CODY MINER ALLEGES DRUG USE

Report on Fatal Blast May Prompt Abuse Tests

FRANKFORT - Employees at a Floyd County coal mine routinely violated
safety rules before a fatal blasting accident in June, and one witness
even said two miners had been using drugs underground, according to a
state report.

The Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals released its report
yesterday on the June 13 accident at Cody Mining Co. Inc., near
McDowell in Floyd County. The blast killed miner Paul Blair, 21, and
severely injured the superintendent, Robert Ratliff Jr., 28, whose
father owns the mine.

The report first included a recommendation that the state legislature
give Mines and Minerals inspectors authority to require miners to
submit to drug tests in suspect circumstances. It is illegal to work
at a mine while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but state
inspectors can't order drug tests.

The department later softened that stance, issuing a one-page revision
that said Mines and Minerals would analyze the need for changes in the
law or regulations to address alcohol and drug use in the mining industry.

Mines and Minerals spokeswoman Holly McCoy said the department decided
to make the change because of the need to look at a number of issues,
such as who would pay for drug tests, before making a
recommendation.

The report paints a troubling picture of how a small mine skirted the
law, ignoring safety rules until state inspectors showed up, and of
how miners ignored the violations. One indicated miners had to put up
with bad practices in order to hang on to a job in an area where
employment is scarce.

It "wouldn't have done me no good to complain" to Ratliff about unsafe
blasting practices, said Jesse Blair, the brother of the dead man.
"They would have just got somebody else in my place."

Some of the myriad problems at the mine had been disclosed earlier in
more than 50 citations issued by Mines and Minerals against Cody
Mining. The citations charge unsafe blasting practices, inadequate
ventilation, poor attention to safety and even the discovery of a
small amount of marijuana at the mine.

But the allegation about prescription drug abuse was new in
yesterday's report.

Billy Adams, who operated a roof-bolting machine at the mine, told
state investigators that he saw Ratliff and Blair snorting ground-up
pills in the mine for about two months before the accident. The two
snorted the pills through a copper tube normally used to splice cable,
Adams said.

Adams said he tried to get the two to stop.

"I don't think the accident would have happened had it not been for
the drugs," the report quoted Adams.

The report did not indicate what kind of pills the two men allegedly
snorted.

Adams was the only one of 10 witnesses associated with the mine who
mentioned the drug use, and Mines and Minerals did not include any
finding about drug use in its report.

Justin Morgan, a Lexington attorney who represents Blair's family,
said Blair's widow, Angela, and his parents have no knowledge of him
being involved in any such drug activity as described in the report
and deny that he was.

"We think that ultimately it'll be proven that he's mistaken," Morgan
said of Adams.

McCoy said Mines and Minerals is starting to talk to mine owners and
operators about their policies on drug testing and issues related to
substance abuse.

McCoy said she guessed that if drug problems have gotten worse in
society, they've also increased in the mining industry.

Mine owner Robert Ratliff Sr. did not return a phone call inquiring
about the report yesterday. The small mine, which opened in 1997 and
produced about 300 tons of coal a day as a contractor for Knott-Floyd
Land Co., has been closed by state order since the accident.

State records show Cody Mining had been cited for a number of
non-compliances in the last two years, such as excessive dust,
improper ventilation and roof support problems. But the violations
were not excessive for a mine of that type -- "nothing that really
would have tipped us off," McCoy said.

The operation at Cody Mining involved "blasting from the solid,"
meaning miners drilled holes into the coal, tamped in explosives and
set them off, then scooped up the coal with loading machines and
dumped it onto a conveyor for transport outside.

State inspectors found a long list of violations at the mine after the
blast, however.

Among other things, miners used a non-permissible drill to make holes
in the coal, which allowed them to pack in more explosives; tamped in
far more explosive than allowed; and blasted in more than one place at
a time, according to the report.

Ratliff Jr. had also allowed cross-cut passages in the mine to stray
off course. They are supposed to be put at right angles to the main
passage, but two cuts had been driven toward each other at an
incorrect angle, the report said.

That meant the barrier was too thin between the explosive charges set
off on June 13 and the spot where Blair, Ratliff Jr. and shot firer
Robert Delong -- who also was treated for injuries -- had gone for
shelter while the blasts were being set off. That was one key reason
the force of the blast and the coal and rock hit the men.

Several miners described a desperate scramble to check on Blair and
Ratliff. They said it was obvious Blair was dead, while Ratliff seemed
to be choking on blood.

The miners loaded Ratliff into a scoop and drove him to the
surface.

Ratliff Sr. acknowledged having the non-permissible drill, but told
inspectors the mine did not use more than the legal limit of
explosives in each hole, and said an engineering company had told him
before the blast that the course of the cross-cuts looked fine, the
report said.

Miners said Ratliff Jr. would have the drill hidden when inspectors
came to the mine. And Blair said the miners would scramble to fix
other safety problems only when inspectors came to the property,
hanging ventilation curtains and spreading rock dust, which lowers the
risk of an explosion, to avoid citations.

Miner Estill Lowe told inspectors that section foreman Eugene Conley
told him to hide the drill after the accident. Conley denied that, but
Mines and Minerals charged Cody Mining with altering the scene of an
accident for allegedly moving the drill.

The department has charged that Ratliff Sr. and Conley lied to
investigators, and has asked the state Mine Safety Review Commission
to permanently revoke a variety of mining certifications held by them,
Ratliff Jr. and Delong, limiting their ability to work in mines.