The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Today's Front Page

September 4, 2010

Lawyer: UBB investigation compromised

By The Associated Press Associated Press

CHARLESTON — A lawyer handling two wrongful-death lawsuits says evidence collected so far inside the Upper Big Branch mine could be compromised because of revelations that two Massey Energy managers were underground for nearly four hours after the deadly April 5 blast.

Federal investigators have previously acknowledged the men were underground, but NPR is reporting new details confirmed by Massey. It says the managers traveled nine miles and were near the longwall mining machine considered a possible source of the blast.

Virginia-based Massey Energy also confirms the two managers stayed inside after the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration issued an order to leave. The company insists they were trying to rescue the 29 men who died.

“These rescue efforts were their one and only objective. Period,” Massey general counsel Shane Harvey said.

But attorney Mark Moreland said that revelation casts a pall on all the evidence, and the presence of the managers must be investigated.

“This certainly has to be clarified and cleared up completely before the evidence could in any way be interpreted as relieving Massey of fault,” Moreland said.

The managers were Chris Blanchard, president of the subsidiary that manages Upper Big Branch, Performance Coal, and Jason Whitehead, then director of underground performance and now a Massey vice president.

In a press briefing last month, MSHA safety administrator Kevin Stricklin downplayed the presence of Blanchard and Whitehead without mentioning their names, saying it’s common to see people rushing into a mine to help after an accident. He also said he ordered them out mainly because he was concerned for their safety.

Stricklin told NPR he doesn’t know if the men did anything wrong, but conceded, “there’s a question that’s gonna come up of whether there was any tampering that took place.”

He is confident investigators will be able to determine that.

“We will be able, if we need to, get to the point of fingerprinting or DNA testing to make this determination,” he said.

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