Sagging coal industry’s ‘zombie’ mine violations swamp Kentucky agency

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As the coal industry collapses in Kentucky, providers have racked up a growing number of violations at surface mines — yet condition regulators have failed to deliver a record selection of them into compliance, interior paperwork exhibit.

Enforcement knowledge from 2013 by means of February, alongside with recent interior e-mails, equally provided to Inside of Weather Information by the Kentucky Electricity and Atmosphere Cabinet in response to a condition open up information ask for, paint a image of an market and its regulators in a state of disaster.

The documents expose an company having difficulties to enforce rules designed to protect the general public and the ecosystem from some of the industry’s most destructive tactics amid mining firm bankruptcies and an in general industry decrease that has found the shedding of 1000’s of coal mining jobs in the point out.