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Many members of the United Mine Workers of America contend that the MSHA has favored industry for a decade. They point out that the government agency has refused to publish its list of mines considered the nation's most dangerous -- once dubbed the "high-hazard list." The MSHA's chief, William Tattersall, a former coal-industry lobbyist, says his agency aggressively enforces the law. He estimates that most injuries occur because of momentary inattentiveness on the part of miners. Tattersall is bluntly pragmatic about mining's risks, economic and otherwise. He says, "The best advice you can give your children when you're raised in that kind of environment is 'Get the hell out.' "
Last spring the MSHA stunned the mining industry by announcing that the agency had found widespread fraud in its dust-sampling program, designed to prevent black lung. The tests are done to ensure that coal-dust levels in mines do not exceed 2 mg per cubic meter. The testing device consists of a small pump that draws air through a filter, which is sent to a federal lab and weighed for dust content. The MSHA said more than 500 companies at 847 mines had tampered with the filters. Civil penalties may reach a record $7 million. Last week 33 coal companies, 41 executives and two consultants agreed to plead guilty to conspiring with a testing laboratory to create fake results.
In fact, the dust-sampling program has long been riddled with cheating that goes beyond the kind exposed by the Labor Department. "The system is so easy to beat," says Larry Bledsoe. "It's a joke." Bledsoe, 45, worked in the mines of Logan County for 25 years until injuries ended his career. Bledsoe says that testing devices were routinely deployed in areas free of dust, far from where the miners worked. Some devices were even kept inside plastic bags and lunch pails to ensure clean samples.
But Jim Campbell, vice president of operations for the Pittston Coal Group, one of the companies cited for alleged tampering, bristles at talk of cheating on dust samples. "I've never seen anyone tamper with the dust-sampling system. It angers me that people say they try to beat the system. It's there to protect people."
An even worse scandal, miners say, is a federal law that makes it nearly impossible for miners with black lung to collect disability payments. Congress drastically tightened up on such compensation in 1981 in response to coal- industry pressure and fraud among miners claiming benefits. In the past, miners with 15 or more years of employment were presumed eligible. That provision is gone, and miners must prove that they are totally disabled. In the two-year period before the change, nearly half of black lung applicants were approved. Now just 4% prevail.
Black lung, a condition that develops after years of breathing coal dust, gradually robs the lungs of their ability to absorb oxygen. In advanced cases, patients are tethered to breathing machines that they carry around with leather straps or on caddies. When some patients travel out of town, they must calculate the distance and how long their portable oxygen tanks will last, as if they were living underwater.