Mine Opens
On September 11, 1991, the mine was opened to great local fanfare, but immediately problems began to surface, when multiple roof collapses occurred within the first few months. Two months prior to the opening, MLA Bernie Boudreau wrote to Nova Scotia Labour Minister Leroy Legere asking why the mine was using potentially dangerous mining methods not approved for coal mining. The Labour Ministry gave Currough Inc. a special permit to use these methods to tunnel until they reached the coal seam, but not actually mine coal. Legere was not aware that the company continued to use these methods, three months after the mine opened. Accusations were made by mine workers of company cutbacks in safety training and equipment and of negligent and outright criminal behaviour toward safety inspections. Miners complained about working in deep coal dust. In November 1991, coal miner Carl Guptill made safety complaints to Labour Ministry inspectors, but they were not investigated, and he was fired in January 1992 for making his claims.
Read more about this topic: Westray Mine
Famous quotes containing the word opens:
“To love something as an artist ... means to be shaken not by its ultimate value or lack of value, but by a side of it that suddenly opens up. Where art has value it shows things that few have seen. It’s conquering, not pacifying.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“The pendulum oscillates between these two terms: Suffering—that opens a window on the real and is the main condition of the artistic experience, and Boredom ... that must be considered as the most tolerable because the most durable of human evils.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)