Problems at mines do not scare cavers

Problems at mines don't worry cavers

Daily News (Bowling Green, KY)

Experts say natural holes in the ground safer than man-made

Saturday, January 21, 2006 12:35 AM CST

By DOUG WATERS, The Daily News, /783-3276

Published: January 21, 2006

The verdict is in: Natural caves are more suitable for exploring than coal mines and might even be safer than Interstate 65 to navigate, according to four out of four regional spelunking tacticians. Area cavers were consulted about life underground following recent mine accidents, including one Thursday where a fire at a Mellville, W.Va., mine trapped two people and a Jan. 12 explosion that killed 12 excavators at the Sago Mine in West Virginia. While the cavers sympathized with the miners' families, the incidents make them thankful for a more secure career path.

"I have no desire to go to mines because they can be dangerous,"; said Mike Wheeler, the commander of a statewide underground rescue team.

His unit - Technical Rope and Cave Emergency Response - conducts one or two cave rescues a year, usually of "flashlight cavers,"; the nickname for tourists and kids who probe underground holes with insufficient lighting. Wheeler, who lives in Elizabethtown, said he has never been called upon for mining accidents.

"It's not like caving, where you have one or two people that are in trouble,"; Wheeler said. "It's more like 20 to 30 people who are in significant trouble.";

Generally, cavers rescue each other and they are normally experienced, capable explorers, he said. If his unit is called upon to rescue a caver, it tends to be serious.

Wheeler recalled the "incredibly challenging"; rescue a couple of years ago of Chris Groves, director of the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute at Western Kentucky University, who fell 30 feet from a ledge in Mammoth Cave.

"You were wet from the time you went in till the time you came out,"; Wheeler said of the constantly chilly water. "The cave passage itself was very small and convoluted.";

Groves, a geography professor and cave and karst scientist, said his rescue took nearly 15 hours. Fortunately, he said, water below the ledge broke his fall, but the mishap awarded him a 10-day hospital stay for a punctured lung, four broken ribs and a broken shoulder.

"It wasn't something collapsing on top of me, but from underneath me,"; Groves said. "Even though I have closely survived that, I look at it as that there are inherent risks associated"; with everything in life.

Despite his near-death experience, Groves said he feels safe trekking caves a few times a month to collaborate on scientific projects and collect water samples with students. He said most cave accidents are the result of people being unprepared or "doing something silly.";

Conversely, mining accidents tend to be unpredictable, resulting in explosive catastrophes. He estimated that 6,000 coal miners are killed in China annually due to its loosely regulated industry.

"Caves in general collapse much, much less frequently than mines do,"; Groves said. "I think getting on I-65 and driving to the park is more dangerous than being in Mammoth Cave or any of the other caves around here.";

Groves referenced two non-fatal underground collapses of recent memory. The first, a 130-feet-by-110-feet gap, collapsed on Dishman Lane in February 2002, extracting $782,095 from the city for repairs. The road was closed for several months. State Trooper Cave, which caused the sinkhole, is one of many caves under the city, he said.

Johnny Meredith, a tour guide with Mammoth Cave National Park for more than a decade, elaborated on the other collapse: a roughly 70-foot rock slab that fell in 1994 in the cave, which is the world's longest. Ice storms closed the park at the time.

"That particular instance was caused by the temperatures being super cold here in the park,"; Meredith said. "Those super-cold temperatures were very close to a cave entrance.";

He said the entrances have been modified several times over the years, but after much research the park service restored the main entrance to its original state of airflow.

Vickie Carson, a park spokesperson, said the overall safety of Mammoth Cave, where she has always felt safe dating back to her days as a tour guide, can be attributed to its steady conditions.

In the majority of the cave, she said, "The temperature is always the same - the same humidity; there's nothing to change it.";

Meredith concurred, adding: "Caves naturally stabilize themselves. I've never seen a rock fall.";

He frequently asks visitors if they're aware of any media reports or historical accounts of an entire cave collapsing. Of the thousands he's guided, no one has been able to cite an example, he said.

Mines differ because "you're putting a hole someplace where a hole shouldn't be,"; Meredith said, thus builders must exercise considerable safety precautions. Similarly, sinkholes form mostly because of surface construction.

Meredith said he felt deep sympathy for the West Virginia coal miners' families, especially because they were initially told their loved ones would survive.

Last week, the Associated Press reported that some surviving Sago miners expressed reluctance to return to work, including Owens Jones, whose brother Jesse was killed in the accident.

"You can't really, honestly say that you like working in a place like that,"; Jones said. "My wife and kids don't want me to ever go back, but what are you supposed to do? You either work in the woods around here or in the coal mines or you work for Hardee's or McDonald's.";

Sago Mine was cited for 208 alleged safety violations during 2005, of which 17 were serious. Company officials said they invested more than $40 million in upgrades to its West Virginia mines last year.

Before the Thursday mine fire, 21 miners were in the Alma Mine in southwestern West Virginia when a carbon monoxide monitor about 10,000 feet from the entrance set off an alarm. Nineteen of the miners escaped. A conveyor belt caught fire deep underground.

According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration's Web site, the Alma mine received more than 90 citations from MSHA inspectors during 2005. The most recent were issued Dec. 20, when the mine was hit with seven violations for items such as its ventilation plan and its efforts to control coal dust and other combustible materials.

But in assessing the logistics of mining operations, Wheeler said, "It is generally a safe profession. Most of the people who run these mines are intelligent, well-educated individuals who realize the tremendous dangers and liabilities of removing sections of the earth.";

Wheeler likened coal mining to the airlines, as one tragic accident can cast a shadow over the entire industry. Mining is a "necessary evil"; because the country needs energy, he said, but "there's probably nobody who woke up one morning and said, ‘I want to be a coal miner.' ";

- The Associated Press contributed information to this article.