The agency took its request to the federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission this week. MSHA said it had already issued 12 orders for alleged serious mine safety and health standards violations and the mine owed $US230,000 in penalties.

“This unusual legal action is being taken to achieve resolution of these citations based on the operator’s repeated violations of standards known to contribute to injuries and loss of life,” assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health Joseph Main said.

“Mining companies have an obligation to do all they can to protect their workers. Those who ignore safety and health practices continue to put their workers in harm’s way.”

MSHA has argued that Big Ridge’s violations recorded between December 2008 and January 2009 included failure to provide adequate protection from roof, face and rib falls within the mine; failure to prevent excessive accumulations of combustible materials in active working areas; failure to conduct adequate on-shift examinations for hazardous conditions; and failure to properly maintain equipment according to MSHA regulations.

The federal oversight agency has classified all 12 violations as significant and substantial (S&S), and have all stemmed from the operator’s “reckless disregard of, or indifference to, its safety and health responsibilities, intentional misconduct or a serious lack of reasonable care”

While MSHA said its Rules to Live By outreach and enforcement program kicked off on March 15, intended to spotlight the industry’s most frequently cited standards, two of the mine’s 12 orders related to some priority regulations highlighted in that initiative, including one for roof support and one for failure to maintain equipment in safe operating condition.

“Since these two violations were issued, Big Ridge has been cited for 78 additional violations of 75.202 and 13 additional violations of 75.1725(a), including citations issued to the mine operator as recently as last month,” Main said.

On Wednesday afternoon, mine owner Peabody responded to MSHA’s decision, and said it “welcomes” MSHA’s request for an expedited hearing.

“It is ironic that we routinely ask for such hearings to discuss long-standing and legitimate challenges where we believe basic differences exist. However, in this instance MSHA's response seems based more on building publicity than resolutions,” Peabody said.

“We take exception to the inflammatory, unfounded and confrontational words used by MSHA,” the company said, pointing out that the past three years had been the safest in the company’s history and represented a 43% improvement in its safety rate globally.

In fact, Peabody’s incidence rate last year was half that of the industry average for the US, and three of its mines achieved rates of zero.

Nine of the company’s operations ranked among the top 20 safest large US mines, and its performance to date in 2010 is reflecting a continued improvement to 2009’s statistics.

“Peabody also is taking aggressive steps to improve Willow Lake's incidence rate, including a recent one-day all-employee work stoppage to review safety practices among management, employees and MSHA representatives,” a Peabody official said.

“Other steps include changes to improve dust control; enhancements to safety training and maintenance; and a continuous stem-to-stern review of all processes to identify improvement opportunities.

“Management is actively engaging MSHA, the state of Illinois, the workforce and the union local to drive progress.”

Citations at Willow Lake have dropped 17% year-to-date, according to the company, and its significant violations have declined 26% from the prior year.

Its dedication to rectifying issues at the mine is the same across all of its mines, the company added.

“As a normal part of our safety management process, every single citation issued by MSHA at any of our operations has been immediately addressed and resolved to MSHA's satisfaction prior to work re-commencing,” Peabody said.

“This process was applied at our Willow Lake mine with respect to the items raised in the MSHA release.”