That amount includes $46.5 million allocated to the families of the victims and those who were injured in the blast, according to a source close to the investigation who requested anonymity because he was not permitted to speak about the arrangement.
Sources close to the investigation said the settlement, which will be announced at a news conference at 11 a.m. by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia, includes terms that protect Alpha — but not individual Massey executives — from prosecution.
The settlement, first reported by the Charleston Gazette, follows months of investigative work by federal officials from the Departments of Justice and Labor, as well as an independent commission appointed by the former West Virginia governor. The findings that had been made public placed the blame for the blast squarely on Massey and what investigators said was its reckless disregard for safety standards, but had stopped short of assigning criminal blame.
Tuesday’s announcement, which will be made public after federal investigators meet with families of the victims in West Virginia, will detail criminal responsibility, that Alpha, and in turn Massey, which it now owns, will accept.
In the past, Massey, which was purchased by Alpha in June, had dismissed investigators charges that its actions led directly to the disaster.
“It’s a record-level settlement,” said a former federal mine safety chief, J. Davitt McAteer, who conducted the independent state investigation, which issued the first findings about the explosion this year. “This is an amount that will get companies to pay attention. It has to affect their bottom line, otherwise it doesn’t mean anything.”
The settlement does not protect individual Massey managers, including the former chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, who have not been charged. In all 18 executives refused to be interviewed by federal investigators, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights.
In addition to the $46.5 million payout to victims and families, the agreement includes $80 million to bolster safety and infrastructure in all underground mines owned by Alpha and Massey; $48 million to establish a mine health and safety foundation to be used to finance academic research on mine safety; and about $35 million in fines and fees that Massey owed to the Mining, Safety and Health Administration, the branch of the Department of Labor that oversees the mining industry.
Under the terms of the agreement, Alpha must also put in place a plan that guarantees it has enough safety equipment, ventilation and methods of clearing potentially explosive rock dust out of all its underground mines within 90 days.
The company will be required to build a state-of-the-art training facility in West Virginia, including a mine lab where it will be able to simulate mining disasters.
A report released in March by the independent team appointed by former Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and led by Mr. McAteer determined that the disaster could have been prevented if Massey had observed minimal safety standards.
That finding was in line with previous inquiries by federal officials who have said that in the year prior to the explosion, Upper Big Branch was cited by safety inspectors 515 times and ordered to shut down operations on 52 occasions.
The McAteer report accused Massey of having engaged in a pattern of negligence, which allowed a “perfect storm” of poor ventilation, equipment whose safety mechanisms were not functioning and combustible coal dust.
The investigators dismissed Massey’s claims that the blast had occurred because a sudden burst of methane had bubbled from the ground, saying evidence contradicting that theory included the bodies of the miners found near the main explosion. Only two had methane in their lungs.
Federal investigators have also said that Massey kept two sets of books so that accounts of hazardous conditions in Upper Big Branch would be kept hidden from inspectors.
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