<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/truthout/4524137832/sizes/o/in/photostream/">Truthout.org</a>/Flickr
The chief of security at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, where 29 miners were killed last year, was arrested on Monday and accused of lying to the FBI and trying to dispose of key documents—the first criminal charges stemming from the worst mining accident in 40 years.
The security chief, Hughie Elbert Stover, instructed security guards to notify mine personnel whenever inspectors arrived at the mine, according to the federal indictment. Last month, Stover told federal agents that he would have fired any guard who tipped off workers about inspections. Stover is also charged with instructing an unnamed individual to dispose of mine security documents by placing them in a trash compactor.
It remains unclear whether Stover was acting on his own or at the behest of other managers at Massey, which has racked up more health and safety violations in the past decade than any coal outfit in America. A statement released by Massey yesterday claims that the company notified the US Attorney’s office “within hours of learning that documents had been disposed of and took immediate steps to recover documents and turn them over.” Still, Stover provided personal security for Don Blankenship and was in frequent contact with the recently-retired CEO, according to the Washington Post:
“He was very, very close to Blankenship,” said one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe is continuing. “He would drive Blankenship places. He called him ‘Mr. B.'”
It’s likely that federal agents will offer Stover a plea deal if he testifies against Blankenship, who, along with 14 other Massey workers, including the head of safety and the foreman at the Upper Big Branch mine, have refused to cooperate with the investigation.
That so many Massey employees have kept their mouths shut in the wake of the disaster shouldn’t come as a surprise. As Josh reported yesterday in his feature on the coal town of Twilight, Massey exerts a near-feudal grasp in large parts of Appalachia. Many locals are convinced that they must support Massey even as they privately worry that it’s ripping their communities apart. As the wife of a deceased coal miner put it, “There ain’t no way to go up against them big companies.”
