No. 9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster by Bonnie E. Stewart, West Virginia University Press, 289 pages. Hardcover, $27.99.

If coal company officials had paid attention to those warnings, and if state and federal inspectors had performed their jobs more vigorously, 78 miners may well not have lost their lives on Nov. 20, 1968.

In a series of explosions that morning, smoke poured out of the mine after methane and coal dust exploded underground in one of the most dramatic mine disasters in American history.

Bonnie E. Stewart, a reporter and West Virginia University journalism professor, offers a riveting and detailed account of events leading to that tragedy in her new book, "No. 9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster."

Consol bought the No. 9 Mine, which had been operating since 1910, shortly before 27 miners died in an explosion on Nov. 13, 1954.

Stewart tells stories about several miners who quit because they had become so afraid for their safety and lives.

Having worked underground for 30 years, and at Consol No. 9 since 1956, Ancle<co> B. Morris quit just one week before the explosion.

"Morris said he reported numerous serious problems to both the safety committee and [section foreman] Foster Turner, but little changed. The week before the mine exploded, he reached his limit," Stewart writes.

In a chapter called "Warning Signs," Stewart details safety problems detected and reported by miners during days immediately before the disaster.

Stanley Plachta, a member of the local United Mine Workers Safety Committee, became so concerned he called the state Department of Mines on Nov. 19, one day before the explosion. Plachta, a mine mechanic, was not working on the shift when the explosion took place.

"He was discouraged by the way the company handled the safety committee's complaints," Stewart writes.

State and federal safety inspectors routinely failed to cite serious violations prior to the tragedy.

"Federal officials inspected the mine five times in 1967 and 1968," Stewart writes. But they "did not cite the mine for any ventilation violations," including the failure to stop mining coal when ventilation fans shut down.

Testimony later confirmed the fan system at Consol No. 9 "malfunctioned and ventilation laws were broken on a regular basis."

Federal mine safety officials refused to release their final reports about the disaster until 1990 -- 22 years after the tragedy.

Pressure from the United Mine Workers and J. Davitt McAteer, a former head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, forced the federal report's release.

During government inspections, Stewart points out throughout her book, many important questions simply went unasked. And after those inspections found problems, no one was held accountable for life-threatening conditions underground.

"Not one Consol employee was disciplined, demoted or fired in the wake of the disaster," Stewart points out.

Just seven days after the tragedy, Rep. Arch A. Moore, R-W.Va., praised Consolidation Coal, claiming that inspection reports "showed the mine was not unsafe before the disaster." Moore had just won election to his first term as the state's governor.

In March 1969, when striking miners rallied for new health and safety legislation in Charleston's Civic Center, then marched to the Capitol steps demanding new state Black Lung and mine safety legislation, Moore criticized them for striking.

"That Moore was indebted to the coal industry for his political success was well known then and would become more obvious in the years to follow," Stewart writes.

In August 1990, Moore began serving nearly three years in federal prisons after pleading guilty to accepting more than $500,000 in payoffs from Beckley coal operator H. Paul Kizer, in exchange for a $2 million refund from the Black Lung Fund.

In the wake of the disaster, UMW President Tony Boyle praised Consol for being one of the nation's most safety-conscious companies.

Boyle later went to prison for conspiring to kill Joseph "Jock" Yablonski along with his wife and daughter. Yablonski was a longtime UMW leader who ran against Boyle for president in 1969. During those same months, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., criticized mine safety conditions. In the wake of the No. 9 tragedy, when federal legislation was pending, Byrd said one of every 10 Appalachian coal miners suffered from pneumoconiosis, or black lung.

Shortly before he died in June 2010, Byrd criticized the explosion at Massey Energy's mine in Montcoal on April 5, 1910.

"I am sick. I am saddened and I am angry. We have the laws. We have the resources. These tragedies, on this scale, should no longer be happening," Byrd said in a quote Stewart uses at the very beginning of her book.

 "All too often, the drive to produce coal -- to make money, to meet contracts, to satisfy stockholders -- has trumped safety," Stewart adds.

After the Mannington explosion, many coal industry leaders continued to argue coal dust does not cause black lung disease and breathing problems.

"No. 9" also mentions efforts by miners and their widows, especially leaders like Sara Lee Kaznoski, to get state and federal legislation passed, with help from political leaders like Rep. Ken Hechler, D-W.Va.

Kaznoski was one of seven widows of miners who died who refused to sign agreements with Consolidation Coal. In exchange for promising not to file any lawsuits, Consol gave widows payments of $10,000 for the deaths of their husbands.

The tragedy did have one positive result.

"If the families of the dead have found any peace," Stewart writes, "it has come from knowing that their loved ones made coal mining safer for thousands of men and women who would earn their incomes underground." 

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or (304) 348-5164.