Measures that easily cleaned up rampant safety problems at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine were halted once the threat of increased government enforcement action went away, the jury in the criminal trial of former Massey CEO Don Blankenship heard Monday.
Three former Upper Big Branch employees - including a former mine superintendent - testified in U.S. District Court that Massey officials took action to reduce violations after the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration warned the company in December 2007 that the mine was at risk of being placed on "pattern of violations" status by MSHA, a designation that would bring repeated shutdown orders for new violations.
Rick Hodge, the former Upper Big Branch superintendent, told jurors that after the MSHA warning Massey hired more workers to clean up coal dust, put in place an additional crew to spread crushed limestone or "rock dust" to prevent explosions, and switched Saturday shifts from producing coal to performing safety-related maintenance work.
"The violations went down and, actually, the mine looked pretty good," Hodge testified in the eighth day of testimony in the landmark trial, in which Blankenship faces three felony counts of conspiracy, false statements and securities fraud.
Hodge testified, though, that when performance at Upper Big Branch improved and MSHA removed its warning of increased enforcement actions things went back to the way they were at Upper Big Branch.
"We went back to running coal on Saturdays," Hodge said. "The one [additional] rock-dusting crew was taken away," Hodge said.
Richard Hutchens, a former Upper Big Branch section foreman, told jurors that when his evening shift crew arrived for work at Upper Big Branch, they would have to take time to clean up coal dust or fix ventilation problems that had been left unrepaired by the previous shift's workers. Doing so would put his miners behind on strict production quotas and prompt threats from mine management.
"It cut into my production because I took the time away from production to make it safe," testified Hutchens, whose nickname in the mine was "Smurf."
"I put the safety of the men first," Hutchens told jurors. "If we had bad top, I would fix the top first. That hurt my production. They would tell me they were going to fire me because I wasn't running coal."
Larry Adams, a former Upper Big Branch fireboss, explained to jurors how he found numerous violations every day when he walked the miles of underground tunnels to check conveyor belt tunnels for excess coal dust, worn-out rollers or other problems.
"They were in such sad shape that we were getting several violations on the belts," said Adams, using his finger to draw in the conveyor belt locations on a mine map shown on the courtroom's computer touchscreen.
When the MSHA warning came out, Adams said, the company gave him a crew of "red hat" trainee miners to help clean up the belts.
"After we were on the belts for a while, they didn't get any more violations," Adams told jurors.
Then, when MSHA's warning was lifted, Massey had a "reduction in force" that eliminated all the belt-cleaning crew.
"That just completely did away with the belt crew," Adams said.
Adams said he was left with more than two miles of conveyor belt to inspect and clean up on his own, along with his other duties. "No matter how hard you worked, you couldn't keep up," said Adams, who eventually quit over the issue and is now retired.
Hutchens, Hodge and Adams testified as U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's team of prosecutors continued their case against Blankenship in a trial before a 12-person jury and U.S. District Judge Irene Berger.
Blankenship, 65, is charged with conspiring to violate mine safety standards and thwart government inspectors to cover up the resulting hazards to workers and with making false statements to securities regulators and with securities fraud. Those charges allege that Blankenship issued false public statements touting Massey's safety practices to try to stop company stock - and his personal fortune - from plummeting after an April 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners.
In his cross examination of Hutchens, lead Blankenship defense lawyer Bill Taylor tried to continue planting seeds with the jury about some of the controversial portions of the defense Blankenship would like to present.
Taylor got Hutchens to agree that the way that MSHA issues citations can be inconsistent - that one inspector might write up a particular issue as a violation, while a different inspector might not. Taylor also got Hutchens to agree that MSHA had cited the Upper Big Branch Mine for making a ventilation change without agency approval, even though the change could have resulted in more fresh-air flow in parts of the mine.
Defense attorneys have been hoping to make Blankenship's personal beefs with the way MSHA regulated ventilation at the Upper Big Branch Mine part of their defense, but Berger's earlier ruling was supposed to keep that sort of argument out of the case. Prosecutors and defense lawyers continue to argue over those issues, though, as they do over whether additional recordings of Blankenship telephone calls should be played for the jury later in the trial.
The jury is scheduled to return for more testimony at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Check the Gazette-Mail's Coal Tattoo blog for frequent updates on testimony in the Blankenship case, and visit the Blankenship trial page for a timeline, exhibits and other features.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.