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Report Faults Nation's Coal Mine Safety Agency

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By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, The New York Times

Published: November 18, 2007

Government investigators have found that the Mine Safety and Health Administration failed to conduct required inspections last year at 107 of the nation's 731 underground coal mines.

In a report released Friday night, the Labor Department inspector general also found "significant inspection and supervisory deficiencies" in the agency's inspections of the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, where six miners and three rescuers died in August.

The inspector general also concluded that the agency had misstated the number of inspections it conducted, apparently to inflate its rate of completed inspections.

The report depicted an agency that had failed to devote enough resources to inspections at a time of increasing mining activity and that "did not place adequate emphasis on ensuring the inspections were completed."

The inspector general, Elliot P. Lewis, said that approximately 7,500 miners were employed at the 107 mines that had not received the required inspections. The report also said that inspectors had often failed to document many activities that they were supposed to conduct, like taking samples of coal dust or checking high-voltage circuits.

As one reason for the failure to do all the required inspections, the report noted that the number of agency inspectors had fallen to 496 in 2006, from 605 in 2002, an 18 percent decline, while the amount of underground mining had increased by 9 percent. In addition, the agency's inspection budget had not kept up with expenses, rising by $1.1 million while its mandated cost-of-living salary increases rose by $6.1 million, to $84.9 million.

The report said that 147 required inspections had not been completed at the 107 mines.

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