Hope is lost. It was lost as soon as the last rocks settled.
Now three weeks later, six miners are still buried deep in rubble and politics. There is no hope they are alive. On Aug. 19, Crandall Canyon Mine owner Bob Murray stated, “I don’t believe I took away their hope. I believe whatever happens the Lord already dictated. Whatever happens will be.”
You’re wrong, Bob. It was you who dictated the fate of these miners. It is you who needs to bring closure to their grieving families.
Grab a shovel. If you dig through the past, you’ll find that Bob Murray has a history of fighting with unions over every penny and compromising miners’ safety. He is a modern-day Ebenezer who will hopefully be visited by a few ghosts of his own. He owns numerous mines around the nation and has fostered bad feelings from the beginning.
You can start by looking into the website of his first mine, www.ohiovalleycoal.com. There you’ll find a picture of Bob himself, dressed like a miner, smiling big and ready to dig. Under the employee section, you’ll find the headline “Our Most Valuable Asset.”
Keep digging. You might also find what his “most valuable asset” thinks of him. At the United Mine Workers of America Website, www.umwa.org, there is a journal called Promises Made, Promises Broken. It outlines the many ways he has compromised his miners’ livelihood, promising higher wages that never came. He eventually dug a hole into the SAME mine so he could get around the red tape.
Dig further. A Salt Lake Tribune article states that a mine consultant’s memo reported a major collapse in March. This was never reported to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. They were conducting “retreat mining,” a risky method which maximizes the amount of coal mined by destroying the very support keeping the miners safe.
Bob Murray waves his arms, flaps his gullet like a turkey and says there was no retreat mining, blaming the entire incident on an earthquake. Scientists at our own university have proven this to be false.
Who should we believe — our scientists or a man who has a long history of deception? Of all the questions, this has the easiest answer. There is little doubt that retreat mining proved fatal.
We’re almost to the bottom. How have regulations for miners changed so drastically in favor of profit?
You guessed it. The “czar” of mine safety, Richard Stickler, approved the controversial method of retreat mining. Richard Stickler was a manager with such a horrid safety record his nomination for head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration was rejected by senators from both parties — twice.
So how did he get the position?
How else? Dubya picked up his crayon and appointed him during Senate recess. It seems that every major disaster in America is six degrees away from President Bush.
Bob Murray should be held accountable. Richard Stickler should be removed. And the end of the reign of terror Bush has wrought on every aspect of our lives cannot come soon enough.
It is these men who should be buried, not the truly great Americans whose bodies lie deep in this mountain of greed.
