CEO of Coal Mine Where 29 Workers Died Is Indicted
Don Blankenship, the CEO of the Massey Energy coal mine that exploded and killed 29 workers in 2010 has been indicted on charges that he conspired to violate federal mine safety and health standards.
The indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury in Charleston, West Virginia, says that Blankenship hid safety violations at the West Virginia mine between January 2008 and April 2010, when the disaster took place. The suppressing of the safety violations impeded a federal mine safety investigation following the blast, the indictment alleges.
Blankenship can face 31 years in prison if convicted.
The four-count indictment, filed in U.S. District Court includes conspiracy to violate mandatory federal mine safety and health standards, conspiracy to impede federal mine safety standards, securities fraud, making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and impeding the post-explosion inquiry of federal mine safety investigators. Three of the charges are felonies and one is a misdemeanor.
“It’s an important day for many, many families in the Central Appalachian coal fields,” said Bruce Stanley, an attorney representing the widows of the miners who died in the blast. “For the first time in my memory, the CEO of a major coal producer is being held criminally accountable for the atrocious conduct that occurred on his watch.”
Calling Blankenship “as criminally culpable as any mass murderer,” labor and environmental activists have been calling for the former Massey CEO to face legal consequences since soon after the blast, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had actively defended him. Massey was a director of the Chamber of Commerce at the time.
The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster was the worst in the United States since 1970. The Mine Safety and Health Administration released its final report in December, 2011, which was that flagrant safety violations by Massey Energy contributed to a coal dust explosion. The MSHA issued 369 citations, assessing $10.8 million in federal penalties. Alpha Natural Resources, the company that acquired Massey in 2011 for $7.1 billion, later settled all corporate criminal liabilities for $209 million. Blankenship is not associated the current management.
Alpha Natural Resources announced that it would close the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2012.
