Tracing KY Company Histories, continued

MSHA data is available today that I was struggling to locate yesterday. Apparently the website was being updated, which can make some of the data unavailable for a while. It's back up, so here's part 2.

Just as an example, I was tracing business connections to Misty Mountain Mining, Inc., which is the subject of a safety-related discrimination complaint.

Yesterday I was demonstrating how to use KY state records to locate related businesses.

One related KY company (same official listed by MSHA as the controller), for instance, is now out of business:

Organization Number 0478082
Name SISTER BEAR MINING, INC.
Profit or Non-Profit P - Profit
Company Type KCO - Kentucky Corporation
Status I - Inactive
Standing B - Bad
State KY
File Date 8/2/1999
Organization Date 8/2/1999
Last Annual Report 9/23/2003
Principal Office P.O. BOX 100
JONANCY, KY 41538
Registered Agent STANLEY WAYNE OSBORNE
8410 HWY. 122
VIRGIE, KY 41572
Authorized Shares 1000
Current Officers
President Stanley Osborne
Incorporators and Initial Directors
Incorporator STANLEY OSBORNE

Turning now to the MSHA data retrieval system on the agency website, and remembering to request abandoned as well as active operations, we find the folowing for Sister Bear:

1517616 KY Sister Bear Mining Inc Mine No 7 Underground C Abandoned* Coal (Bituminous)
1517633 KY Sister Bear Mining Inc No 6 Underground C Abandoned* Coal (Bituminous)
1517919 KY Sister Bear Mining Inc 1 Underground C Abandoned* Coal (Bituminous)

And here's the basic information for the first of that company's three abandoned mines:

Mine ID: 1517616
Operator: Sister Bear Mining Inc
Mine Name: Mine No 7
Controlling Company: Stanley Osborne
Ownership Date: 9/21/2000
Mine Status: Abandoned*
Status Date: 7/12/2002
Mined Material: Coal (Bituminous)
Type of Mine: Underground
Location: Pike County, KY
Address of Record: P.O. Box 100, JONANCY, KY 41538

The "ownership date" is 9/21/2000, meaning that is when Sister Bear became the operator.

The "overview" report shows no fatalities at the mine in the less than 2 years that Sister Bear operated it. Neither did the mine operator report any injuries in that period. You can see that production dipped drastically compared with the previous operator.

You can go to the "Inspections" report and, being sure to enter the beginning date of 9/21/2000 when the company became the operator, check the inspection record.

You can see that MSHA gave the company a no-penalty "reopening inspection" on 10/4/2000. You can also see that in April 2002 MSHA cited the company for not informing the agency when the mine was shut down and for not securing the entrance of the abandoned operation.

Between those dates, the federal mine safety agency visited the mine 19 times and wrote 77 health and safety violations addressing a wide range of hazards, and it appears that the company never paid any of the fines. The status of all penalties is given as "Treasury," which may mean they have been written off as uncollectible. That would appear to fit with the KY Secretary of State categorizing the company standing as "Bad," though I haven't checked.

I won't go through all the availabile information on this and other related companies, but it's kind of interesting as an example of analyses can be done fairly easily these days, thanks to the Internet.