The River Slope Mine Disaster
The River Slope Mine was an anthracite coal mine alongside the Susqehanna River in Pennsylvania, which was interconnected with mines on both sides of the river in the region known as the Wyoming Valley. Numerous mine galleries were developed in the region, between and around the town of Exeter on the west bank, and Port Griffith on the east bank. Although it was legal to dig under the river there were minimum requirements for the amount of space between the bottom of the river and the roof of the mine gallery. The Knox Coal Company, which operated the River Slope Mine, ignored the requirements as it extracted coal from beneath the riverbed.
As the mine drew out into the river it climbed steadily upwards, passing the advised standard of fifty feet, and then passing the mandated standard of thirty-five feet. Once beyond that point, the “roof” over the heads of the miners grew thinner and thinner, and Knox Coal officials continued to demand more excavation of the anthracite coal being yielded by the digging. It also discontinued the use of boreholes, which were used to bore upwards to determine the distance to the riverbed, not wanting its miners and those of the other interconnected galleries to be aware of how close they were to the water, which by the end of 1958 was about six feet.
On January 22, 1959 the waters of the Susquehanna penetrated the mine, which flooded quickly, with the flooding spreading to the interconnected mines. Twelve miners were killed in the flooding, their bodies were never found. Sixty-nine others managed to escape the icy waters of the river. About 10 billion gallons of water poured into the mines around the Wyoming Valley, through a hole which widened to about 150 feet in diameter as the river cut through. Attempts were made to plug the hole by sinking railcars, more than 50 coal hoppers standing by, to little effect. Culm – the finely grained waste from anthracite coal – was poured into the breach, and washed away by the river.
It took rerouting the river through the construction of dams on both ends of nearby Wintermoot Island before the flow of water could be stopped, and the hole and mine gallery beneath were pumped full of clay and crushed rock before being sealed with concrete. The mines were then pumped out. The supervisor of the mine and its owner were indicted. During the investigation into the disaster it was revealed that the President of the local district for the United Mine Workers secretly held an ownership interest in the mine. He too was indicted. In all six officials of the company and the union were indicted, but all managed to avoid conviction.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania billed the Knox Coal Company for the cost of the cleanup and repair, which the company avoided paying by filing for bankruptcy protection. Several officers of the Knox Company were subsequently convicted for income tax evasion and paid fines and served short sentences in federal custody. Most of the mines damaged by the breach remained closed, having suffered significant damage in the flooding. It cost Pennsylvania approximately $5 million 1959 dollars to clean up the disaster caused by the Knox Coal Company greed, an amount equivalent to about $ 42 million dollars in 2018.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Coal Mining Disasters”, by Steven L. Sewell, entry, Oklahoma Historical Society, online
“The Cherry Mine Disaster”, by Wayne Hinton, Illinois Coal and Coal Mining, 2013, online
“Avondale mine disaster claimed 110 lives”, by Cheryl A. Kashuba, Times-Tribune, September 6, 2009
“Fire in the hole”, by Kevin Krajick, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2005