Site of fatal Eastern Kentucky coal tipple collapse was in the process of being reclaimed
The complex in Martin County where a coal tipple collapsed Tuesday night during disassembly, killing at least one construction worker, was an underground coal mine and preparation plant operated for 36 years by Excel Mining LLC and Pontiki Coal Co., subsidiaries of Alliance Resource Partners of Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to public records.
Two men died in the mine in 2000 after an equipment failure, leading federal regulators to issue safety citations.
More recently, in December 2018, the Kentucky Department for Natural Resources issued a surface mining and reclamation permit for the site to a different company, Lexington Coal Company LLC, which is headquartered in West Virginia.
The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said reclamation was being done when the collapse occurred Tuesday. Lexington Coal Company had contracted with Skeens Enterprises LLC for site demolition and salvage operations, state officials said.
On Thursday, Alliance said it sold the property in 2014 after closing the mine, a fact confirmed by state records released Thursday morning. The property passed from Alliance’s Pontiki subsidiary in 2014 to Revelation Energy LLC and then to Lexington Coal Company in 2018, according to a transfer history of state permits.
Alliance originally opened the complex near the Pilgrim community in 1977 and closed it in November 2013. At the time it closed, 142 people worked there.
The president and chief executive of Alliance is Joe Craft, a coal billionaire whose wife, Kelly, unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor of Kentucky earlier this year. Joe Craft largely financed his wife’s efforts.
In 2000, the complex — sometimes referred to as the Excel/Pontiki plant or Excel Mine no. 2 — was cited for seven safety violations by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration following the deaths of two Virginia men in a high-speed mine cart crash.
The agency cited the mine for a lack of concern for safety and an apparent breakdown in the cart’s hoist system.
For three months in 2012, MSHA ordered the closure of the complex’s coal preparation plant and other surface facilities due to the failure of a belt line between two clean coal stacking tubes. Federal regulators required a comprehensive inspection by an independent engineering firm before the facilities could reopen.
Alliance later said that temporary idle order cost it $26.6 million.
The next year, complaining of weak market conditions, Alliance shut down the complex for good.
“While we are deeply saddened by the impact of this decision on our employees, their families and their communities, we have no choice but to take this unfortunate but necessary step to begin the process of winding down production operations at Pontiki,” Craft said when the mine closed in late 2013.
