Westray Mine

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The Westray Mine was a Canadian coal mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, which was the site of a methane explosion in 1992 which killed 26 miners.

Following the closure of the last working mine in the 1970s, Pictou County's hopes for a mining renaissance were revived with the announcement of a proposed mine in the region in the late 1980s. The timing was perfect, politically, since the region had elected a fledgling leader of the federal opposition, Brian Mulroney, in a 1983 by-election in Central Nova. Following the election of a federal Conservative-led government, Elmer MacKay became a Tory political heavyweight in the riding. Provincially, the area was also home to Conservative premier Donald Cameron. Money was made available to Toronto company Curragh Resources for establishing a mine, as well as building an extension to a railway line and custom-built railcars (to be constructed in nearby Trenton). The mine would feed coal to a local Nova Scotia Power Company generating station which was a provincial Crown corporation at the time.

On September 11, 1991 the mine was opened to great local fanfare but immediately problems began to surface. Accusations were made by union members of company cutbacks in safety training and equipment and of negligent and outright criminal behaviour toward safety inspections. Miners complained about working in deep coal dust and on March 9, 1992 only 2 months before the disaster, a local union official stated in a safety report:

"I strongly feel there will be someone killed in the near future."

[edit] The disaster

On Saturday, May 9, 1992, a methane gas explosion at 5:18 a.m. ADT killed 26 miners.

In the wake of the explosion, Canadian and international media coverage descended upon the tiny hamlet of Plymouth and the nearby towns of New Glasgow, Stellarton, Westville and Trenton. Coverage gripped Canadians for several days as teams of draegerman (mine rescuers) searched the debris-strewn depths of the mine for survivors.

Over the next several days, media reported non-stop from a community centre located across the street from the mine while rescue teams encountered extremely hazardous conditions underground. Westray officials unfortunately did not work optimally with the media, which affected the release of information.

The bodies of 15 miners were discovered and afterward the search and rescue was changed to a search and recovery operation. After underground conditions worsened, the decision was made to abandon recovery efforts, entombing the bodies of 11 miners at the depths of the mine. Several days later RCMP investigators re-entered the mine with a draeger team to gather evidence for criminal prosecution but they did not enter the "southwest main" shaft where the remaining miners' bodies were located, again due to hazardous conditions.

117 miners who were not working on shift at the time were given 12-weeks severance pay. The company was charged with 52 non-criminal counts of operating an unsafe mine but in 1993 the company went bankrupt and charges never made it to court. The two mine managers were charged criminally but on 9 June 1995, the 44th day of the trial, the proceeding was stayed by the judge, who said (quoting from the trial transcript) "Having considered all the options and the ramifications of each as outlined by counsel, I am satisfied that the breach is of such a nature that the only remedy which can properly address the prejudice already suffered by the applicants and to preserve the integrity of the criminal justice system, is a stay of proceedings." The stay was appealed by the Crown to the Supreme Court, which upheld the stay; the Court's decision includes this: "Throughout the proceedings the Crown bent and broke rules, and attempted to cover up when it was caught. The Crown actively misled the court on a number of occasions, and ignored or failed to obey court orders... The Crown had access to the Department of Labour file, yet they maintained that they did not. The Crown had in its possession relevant 'administrative' files, yet it chose not to read them, deemed them irrelevant, and advised the court accordingly. When they were found to be relevant, Crown counsel attempted to downplay the significance of their non-disclosure, and blame a subordinate for a poor evaluation of relevance. This remarkable attitude permeated the entire trial proceedings... The Crown ignored its duty to disclose and to act in a manner consistent with the presumption of innocence that belongs to all accused. This has, on the findings of the trial judge, impaired the conduct of the defence and derogated from the right to a fair trial. Ordering a new trial would itself bring the administration of justice into disrepute. If this is not the clearest of cases, it is hard to imagine what would qualify..."

Nobody has ever served a day in jail because of the Westray Coal Mine disaster.

The Nova Scotia provincial government conducted a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Westray Mine and the safety issues resulting from the explosion. The report submitted in 1998 recommended a sweeping overhaul of all provincial labour and mining laws which were mostly acted upon. Unfortunately the federal government has yet to address some of the more serious questions arising from Westray in new legislation.

Today a memorial sits in a park in nearby New Glasgow at the approximate location above ground where the remaining 11 miners are trapped. The memorial will always be there in remembrance of those who died there. The former mine site was razed in 1998 with the most visible reminder of the tragedy, the two 15-storey blue concrete coal storage silos, being imploded on November 27, 1998. The damaged mine shaft had been permanently sealed following the decision to abort further recovery attempts in May 1992 and after investigations were completed.