Logan man fatally injured at Raleigh mining plant with many safety violations

The Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training was on the scene with company officials and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and was investigating, office spokesperson Andy Malinoski said Tuesday evening. A MSHA spokesperson said Wednesday MSHA inspectors are investigating and that no further information was available while the investigation was in process.

Alpha said Bartram suffered the fatal accident Tuesday morning at the Marfork preparation plant after nearly two decades of experience.

MSHA has not yet published a preliminary fatality report but classified the accident as a hoisting incident on its website Tuesday.

Bartram’s death is the second mining fatality at an Alpha-controlled West Virginia mine this year and followed a lengthy history of safety and health violations recorded at the Marfork plant by MSHA, according to agency records. The site near Whitesville is operated by Alpha subsidiary Marfork Coal Company LLC.

Steam truck operator Jeffery Hudnall, 60, was fatally injured at the Marfork plant in August 2021 after when he fell more than 9 feet to a concrete pad, an incident MSHA investigators attributed to a contractor not ensuring Hudnall wore fall protection when there was a danger of falling.

"The entire Alpha organization is deeply saddened by this accident," Alpha CEO Andy Eidson said in a news release Tuesday. "Our hearts are with Eric's family and loved ones. We are heartbroken to learn of his loss."

Alpha did not respond to a request for comment.

Marfork site's string of 'Significant' MSHA violations 

The Marfork coal preparation facility has been the site of 178 MSHA citations and orders for violations of health and safety standards at the site since the start of 2019, according to agency records.

Of those 178 citations and orders, 24 were for violations MSHA categorized as “Significant and Substantial,� a designation it uses for hazards deemed reasonably likely to result in serious injury.

Last month, MSHA issued a citation to Marfork Coal Company for a Significant and Substantial violation of a standard requiring mine workers wear safety belts and lines where there is danger of falling and that a second person tend a lifeline when dangerous areas are entered.

MSHA has found Significant and Substantial violations of other standards at the Marfork preparation facility in recent years, including those requiring:

• Dust control measures be taken where dust significantly reduces visibility of equipment operators
• Guarding of chains, pulleys, shafts and other exposed moving machine parts which could cause injury
• Mobile equipment such as forklifts, tractors and trucks being equipped with compliant warning devices
• A competent person inspecting mobile loading and haulage equipment before it’s placed in operation
• Not performing repair or maintenance on machinery until its power is turned off and it’s blocked from moving

MSHA has issued penalties totaling $19,653 for Significant and Substantial violations at the Marfork preparation facility since the start of 2019, collecting all but $1,550, according to MSHA records.

Tuesday’s mining fatality is the second at an Alpha-controlled West Virginia mine this year, following the Feb. 28 death of seal construction worker Billy Shawn Stalker, 46, of Elkhorn City, Kentucky, at the Black Eagle Mine in Raleigh County. Stalker died when a portion of rib rock fell on him, per MSHA records, which the agency attributed to mine operator Marfork Coal Company not controlling the rib to protect miners or conduct adequate pre-shift examinations.

A rib is the side of a pillar or wall in an underground coal mine.

The Black Eagle Mine was the site of 2,187 safety and health violations issued by MSHA from March 2019 to March 2025, according to agency data — an average of just over one violation per day. Of those 2,187 violations, 435 were categorized as Significant and Substantial.

Bartram’s death marks the seventh mining fatality in West Virginia since the beginning of 2024, per MSHA records.

MSHA resources dwindling under Trump administration 

West Virginia’s latest mining death comes amid concern among miner advocates over potential MSHA staff cuts and moves toward more relaxed safety oversight under the Trump administration.

Carey Clarkson, national vice president with the National Council of Field Labor Locals union that represents MSHA employees, told the Gazette-Mail in March a Trump administration-ordered hiring freeze cut off the hiring process for 90 people who had been offered MSHA positions. Roughly 120 more employees were lost after they took a voluntary resignation offer amid the Trump administration’s mass downsizing of the federal workforce.

Clarkson said MSHA barely has enough staff now to perform required inspections, let alone “spend quality time� on mines that need greater enforcement.

Miner advocates have protested hundreds of Trump administration layoffs being implemented in and beyond West Virginia to employees within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a research agency that studies worker health and has contributed decades of critical findings to better protect miners from toxic coal and silica dust and mine accidents.

They’ve also protested delay in implementation of a landmark rule the Biden administration finalized last year to decrease MSHA’s federally allowed exposure limit for toxic silica dust driving up incidence of severe black lung disease among increasingly younger central Appalachian miners.

Attorneys for MSHA and industry groups reported in a federal court filing this month they are discussing a potential settlement after the court put the rule on hold in response to a challenge from the industry groups.

Roof and ventilation control plan oversight threatened 

Last month, MSHA proposed eliminating the authority of MSHA district managers to require additional provisions in ventilation control and roof control plans beyond requirements in federal code.

Mine operators no longer would have to revise roof control or ventilation plans at the request of an MSHA district manager.

MSHA has recorded 25 roof fall-related fatal mine incidents since the start of 2010, per agency records — including six in West Virginia.

Hazardous roof conditions were a key factor in Stalker’s Feb. 28 death at the Alpha-controlled Black Eagle Mine, MSHA concluded in its final report on the incident that killed Stalker.

MSHA said Marfork “engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence,� with a foreman directing contractors to work in an area with hazardous roof and rib conditions and examinations not identifying “obvious and extensive� hazards.

Investigators observed roof control plan violations that created additional hazardous conditions, according to the report.

Marfork block foreman and emergency medical technician Chad Vigilante conducted a pre-shift examination in the seal area 90 minutes before the accident but did not identify or record any of the obvious and extensive hazardous roof and rib conditions, the report said.

Violations of mine ventilation plan, submission and approval standards and roof control plan standards were the seventh- and 10th-most frequently cited MSHA standards last year, according to the agency, totaling a combined 3,449 violations — an average of 9.4 per day.