Miner's widow calls Crandall Canyon settlement ‘slap in the face'


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HUNTINGTON — Plastic flowers still line the entrance to the Crandall Canyon mine. The mine itself is as quiet now as it's been in four years.

But the anger Wendy Black feels about it all is as fresh as ever.

Black is the widow of Dale Black, also known as Bird — one of the rescuers killed in the Crandall Canyon mine. When she heard about Friday's settlement with Genwal, the company that operated Crandall Canyon Mine, and how the investigation into what went wrong is over, she couldn't believe it.


This is a slap in the face, especially for the families of the six trapped miners.

–Wendy Black, miner's widow


#black_q

"What a waste of taxpayer dollars," she said. "This is a slap in the face, especially for the families of the six trapped miners."

Genwal admitted to two counts of not reporting a mountain "bounce" or bump within 15 minutes of it happening, and mining in an area where it shouldn't have been. It was ordered to pay a $500,000 fine.

Black has read every report, every page, every word of all the reports that have come out about the disaster. She thought something more than two misdemeanors and a half million-dollar fine would have come out of it.

"I was hoping that MSHA employees who were failing to do their job and make sure Bob Murray was following the law would be held accountable," Black said.

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Mining is a big part of the Huntington community. A memorial park honors the men who died in the 2007 collapse.

"These are they type of people that the country is based on, the people who do this kind of work," said Huntington Mayor Hillary Gordon.

Gordon said she hopes families will now find closure, and that lessons from this disaster can prevent future mine disasters.

"Men are not dispensable," Gordon said. "Sometimes, that's the feeling I get on these big industries, that, ‘Oh well.' But we're all important."

Black agrees. She just wishes the miners were better taken care of.

"We all want them here. We all want the mines to be open and our people to have jobs," Black said. "We just want somebody to make sure they're doing it as safe as they possibly can."

The company, Genwal, released a statement Friday saying this agreement reflects the lack of evidence that it had anything to do with that collapse.

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