West Virginia Mine Rescue Shows Hard Choices in Federal Response

The Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration didn’t deploy some specialized technical equipment for the search of a West Virginia miner who went missing in a flooded coal mine during the government shutdown, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

Steve Lipscomb was found dead the morning of Nov. 13 in the flooded Rolling Thunder mine, according to Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R). Five days earlier, a crew with Alpha Metallurgical Resources, which owns the mine, hit a pocket of water about three-quarters of a mile into the southern West Virginia mine, flooding areas where miners were ...