Hod carriers never tire of claiming safety will destroy coal mining - David Hawpe, Louisville Courier-Journal, KY
When the Sago mine in West Virginia blew up, killing 12 men, Bruce Watzman of the National Mining Association suggested the operation's safety record wasn't all that bad. It had received 200 citations last year, almost half of them for 'serious and substantial' violations. He didn't consider it 'particularly out of the ordinary.'
Only an outlaw industry would consider such persistent negligence unremarkable.