No one injured in Greene mine roof collapse
No one was injured when a small section of roof collapsed in the Emerald Mine, just south of Waynesburg, but the mishap will temporarily slow coal production, company officials said. The piece of roof fell on a stage loader, which moves with an automated longwall mining machine and transfers coal to a conveyor belt, said state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Tom Rathbun.
He said the fall occurred last weekend in an area where roof deterioration had been detected.
“It was lose,” said Rick Nida, a spokesman for the Maryland-based Foundation Coal Holdings, which owns the mine.
“It’s not unusual. People working there could see the problem developing and stayed out of the area,” Rathbun said. “It is not unusual for those to happen.”
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No one was hurt. The mine wasn’t evacuated, Nida said. “It has curtailed our longwall production at the mine.”
A report from the DEP mine inspector who responded to the collapse should be completed in about 30 days, but Rathbun said he doubts any fines would be levied against Foundation Coal.
He said fines are assessed when safety and mining law violations are found, but the collapse appeared to be a “standard occurrence.”
As required by state mining laws, the mine contacted a DEP inspector after the fall took place and the inspector quickly responded, Rathbun said.
He said the DEP inspects mines every quarter and an inspection of a mine as large as Emerald takes three months, so inspectors are there almost constantly.
The DEP did not halt mining operations at Emerald, but the collapse forced mining to temporarily stop, Rathbun said.
Foundation Coal will add roof supports to prevent further collapses, he said.
Nida said the longwall miner is out of service, but he doesn’t think it was damaged. It should be back in service in a week or 10 days, he said.
The temporary loss of the machine and the subsequent loss in coal production will not result in any layoffs of the 470 miners who work in the mine.
“We still need everybody down there,” Nida said.
He said workers have been busy clearing the fallen debris from around the longwall miner and using smaller continuous miners in another part of the mine.
Without the longwall miner, an estimated 210,000 to 240,000 tons of coal production will be lost in the second quarter, Nida said.
The mine usually produces 15,000 to 20,000 tons a day and it produced 5.7 million tons last year, he said.
Normally, continuous miners dig outlines around “panels” of coal and then the longwall miner removes the panel.
The mine has two longwall miners and the one involved in the collapse was added early this year, Nida said.
The original unit, which was removed and is being rebuilt, will be operating again before the end of the year. The loss of coal production from the roof fall will be made up when both machines are running, he said.
Nida said the second longwall miner was installed because of sandstone in the mine.
“It gives us flexibility. When you’re mining sandstone, you’re not mining coal,” he said, adding that sandstone takes a toll on the mining machines.
” Last year we made the decision to install a second longwall at Emerald to minimize impacts when unanticipated geological challenges occur,” said Kurt Kost, Foundation Coal president and chief operating officer, said in a prepared statement.
Foundation Coal operates 13 coal mines and related facilities in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wyoming. Through its subsidiaries, Foundation Coal employs about 3,000 people and produces about 72 million tons annually, largely for utilities generating electricity.
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