Serious hazards found at Justice coal mine, governor noncommittal on US silica rule

Miners were exposed to a wide range of serious hazards at Frontier’s Belcher Branch Mine in the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration’s Pineville district, according to information released by the agency Thursday.

MSHA issued an imminent danger order the first day of an impact inspection last month after finding what it called in a news release an “extremely hot and smoking” tail pulley bearing on a belt conveyor.

Miners were immediately removed from the mine to protect them from imminent fire and explosion hazard, MSHA said, adding that other conveyor bearings also were overheating in the mine, prompting more unwarrantable failure orders.

The impact inspection followed MSHA’s issuance of 334 violations at the mine between July 1, 2023, and June 3, 2024 — an average of roughly one violation every day.

The July 2024 impact inspection resulted in 11 safety and health violations classified by MSHA as Significant and Substantial, a designation for hazards reasonably likely to result in serious injury.

The Governor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on the impact inspection.

Prosecutors after Justice firms’ fine debts

MSHA’s announcement Thursday comes two days after federal prosecutors submitted a filing seeking to hold nearly two dozen Justice energy companies in contempt of court for failing to pay off mine safety fine debt they’ve agreed to pay multiple times.

U.S. prosecutors have asked the court to hold Justice coal firms in contempt for failing to pay $579,041 five months after they were required to completely pay off a $5.13 million debt stemming from an April 2020 agreement.

That debt covered five years of unpaid Mine Safety and Health Administration civil penalties dating back to 2014.

The federal attorneys said defense counsel told the government in June 2023 the companies “did not immediately have the ability” to make late payments but would be able to borrow money from another business entity in August 2023 to catch up on the payment plan.

Delinquent mine safety fines for mines controlled by the governor and his adult children, James “Jay” Justice III and Jillean Justice, comprised nearly a fifth of total debt nationwide last year, according to a Gazette-Mail review of MSHA data.

Mines controlled by Justice and his children owed $3.09 million in delinquent federal mine safety fines as of July 2023, according to data uncovered by a Gazette-Mail FOIA request.

Justice noncommittal on toxic dust rule

If the heavily favored Justice is elected to the U.S. Senate on the Republican ticket this fall, he’ll have a say in how much power MSHA has.

Justice was noncommittal Tuesday when the Gazette-Mail asked him for his thoughts on an MSHA rule, finalized in April and targeted since by congressional Republicans, designed to better protect mine workers from toxic silica dust driving a sharp increase in severe black lung disease throughout central Appalachia.

“I’m not an authority in regard to this,” Justice said of the rule at the official opening of motorcycle trails outside Tornado in Kanawha County. “It’s not really fair for me to even have an opinion.”

The MSHA rule was welcomed as long-overdue relief for miners, since it lowered the permissible exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica to the limit recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 1974.

But the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee approved, in a 31-25 vote, a fiscal year 2025 funding bill last month that would block money for the rule, setting up a vote on the appropriations package by the full House.

The measure hasn’t yet come before West Virginia’s two members of Congress in the House, Reps. Carol Miller and Alex Mooney, both R-W.Va., for a vote, but they have been silent regarding the legislation. Spokespeople for each did not respond to requests for comment on the rule Thursday after not responding to previous inquiries.

The measure’s advancement drew the ire of miner advocates, who view it as a reckless threat to miners who have been diagnosed with severe black lung at increasingly younger ages, contracting the disease faster as they face greater exposure to dust from cutting into thinning rock seams.

“If this policy becomes law, it will put the lives of countless miners at risk,” Vonda Robinson, vice president of the National Black Lung Association, said in a statement last month.

The House legislation would make a $20 million (7.5%) cut in MSHA’s budget for mine safety and health enforcement activity, whereas an equivalent appropriations bill in the Democratic-controlled Senate would increase the budget for such activity by $3 million (1.1%).

MSHA Assistant Secretary Chris Williamson stressed the importance of funding for enforcement and technical support in an interview with the Gazette-Mail last week.

“If we have all these inspectors out here doing all these samples, if we don’t have a mechanism to process them and we don’t have the equipment, we don’t have the people and the resources, then all those samples don’t do you a whole lot of good,” Williamson said.

MSHA: Mine exposed workers to many hazards

MSHA said many of the violations identified in the Belcher Branch Mine impact inspection stemmed from conditions caused by Frontier Coal’s failure to comply with MSHA requirements to conduct adequate examinations.

MSHA inspectors cited violations after finding Frontier Coal, which is listed as controlled by Justice’s son, Jay Justice:

• Failed to comply with its approved ventilation plan
• Allowed unsupported roof and ribs
• Allowed accumulations of combustible material near ignition sources

The conditions exposed miners to fire, explosion, smoke inhalation, carbon monoxide poisoning, and roof and rib fall hazards, according to MSHA.