Rosebud Mining settles MSHA lawsuit

A Kittanning mining company has agreed to not warn its underground workers when federal inspectors are headed into its mines.

The agreement by Rosebud Mining Co. settles a lawsuit the Labor Department filed in December after surface personnel at Rosebud's Mine 78 in Somerset County and Tracy Lynne mine in Armstrong County signaled underground workers about the arrival of Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors.

The two mines were on a list of 111 "troubling" mines that MSHA targeted for extra inspections after an April 5, 2010, explosion killed 29 miners in the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va. The mines on the list were picked based on their track records of safety violations and their accident and injury rates.

The surface officials gave the warnings despite clear orders by the inspectors to not warn the workers, the lawsuit said. U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson today approved a consent judgment in which the mining company doesn't admit it violated the law but agrees to an injunction prohibiting it from providing warnings of inspections.

The injunction expires at the end of the year and both sides have to pay their own legal costs under the judgment.