Jun 27, 2013 3 min read

A federal appeals court has upheld the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s determination that the failure by the Cumberland Mine to have emergency lifelines in place during a 2007 inspection, regardless of the likelihood of a mine emergency, is a significant and substantial violation under the mine act.

An MSHA investigator cited the mine for violations of the lifeline requirement during an inspection of four of the mine’s escapeways in December 2007, according to a MSHA release. Mining law requires mine operators to provide flame resistant and directional lifelines in escapeways for miners to use to evacuate the mine in an emergency.

The investigator designated each violation significant and substantial, finding that in the event of an emergency, the lack of a lifeline would have delayed miners’ escape, and the delay would have been reasonably likely to result in serious injury or death.

Under the mine act, if an inspector finds a violation “is of such nature as could significantly and substantially contribute to the cause and effect of a coal or other mine safety or health hazard,” the inspector is to include that finding in the citation issued for the violation, MSHA said. A finding of a significant and substantial violation can lead to enhanced enforcement actions under the mine act.

In its June 7 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed a determination by the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission that a mining company’s failures regarding emergency lifelines were violations of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977.

The court unanimously upheld the interpretation of the secretary of labor that in evaluating the significant and substantial nature of violations of standards that come into play only in the event of an emergency, one must assume the occurrence of the emergency, MSHA said.

The court further agreed that “emergency safety standards are fundamentally different from non-emergency standards because they are designed to apply meaningfully only in times of emergency.”

Joseph Main, head of the MSHA applauded the court’s decision “Mine emergency protections need to be in place before an emergency occurs,” Main said. “The court recognized that the absence of such protections is a serious matter, to be taken seriously if miners are to have these protections when they need them the most.”

Cumberland Coal Resources LP had argued in its appeal that the commission applied the wrong standard when it reversed an administrative law judge’s determination that the violations were not significant and substantial, and that even if it applied the correct standard, its findings were not supported by evidence.

The company never argued the condition wasn’t a violation, said Ted Pile, spokesman for Alpha Natural Resources, Cumberland’s parent company. The mine corrected the lifeline issue immediately. The only dispute was the level of gravity involved in the condition cited by the MSHA inspector, he said.

The citation was issued while the mine was still owned by Foundation Coal and before Foundation’s merger with Alpha. Pile said the mine believed the amount of emergency escape training provided to miners and additional safety and emergency systems in place provided a reasonable argument for the need for the lifeline and whether the lack of a lifeline would result in delays during an evacuation.

The court, however, was unwilling to take these “multiple redundant” safety features into account when assessing the gravity of the violation, he said. The company believed this was a fundamental shift in the test for determining whether these type of citations are significant and substantial, Pile said.