The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) released details Tuesday about something we first reported here Monday.
The agency is breaking up the district office in West Virginia that oversees Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine, where 29 mine workers died in a violent explosion last year.
In a news release, MSHA suggests District 4 in southern West Virginia is overwhelmed with 400 coal mines that required 23,282 safety citations in FY 2009.
That's 20 percent of the nation's coal mines with 27 percent of the country's coal mining machines.
The agency's "most extensive workload" is handled by more employees than any other district but it also has "the smallest ratio of managers and supervisors to line staff."
"Resources must be reallocated to allow MSHA's coal division to effectively carry out its mission," says assistant secretary of labor Joe Main.
Missing from the news release is any mention of District 4's troubled past, which includes:
Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reported even more problems with District 4 enforcement, going back decades, in this story in 2007.
In a brief interview today, Main said he can't explain why his predecessors in the Bush Administration didn't split the district sooner. But he says the Upper Big Branch mine had "rigorous ongoing enforcement" before last April's explosion despite the workload and management problems in District 4.
Main adds that District 4's oversight of the mine "is part of the ongoing investigation" of the explosion "and part of the internal review" of MSHA'S enforcement.
A federal criminal investigation is also underway.
MSHA says the process of splitting District 4 will begin later this year.
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