This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
HUNTINGTON - Hopes for a miracle in the search for six coal miners trapped for nearly three weeks in the Crandall Canyon Mine vanished Saturday afternoon.
A drill that penetrated the mine through the sixth and perhaps final borehole of the rescue effort revealed that the tunnel where the six men were last known to be working was filled with rubble.
That discovery, relayed to relatives of the missing miners at their 5 p.m. briefing by mining company officials and federal regulators, dashed the exceedingly slim prospect that the Aug. 6 implosion of the mine's tunnels had left a void where the men found refuge - or, at the very least, would have allowed would-be rescuers to know for certain where their bodies are.
"I don't think I have to say what [the families'] reaction was," said Colin King, a Salt Lake City attorney whose firm was retained by the majority of those families to pursue whatever legal action may come as a result of the mine disaster. "They are distraught and very frustrated - and with good reason."
He said the families feel Murray Energy Corp., the mine owner, has misled them about the effort to find, rescue or recover their loved ones - Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Alonso Hernandez, Juan Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez.
And King vowed to "vigorously resist" any attempt by Murray Energy or its Utah-American Energy subsidiary to seal the mine before the men's bodies are retrieved.
"We don't intend to abandon them," said King, who along with law partner Edward Havas also helped represent the survivors of 20 of the 27 victims of the 1984 Wilberg Mine disaster in securing a $22 million settlement with owner Utah Power & Light.
If Murray Energy owner Robert Murray "announces his intention to seal the mine in some permanent fashion, I will go to court to stop it," King said.
He added that Mexican Consul Salvador Jimenez also asked Murray officials at the briefing - vice president Rob Moore and attorneys Michael McKown and G. Christopher Van Bever - not to seal the mine.
"They did not respond to it," King said.
Murray himself did not attend the family briefing. He was in Carbon County, telling miners that one of his two operating mines there, The Tower Mine, is shutting down for safety reasons and that some workers at the nearby West Ridge Mine were being laid off.
Murray Energy officials did not respond to a request for comments Saturday evening. A person who answered a call to their telephone number said only "they're not available" and hung up.
Rescue organizers thought the borehole that pierced the mine Saturday might not encounter massive piles of debris from the tunnel's implosion because several feet of open space had been found from the first two borings, which were closer to the working section than three other holes drilled from above.
After the family briefing, a federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) spokesman told waiting reporters only that the 1,700-foot-long borehole had reached its target. He did not elaborate and did not return calls later.
But minutes after his departure, King and Price attorney Sonny Olsen, spokesman for the trapped miners' families for the past week, provided the grim news about the borehole finding - which company officials had previously indicated may mark the last such attempt of the rescue effort.
"Zero void is how they put it," said King, noting that Olsen and other attorneys in Emery and Carbon counties will form a team to represent the trapped miners' families.
Earlier Saturday, King and Havas also said they likely will represent some of the families of the three men killed, as well as the six miners injured, when a second sizable "bump" blasted the rescue crew Aug. 16 as it attempted to excavate an underground route to the trapped miners.
King cited several reasons for the families' perception that Murray Energy officials had given up on their loved ones.
He said the families were told repeatedly that a large-diameter drill rig capable of boring a hole big enough for a rescue capsule was en route to the mine, "but it never arrived on site and we're suspicious about those statements."
As early as Monday, King added, Olsen and the families had requested the full study done by eight outside experts brought in by Murray Energy and MSHA to evaluate the ground-control system used before the implosion that killed and injured the rescuers.
MSHA released only a three-paragraph statement from the expert panel that said it was too dangerous to send anyone underground to search for the missing miners.
King said "that may or may not be the case. I don't want to second-guess the experts. But we are upset that we were not provided a copy of the [full] report and they did not provide a reason why.
"We would like to see [the report] so we can analyze it and talk to our experts about how we can get in there and get these people out," he added, noting that he already has begun obtaining mining experts as consultants.
King asked Murray Energy officials whether there had been a major bump in March, as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune, that forced the company to stop mining a long "barrier pillar" of coal adjacent to a large mined-out area. That barrier pillar was left to hold up the mountain overhead.
"Mr. Moore refused to answer," King said.
Was a report about this collapse filed with MSHA, as required by law? he asked.
"Moore refused to answer," King said, while MSHA official Jack Kuzar, who was brought in only recently from Pennsylvania to help with the operation, said he did not know.
"MSHA ought to know at this point," King contended.
Given all of these unsatisfactory responses, the lawyer added, "I can't imagine how [missing miners' spouses] Martha Sanchez and Nelda Erickson are even coping. You do what you have to do. But they need closure."
On rescuing the miners:
I don't want to second-guess the experts. But we are upset that we were not provided a copy of the [full] report and they did not provide a reason why. We would like to see [the report] so we can analyze it and talk to our experts about how we can get in there and get these people out.
- Salt Lake City attorney Colin King,
who is representing some families, on MSHA's three-paragraph statement from the expert panel that said it was too dangerous to send anyone underground to search for the missing miners.