Fink Caught Up in the Emotion of Mine Disaster

by Nathan Lasher

Armstrong County Commissioner Rich Fink asked for something a little out-of-the-ordinary during a meeting held yesterday afternoon.

“Madam Chairman, if I may ask for a special privilege, I would like to ask that this Board of Commissioners, and the people in this room, stand for a moment of silence for the 29 miners that lost their lives in the coal industry in southern West Virginia.”

After the moment of silence had passed, Commissioner Fink began his comment.

“I think when you are an elected official, it’s very, very important that you never forget who you are or where you come from. I was a retired coal miner for 22 years. I’ve been there. I’ve worked underground. In my time underground, I’ve been very much involved in mine safety. I currently volunteer and do new miner training, annual re-training, and I’m a qualified electrical re-trainer for underground mines. I volunteer to keep unemployed miners training- up so that they, hopefully, can gain employment. In my past, I’ve taught miners at the Beckley Academy about miners’ rights and miner safety. I guess where this is all leading; about 10 days ago we all sat around our TV screens and watched what occurred. We had 25 miners underground. We knew they were dead. We had four more that we didn’t know about. As those days ticked by, our fears became reality. We now had 29 miners who perished. It’s the worst mining disaster since 1970, and I feel it is important because of my background and my familiarity with mine violations. I want to share with you, it’s a crime. It’s a crime that 29 miners died needlessly. I’m not going to go over what occurred at that mine.”

Commissioner Fink pointed at a packet of papers in his hand and said, “I want you to look at each one of these thin lines here. There are 25 pages of violations that occurred in that mine in two years; since January of 2008. All of this information is available online. I guess the important part, that I want to share with you, is this could have been avoided, and some of these violations, a lot of these violations, weren’t really counted because they were contested. They were tied up in the court system, so they never were identified until they are settled to take any type of action to close the mine. Let me tell you what these violations are. For those of you that are not familiar with mining. They were involved with methane accumulations, failure to ventilate the coal mine, and adequate air. Good ventilation removes the methane from the mine. Many, many violations on inadequate ventilation; many, many violations on accumulation of combustible materials. When you read into the body of the citation, it was coal dust. Let me take a moment to explain to you what coal dust is. It’s real fine particles of coal, and in southern West Virginia, in that particular scene they were in, that coal dust, when exposed to heat, is like gun powder. Now I want to talk a little more about some of the other violations. Escape ways: not marked, escape way maps: not kept up to date, and the list continues to go on. I can talk for an hour just on what’s in here, and it’s a crime. It’s a crime that we lost 29 miners needlessly. They didn’t need to die.

Commissioner Fink went on to discuss a personal acquaintance who perished in the West Virginia mine. “As of Tuesday, I talked to an individual who lives in that area,” he said. “I want to talk about one of the miners that died. His name was Josh Napper; 25 years old. This young fellow, from the time he was in elementary school, he mowed my friend’s mother’s yard, so my friend knew him very well. Josh Napper was 25 years old. He started his job in the mines just a few months back; showed his girlfriend, Jennifer, an envelope with a handwritten note inside.”

Commissioner Fink had to pause from his comments for a moment in order to compose himself. “‘You keep it sealed until something happens to me,’ is what he told her, and the note was to his daughter,” Fink Continued. “‘If anything happens to me, I’ll be looking down from heaven.’ This boy died for no reason. I’m telling you, what happened here is a crime. Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey, knew that these conditions existed, and he forced those people back to work in those mines. He set the mining industry back years and years. Can you even imagine the families that stood outside that mine to find out that 25 were dead? But imagine the four, for those days they stood there, the four families that stood there not knowing. I’m sorry for getting so emotional, and I don’t mean to apologize for that, but I’ve investigated my mining fatalities and they’re avoidable.”

Commissioner Fink went on to explain that he has just recently written a letter about the mining situation to President Obama, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and federal elected officials. “Something needs to change just because violations are contested and not getting through the court system,” Fink said. “There are hundreds of them here, and it’s not getting through the court system, and that’s what killed these men; these miners. All they wanted was to go to work and make a living. Their community is similar to ours; there are not a lot of jobs. These were good, family sustaining jobs, and I can tell you a message that was relayed to them. ‘If you don’t like working here, you can go somewhere else.’ Well, I’m here to submit to you there’s nowhere else to go down there. So, just like this 25-year-old that went to the mine that day, in his heart, and he just worked there for a few months, he could see that something was going to happen. What’s wrong with our regulations and our process? I want to bring it to the public’s attention because it’s not just me. This nation needs to be upset with what happened there, and I’m going to tell you that if somebody is under the influence of prescription medication, illegally, and they drive down the road and they run into a school bus and kill ten people, where are they at tomorrow? They’re in jail. This man’s walking around the street, and it was within his control. So, I submit to you, and I hope, that this nation wakes up because we’ve just lost a very valuable resource in the coal mines, and we must protect that valuable resource, and that’s the coal miner. I apologize to my fellow Commissioners. This has nothing to do with Armstrong County, but it does. I hope that Commissioner Kirkpatrick doesn’t mind, but she knows where I’m coming from because she lost her dad in a mining accident. So, thank you.”

After Fink was finished, the room was heavy with emotion. “It does effect all of us,” said Commissioner Jim Scahill. “I’m fortunate; I have two boys that go in every day. They’re not boys, they’re 26-year-old-men. They go in every day, and the other part of this is the disconnect. What coal miners do is provide all of the electricity. The main electricity to run this country and nobody understands that, nobody cares about it, and maybe that’s why that can happen.”

Later in the meeting, Commissioner Patricia Kirkpatrick credited Commissioner Fink. “I want to commend Commissioner Fink because he has been an activist for those miners,” she said. “Not just the 29 that died, but also the miners that were hurt in mine accidents. And, trying to challenge those that have the authority to make the appropriate changes, and that’s all you’re asking is that those changes be made in order to protect people’s lives who look at that as their livelihood. It is a good profession. It’s a noble profession, and anybody that’s a coal miner should be proud of what they do for their country. We would hold, also, their families in our thoughts and prayers. Taking 29 people out of a community is very significant. If that happened here, we know that the community would band together and support those families.”

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1 Comment

• By Bolt Upright, April 16, 2010 @ 4:17 PM

  Thank you Mr. Fink for your excellent diatribe on the criminal activities of Don Blankenship and Massey Energy. Hopefully, justice will be served.

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