You might recall that last year, an explosion in a coal mine operated by Massey Energy left 29 people dead. And in the wake of the disaster, it was revealed that the company had a storied history of ignoring safety violations or endlessly contesting them in court so as to avoid addressing them.
Since then, investigators have turned up even more alarming stuff: For instance, the New York Times reveals that Massey kept two separate sets of books--one false set to deliberately deceive safety inspectors. They also confirmed that Massey had hidden hundreds of safety violations and health codes. And that, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, Massey "promoted and enforced a workplace culture that valued production over safety, including practices calculated to allow it to conduct mining operations in violation of the law.”
Here's the Times: "In what officials say is the largest settlement ever in a government investigation of a mine disaster, Alpha Natural Resources agreed to pay $209 million in restitution and civil and criminal penalties for the role of its subsidiary, Massey Energy, in a 2010 mine explosion that killed 29 men in West Virginia." That includes $46 million in restitution for the miners' families.
On top of that, the Mine Safety and Health Administration is slapping Alpha with an additional $10 million fine for its violations. That's another record-breaking sum, according to the agency.
Investigators evidently haven't ruled out pressing criminal charges against the individual executives who were primarily responsible for ignoring the violations, but a stipulation in the settlement in effect immunizes Alpha from further criminal investigation....
