DWP REVIEWS ITS ROLE IN MINE SAFETY AGENCY PART OF OVERSIGHT PANEL IN UTAH.

Byline: BETH BARRETT

Staff Writer

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials said Wednesday that the utility has begun an internal review into its safety and oversight roles at the Crandall Canyon coal mine in Utah that caved in Monday and trapped six miners.

While the DWP has no ownership interest in the mine, the department is part of a two-member oversight panel for the mine as the representative of the Intermountain Power Agency.

The Intermountain Power Agency is a group of Utah utilities and other power customers -- including the DWP. The other panel member is Utah America Energy, co-owner and operator of the mine that collapsed.

The DWP operates the Intermountain Power Plant in Delta, Utah, from which the DWP and 35 other customers buy electricity.

DWP commission President David Nahai said commissioners learned of the DWP's role on the panel -- which reviews all mine safety violations and citations issued by federal regulators -- after the mine collapsed.

Nahai said the commission now wants more information on what the DWP's responsibilities may have been.

There is no evidence any of the problems reviewed by the panel contributed to the mine's collapse, DWP officials said.

Nahai said the DWP also did not appear to have any operational responsibility for the mine.

"At the commission level, we're just finding out about DWP's level of involvement on this two-member commission ...," he said.

He said the commission wants to see all the reports the panel had access to. He said the DWP also would cooperate with any ongoing investigations.

"We don't want to shirk any responsibility that may possibly be appropriate here," he said.

He also said he made inquiries after the mine collapsed to see whether there were any connections with the plant.

Only a small amount of coal still being extracted from the mine is going to the Intermountain Power Plant, said DWP spokesman Joe Ramallo.

"DWP's power supply is not in jeopardy," he said.

The DWP's role came to light as rescuers continued their race Wednesday to reach the missing miners deep within the 2,600-acre coal mine south of Salt Lake City.

The miners were believed to be trapped about 1,500 feet underground and by Wednesday afternoon, rescuers had drilled down about 450 feet, at a rate of about 70 feet per hour.

Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., which owns the mine operator, has blamed the cave-in on seismic activity in the area. Murray Energy bought out the previous mine's co-owner, and its subsidiary operator Genwal Resources, over a year ago.

According to a Mine Safety and Health Administration spokesman, the mine had a safety record better than the national average.

Since 2004, the mine has had 107 "substantial and serious" citations, and a total of 324 citations. There have been 32 citations this year. But the spokesman said what's most significant is that in the past 24 months, the Crandall Canyon mine has ranked 14 percent below the national average in substantial and serious violations.

"It has been safer than average," the Mine Safety and Health Administration spokesman said.

Under Genwal Resources, the mine had been averaging about 100 violations a year since 1995. There was one death in 1997 due to an equipment malfunction.

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

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