LUMBERPORT, W.Va. -- Diving crews on Friday recovered the body of a coal miner who died Nov. 30 in the collapse of an embankment at a CONSOL Energy coal-slurry impoundment in Harrison County.

Company spokeswoman Lynn Seay identified the miner as Markel J. Koon, 58, of Shinnston. He had been a CONSOL employee for nearly 38 years. His body was being transported to the state Medical Examiner's Office in Charleston for an autopsy.

Koon's body was recovered at 4:40 p.m. Friday by dive teams that used a large pipe to isolate their path through the impoundment's murky water and coal waste to the bulldozer.

CONSOL had located the body on Monday inside the dozer cab, after more than a week of searching for the bulldozer following the Nov. 30 collapse of a smaller "saddle dike" at the Nolan Run site.

Koon was swept into the impoundment shortly after noon on Nov. 30, when the saddle dike's embankment collapsed. CONSOL was building the dike -- constructed of coarse coal refuse piled on top of finer coal slurry -- as part of a plan to expand the impoundment so it can continue as a disposal site for waste from the nearby Robinson Run Mine's preparation plant.