Mine closure major blow in Idaho's Silver Valley

MULLAN, Idaho (AP) — The yearlong closure of the Lucky Friday Mine looks like to will be a major blow to Idaho's Silver Valley, which was already struggling with high unemployment.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration earlier this week ordered that the walls of the mile-deep shaft that is the main entrance to the mine be scrubbed to remove sand and concrete material that can break off and endanger miners and hoist equipment.

Hecla Mining Co., which operates the mine, estimated it will take about a year to complete that job, throwing hundreds out of work.

"It's going to kill this valley," Chuck Reitz, a city councilman in Mullan, told the Coeur d'Alene Press. (http://bit.ly/z21fmk)

Meanwhile, an MSHA official said conditions in the Lucky Friday's main shaft have parallels to problems at a Nevada gold mine where a 2010 shaft accident claimed the lives of two workers.

"We're not in the business of putting miners out of work; we're in the business of making sure that the conditions they work in are safe," Joseph Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, told The Spokesman-Review (http://bit.ly/x4b4QI) .

Phil Baker, Hecla's chief executive officer, said Wednesday that company officials believe the shaft is safe. However, federal inspectors found loose rock in the Lucky Friday's shaft and several leaks in a pipe that transports sand and cement into the mine, said Neal Merrifield, MSHA's administrator for metal and non-metal safety.

"Our concern is that we really don't have a good idea about the total condition of that pipe," he said.

If the pipe were to burst, or if concrete deposits from the leaks were to tear loose from the shaft's walls, workers traveling in the shaft could be killed, Merrifield said.

"You can imagine what would happen if one of these rocks would fall 6,000 feet and hit somebody or strike the cage," Merrifield said.

The situation at the Lucky Friday's shaft is similar to the 2010 accident at Barrick Gold's Meikle Mine in Nevada, he said. In that accident, two workers were trying to unplug a pipe in the mine shaft. The 24-inch pipe burst and the falling pipe and other debris struck and killed the workers, the accident report said.

The Dec. 20 inspection that found problems at the Lucky Friday's shaft was a "special emphasis" inspection developed by MSHA after the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, which killed 29 coal miners in West Virginia in 2010. Mines with recent accidents and fatalities get additional attention from inspectors.

The Lucky Friday fits that category because two workers died in separate accidents last year, and seven others were injured after a rock burst in December, Main said.

The closure means 185 of Hecla's workers at Lucky Friday have been laid off, along with up to 100 workers employed by contractors who work at the mine. Miners average $100,000 a year in pay and benefits, pay that is nearly impossible to replace in this area.

Don Kotschevar, a teacher in Mullan, said the news was devastating. Instability at home affects student performance, he said.

"When things aren't good at home, children bring those problems to school," he said.

If a miner has to leave the area to find work, that leaves the other parent raising the kids alone, he said.

Sara Lamson, supervisor at the Kellogg office of the Idaho Department of Labor, said the office was bustling with laid off miners filing for unemployment benefits, she said.

"They just want to go back to work," she said. "They have a lot of pride."

"Some are looking at heading to the oil fields in North Dakota for work," Lamson said.