The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Today's Front Page

July 23, 2010

Company suggests act of God caused UBB explosion

By Tim Huber AP Business Writer

CHARLESTON — A Massey Energy official said Thursday it is a “distinct possibility” that an unpreventable flood of methane gas caused the explosion that killed 29 men at the company’s Upper Big Branch coal mine.

Readings collected by federal investigators from the Raleigh County mine’s exhaust fan showed approximately twice as much methane as the roughly 1 million cubic feet a day the mine normally releases was present five-and-a-half hours after the blast, Massey said. The company suggested that a crack in the mine’s floor could have been the source of a sudden surge of the volatile gas.

Participants in the civil investigation of the blast largely dismissed Massey’s claims. The explosion also is the subject of a federal criminal investigation.

“The conditions after an explosion are entirely different. They’re night and day to what was going on beforehand,” said J. Davitt McAteer, appointed by Gov. Joe Manchin to conduct an independent investigation of the explosion. “To reach a conclusion based upon readings in the hours after an explosion is scientifically unsound and is not and doesn’t make any logical sense.”

That’s exactly what Massey consultant Christopher Schemel tried during a conference call with reporters.

“What we can tell from the data is that on April 5th a large amount of methane was liberated into the UBB mine,” said Schemel, an expert in fires and explosions. He said gas poured in fast enough to raise the methane level of a 2,000-square-foot house to explosive range in less than 40 seconds. Methane can explode when it’s between 5 percent and 15 percent of the atmosphere.

“The data also suggests that this release was sustained at an elevated rate,” Schemel said. “This methane is a distinct, possible source of this explosion.”

Massey again said the methane may have come from a crack in the mine floor. The Eagle coal seam is prone to that phenomenon and Massey experienced inundations elsewhere at Upper Big Branch in 2003 and 2004.

Still unexplained is how a sudden surge of gas could have resulted in an explosion. Modern mining equipment is required to have methane detectors that warn operators and then shut off automatically when the gas reaches levels well below the explosive range.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, which is heading the main civil investigation, said elevated methane readings are expected after an explosion. The agency suggested other explanations.

“We know this company and this mine violated ventilation standards multiple times in the months leading up to the explosion,” MSHA said. “We’ll look closely at the methane levels, whether Massey was following its plan at the time of the explosion, and any evidence indicating methane detectors were tampered with.”

Miners who worked at Upper Big Branch have made that charge to Congress and the media. Massey has consistently denied that detectors meant to shut off equipment before methane reaches explosive levels were circumvented.

It’s possible so much methane poured in so quickly that it overwhelmed the mine’s ventilation system and detectors designed to automatically shut off equipment well before gas levels reach the explosive range, Massey general counsel Shane Harvey said. Circumstances unforeseen and unpreventable by man “is a distinct possibility, but we’re not certain yet,” Harvey said.

Schemel suggested the crack was too far away — as much as 6 feet — from two methane detectors near the cutting head of the mine’s longwall machine, which extract coal by passing back and forth across the 1,000-foot-wide working face.

The new information also contradicts earlier statements by Richmond, Va.-based Massey. In April, Massey board member Stan Suboleski said air samples taken shortly before the explosion didn’t show high levels of explosive gases.

That remains the case after more than 100 interviews with witnesses, McAteer said. “There hasn’t been any indication of a presence of large quantities of methane.”

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