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Crandall Canyon widow Wendy Black minced no words last September when she told a Senate committee: "It would have taken just one MSHA man doing his job to have saved my husband's life."

Her bitterness over the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's perceived failure to enforce laws protecting miners was reinforced Monday by an internal Labor Department audit that found local, regional and national deficiencies in MSHA's handling of Crandall Canyon's roof control plan.

"It's just showing everything I tried to explain when I went to Washington," said Black, whose husband, Dale, was one of three rescuers killed Aug. 16 while trying to excavate a way back to six miners buried 10 days earlier.

"Yes, [mine co-owner] Bob Murray was responsible for the plan. But MSHA is there to protect the miners. It's their job," she said. "That's why we have safety rules. We just want those rules followed."

Her perspective was shared by Erick Erickson Jr., whose son Don was one of the original six buried miners.

"I've maintained all along that MSHA was wrong in giving [Murray] the OK and I always thought Murray bullied MSHA to the point they backed down and gave him that permission," he said. "I hope it will help it come out in the open because I'm 99 percent certain that's what happened."

Salt Lake City attorney Ed Havas, whose firm is representing heirs of seven of the nine victims (but not Black) and two injured miners, said he also was struck by the inspector general's conclusion that MSHA's paperwork voids leave open the possibility that Murray Energy used undue influence to fast track its roof control plans through MSHA's review process.

"That was consistent with what we have seen in other aspects of this case," he said.

Havas felt the report took an appropriately broad look at MSHA as an institution. "Proper leadership from the top down is essential to an effective administration of the oversight agency," he said. "There has to be an agencywide attitude that focuses on safety first, and has to be more than just lip service."

But in the end, Havas added: "The companies that are operating the mines and have involvement in putting these plans together have the primary responsibility for doing it safely. MSHA could not have been found to be failing in approving a roof control plan if an appropriately safe plan had been submitted in the first place."

Huntington Mayor Hilary Gordon said the facts in this and future disaster reports will show there is plenty of blame to go around and ways to improve mine safety.

"If it hurts bad enough, you learn the lesson. You learn it well," Gordon said. "I'm hoping people can look at these situations and say there's a lesson here and I hope we can learn from that."