CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The sister of one of the 29 men killed in the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County was filled with “joy” Thursday night after learning former Massey Energy president and CEO Don Blankenship had been indicted in connection with the operation of UBB.
“My initial reaction is that justice has come. Justice has come, finally,” Dr. Judy Petersen, sister of UBB victim Dean Jones, told MetroNews.
The four-count federal indictment alleges Blankenship knew about UBB’s numerous safety issues but didn’t do much to correct them because he was more concerned about “running coal” than being slowed down.
“There was a culture that existed. It was perpetrated from the very top of this company, Don Blankenship, down,” United Mine Workers Union President Cecil Roberts told MetroNews Thursday night. “He put the coal first, which in some ways you are saying put the profit and put the money before everything else in that coal mine. That’s not what the law says.”
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin called the indictment of Blankenship “a first step in providing some peace to the families of the Upper Big Branch miners who lost their lives.”
While U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller called it “another step toward justice.” He said Blankenship treated miners and their safety “with callousness and open disregard. As he goes to trial, he will be treated far fairer and with more dignity than he ever treated the miners he employed. And, frankly, it’s more than he deserves.”
UMWA President Roberts said the ironic thing is that Blankenship could have spent, in comparison to his profits, a very small amount of money to make UBB safer place to work.
“How much money would you really have to spend to buy a rock duster that works? How much would you have to spend to have adequate rock dust in the Upper Big Branch? And how much time does it really take to ventilate a coal mine?” Roberts asked.
Attorney Bruce Stanley who represented the widows in the Aracoma mine disaster, another mining tragedy involving Massey Energy, issued the following statement to MetroNews Thursday night:
“It’s an important day for many, many families in the Central Appalachian coal fields. For the first time in my memory, the CEO of a major coal producer is being held criminally accountable for the atrocious conduct that occurred on his watch. But let’s not forget that an entire board of directors for whom he worked chose, at a minimum, to look the other way. This indictment won’t bring back the 50+ that died on Don’s watch and the countless others who were injured, but it’s a start.”
An indictment is an allegation and Blankenship is innocent until proven guilty but Roberts already has a verdict in mind.
“The coal industry is so much better off that he’s out of it and quite frankly, I think the country will be better off he has to spend some time behind bars for what he’s done here,” the union president said.
Judy Petersen said she was thinking of her brother Dean Jones Thursday and of current and future coal miners.
“For me as a family member the end goal is to see mining changed. So that the young men who go to make a living for their families today don’t end up in the same kind of disaster that my brother ended up in,” she said.