Memos detail Blankenship’s push for coal production, ignoring safety violations
Charleston Gazette-Daily
Memos detail Blankenship’s push for coal production
by Ken Ward Jr., Environment Reporter
Blankenship was working at home as the weekend began. “It’s Friday evening and I’m sort of reviewing man-hours at the house,” Blankenship said in a memo.
Blankenship indicated that he wasn’t happy with the man-hour reports he saw for Massey operations being run by a longtime company official, David Hughart. Hours worked were over budget for underground mines, a preparation plant and a coal-loading facility.
“If you haven’t heard, the idea is that you will have less man-hours (than) are in the plan and run more coal, not less,” Blankenship said in the memo he fired off to Hughart. Blankenship threatened to cut 15 percent of Hughart’s workforce if Hughart didn’t get the hours worked — and thus the mine’s costs per ton of coal produced — down.
When Blankenship goes on trial in October, prosecutors say, Hughart will testify that he received regular memos in which Blankenship pressured him for more coal production.
However, despite Hughart’s mines running up large numbers of violations, Hughart will testify that he never received similar memos from Blankenship “chastising him for failure to comply with health and safety standards,” prosecutors say.
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