Shifting the blame

The families of the Sago Mine victims aren't buying it.

The release of a report blaming lightning as the cause of last January's Sago Mine explosion has been delayed.

West Virginia state investigators are holding off on releasing the report about the blast that killed 12 miners "in deference to the requests and needs of the family members for additional information," said Gov. Joe Manchin.

Maybe the families were expecting additional information about the more than 200 citations [link] for safety violations that Sago received from the Mine Safety and Health Administration in 2005.

And that's from a Bush administration oversight body.

MSHA cited Sago 208 times for safety violations in 2005, but (Joe Pavlovich, former director of MSHA District 7 in Kentucky) said that's less relevant than the fact that 15 of the citations required the company to close parts of the mine or shut down equipment.

Mine inspectors usually allow companies to keep mining while they correct safety violations and only issue closure orders when they see "a high degree of negligence," he said. Companies typically aren't forced to close a section of a mine unless the companies have ignored previous citations for the same violation, he said.

But I'm sure those 208 safety violations didn't create a dangerous environment for the miners.

It was lightning. Got it? Lightning.