamping the plan….This deserves a full criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.

Read more: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/06/breaking-news-crandal…

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