All the headlines from our Mining Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Nov 16 2015 // The collapse of two dams at a Brazilian mine has cut off drinking water for quarter of a million people and saturated waterways downstream with dense orange sediment that could wreck the ecosystem for years to come.Nine...
Nov 13 2015 // Brazil’s president slapped preliminary fines of 250 million reais ($66.2 million) against a mine in the country’s southeast where two dams burst, killing nine people and coating a two-state area with mud and...
Nov 12 2015 // Brazil’s government said on Wednesday it may fine mining giants BHP Billiton Ltd and Vale SA for the “environmental catastrophe” caused by ruptured dams at an iron ore mine jointly owned by the companies...
Nov 12 2015 // Kentucky’s mine-safety laws and regulations didn’t apply to a subcontract worker who died while installing a massive garage door on a building at a mine site in Muhlenberg County, the state’s Supreme...
Nov 11 2015 // Insurers covering risks for a Brazilian mine where two dams burst last week, killing at least six people, could pay up to $600 million in claims, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday.A property...
Nov 3 2015 // The director of West Virginia’s mine safety office says there is a growing substance abuse problem among miners.Director Eugene White of the Office of Mine Health, Safety and Training told legislators last month that...
Oct 26 2015 // A key government witness testified in West Virginia that prosecutors had threatened to charge him alongside his old coal boss, and he was under an immunity agreement Friday when he took the stand.In the criminal trial of...
Oct 15 2015 // Patriot Coal and West Virginia environmental regulators have reached an agreement in which the company will set aside more than $50 million to cover cleanup costs at its former mine sites in the state.The Department of...
Oct 14 2015 // Ex-Massey Energy Chief Executive Officer Donald Blankenship downplayed the threat that miners develop black-lung disease in shafts choked with coal dust, jurors in the executive’s criminal trial heard in a recorded...
Oct 12 2015 // Donald Blankenship’s own words may come to haunt the former Massey Energy Co. chief executive officer at his criminal trial as a federal judge said prosecutors can let the jury hear conversations secretly recorded...
Oct 9 2015 // Massey Energy executives used an advanced warning system at the company’s Upper Big Branch mine to alert workers as soon as federal inspectors arrived on site, a former miner testified Thursday at the criminal trial...
Oct 6 2015 // Before death came to Upper Big Branch Mine, Donald L. Blankenship managed his patch of Appalachia like King Coal incarnate.Outside homes in rural West Virginia flew the banner of his company, Massey Energy Co.: a flame...
Oct 5 2015 // On Aug. 5, 2015 an environmental contractor acting under the EPA’s authority breached a bulkhead at the entrance to the Gold King Mine in Southwestern Colorado. As a result, 3 million gallons of heavy metal laced...
Sep 29 2015 // Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship hits the courtroom for a criminal trial Thursday, facing charges that he conspired to break safety laws and lied to financial regulators about safety practices at the site of the...
Sep 3 2015 // Two companies have been cited by West Virginia regulators for alleged violations found during investigations of separate fatal mine accidents.The Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training issued two citations to...
Jul 28 2015 // Attorneys for former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship want evidence about the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia kept out of his criminal trial this fall.The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the...
Jun 26 2015 // Lawmakers will examine whether a program that allows coal companies to forgo mine cleanup insurance could leave taxpayers with billion dollar costs, leading members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources said on...
Jun 8 2015 // Coal giant Peabody Energy has been among the harshest critics of federal energy policies, joining a court challenge to the Obama administration’s new clean air regulations and denouncing its promotion of renewable...
Jun 5 2015 // A federal judge has denied nine motions to dismiss charges against former Massey Energy Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship related to a 2010 mine explosion in West Virginia that killed 29 people.Blankenship faces...
Jun 2 2015 // Alpha Natural Resources Inc. no longer qualifies for a government program that subsidizes a share of mine cleanup insurance, requiring the coal company to find another way to cover roughly $400 million in liabilities,...