Following up on yesterday’s blog post, we had a more detailed story in the Gazette today about the dispute between state and federal investigators and Massey Energy regarding tests of the water spray system meant to control explosive coal dust generated by the Upper Big Branch Mine’s longwall machine.

This evening, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration issued a brief statement about the ongoing dispute:

MSHA intends to continue discussions with Massey to achieve a mutually acceptable solution. To that end, we extended the time for abatement of the citation that was issued on Nov. 10 to Nov. 17 at 12 p.m. While completing our respective investigations is an important concern, assuring the safety of underground personnel while we do so is paramount.

Dennis Roddy at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette broke this story, but appears much more interested in the brewing legal battle in which MSHA  may move to take control of at least part of the mine — perhaps going to federal court to seek an injunction — to get the water spray testing moving.

But to me, the more interesting thing from this story is the revelation that investigators have already found some problems with the water spray system, in that at least four of the sprays are clearly missing from the longwall shearer.

The other troubling thing here is that MSHA issued two press statements that referenced a situation that prompted a formal enforcement action — the issuance of a citation to Massey for not getting the water supply back on to the longwall shearer so that MSHA could begin the testing investigators say is needed — and yet it wasn’t until after the second press statement that MSHA got around to releasing the citation itself. I’ve posted a copy of the citation here.