Ky. miner among 20 killed this decade while engaged in dangerous practice of retreat mining

Ky. miner latest dead in dangerous retreat mining

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A coal miner killed in Kentucky this week was engaged in the dangerous practice of retreat mining, which involves deliberately cutting away pillars of coal intended to support overhead rock layers.

Statistics compiled by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health show more than 50 miners have been killed in retreat mining operations over the past 25 years. Of those, 20 have died since 2000, including Jimmy Carmack, a miner from Barbourville who was killed Wednesday.

Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the federal mine safety agency, said Friday that Carmack, a section foreman with 17 years of experience, died in a retreat mining accident at Lone Mountain Processing’s Clover Fork No. 1 mine at Holmes Mill in Harlan County.

In a preliminary report, federal inspectors said a section of coal 15 feet high and 12 feet wide toppled into a 100-ton jack used for roof support. The jack struck Carmack in the head.

Thurman Holcomb, general manager of Arch Coal Inc. subsidiary Lone Mountain Processing, said in a statement that the company is saddened by Carmack’s death.

“We are committed to working with the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the commonwealth of Kentucky in investigating this incident, and to taking every step possible to ensure that an incident of this kind never happens again,” Holcomb said.

Mine safety advocate Tony Oppegard said Kentucky mine regulators recognize how deadly retreat mining can be, and that, as a result, they require miners to be properly trained on action plans.

“It is the most dangerous type of mining that there is because you’re intentionally inducing the roof to fall,” Oppegard said. “A mining crew has to comply religiously with the plan. The smallest deviation can cause a fatality.”

Louviere said investigators still were looking into the Lone Mountain fatality on Friday and that it would “take a while” to finish the probe.

“Citations may be issued during the course of the investigation,” she said.

Retreat mining has been going on for generations. It is legal and considered standard procedure in mines where coal reserves have nearly played out.

In conventional mining, miners dig a maze of 20-foot-wide tunnels, leaving coal pillars in between to hold up overhead rock layers. When they have advanced as far as possible, they begin retreat mining, so named because the miners are working toward the outside, removing pillars and allowing the roof to fall in planned collapses.

“It’s tremendously dangerous,” said Tim Miller, an international representative for the United Mine Workers of America. “You need a lot of rabbit blood, because you have to be able to run really fast.”

The Mine Safety and Health Administration reported Friday that 20 fatalities since 2000 were associated with retreat mining. The toll includes six miners entombed in Utah’s Crandall Canyon Mine after a massive roof fall in 2007 and three rescue workers who were killed searching for them.

A study by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health found that 23 miners were killed in roof falls during retreat mining between 1995 and 2007. A previous NIOSH report identified 33 miners killed while doing retreat mining between 1989 and 1996.

NIOSH reported last year that retreat mining historically accounts for only 10 percent of U.S. coal production and 25 percent of roof fall fatalities.