Tony Oppegard Operator Quotations

Basically, if you see 73 accumulation violations, that's a sign of a mine operator who is not too concerned with safety. It's troubling if you see that many.

If an operator is undercapitalized to the extent that he can't pay his fines, he shouldn't be in business. You can bet he's skimping on safety.

With the price of coal so high, you have operators coming out of the woodwork, trying to get into any seam of coal they can to make a quick buck, opening up a lot of little dog holes.

Most of the fines are not high enough to have a real deterrent effect. If the operators know they're not going to have to pay the fines, or that they will be minimal fines, they just factor that into the cost of doing business.

I would say that these are indicative of an operator who wasn't going to let safety get in the way of production.