Michigan Archives - Fran Moreland Johns

The first thing that dropped out of the Christmas card was a front page torn from The Flint (MI) Journal of September 5, 2013:

ABORTION CLINIC CLOSES; ONE REMAINS IN AREA read the banner headline at the top of the page.

My friends keep track of things for me. News and notes get saved — sometimes for three months — because holiday cards are still my generation’s catch-up communication of choice. Who went off to college, got married, landed a new job, took an exotic trip, (got sick or died) — news of the old year comes with good wishes for the new. This year’s news, for me, tended to focus on reproductive rights. Thus the clipping from The Flint Journal (on whose payroll Bud Johns appeared as a kid, and a young reporter.)

The story wasn’t one that would have made lasting news much beyond Genessee County, Michigan. An ugly report about a woman saying she was “forced” to have an abortion, a lawsuit, and that was the end of the Feminine Health Care Clinic.

It’s still possible to obtain an abortion in the area, though obviously now more difficult. The closing of FHCC brought the number of abortion-providing clinics in the area down from four not long ago to, currently, one. And that, according to Flint Area Right to Life Director Judy Climer who’s been leading this effort, “makes us feel we’re on the right track.” Climer’s track leads to total denial of abortion access. And the interesting point of the whole long, sad story is summed up later in the article:

Lori Lamerand, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan points out toward the end of the story that all of these things “were not done solely in the best interest of the patient.”

This week will bring more cards. Next week will bring a new year. If miracles happen — and isn’t this the season of miracles? — the new year will bring some sort of rational public dialog about protecting the patient, i.e. pregnant woman, while somehow respecting those who blindly hold that her fetus is all that matters.

Miracles do happen.

Coal mines and potato salad? Not exactly equivalent danger. In my house, where the husband involved is first generation of his family not to have been in the mines (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and before that, Cornwall) we keep an eye on these things. The latest disaster brought to light (thanks, New York Times) an interesting reference that offers insight into the viewpoints of mine owners and managers who profess having safety a #1 priority.

The article references an Indiana Gazette‘s overview of the 35-year-old Mine Safety and Health Administration, which includes these paragraphs:

In 2007, the year after a series of fatal accidents that were attributed in part to the failures of seals designed to keep explosive methane gas from seeping between work areas in the mines, federal officials considered imposing a rule requiring mine owners to replace or retrofit all seals, to better protect the estimated 30,000 miners nationwide.

But at a hearing that year, Bill K. Caylor, then president of the Kentucky Coal Association, accused the government of reacting hysterically to the accidents.

“Did you know that 750 people die each year in the U.S. from eating bad or ruined potato salad?” he told federal regulators. “Do you think we could get some new laws put on the books to control these deaths?”

He urged regulators to ignore pleas from the widows of victims who were pressing them to mandate that new seals be installed in mines nationwide.

“The cost of installing the new approved seals will put a lot of smaller operators out of business,” he told regulators, urging them to require that the new seals only needed to be used when old ones were replaced.

When the final rule came out in 2008, the regulators sided with Caylor.

Not to paint all miners and the UMW as saints, or all mine owners and operators as hopeless bad guys, but that old Follow The Money adage seems to fit here. It often fits in climate change discussions whenever mountains and mining intersect, and it surely pops up a lot in safety stories. Yesterday’s Times article ends with these paragraphs:

Last Monday morning, a federal inspector visited the Upper Big Branch mine. He looked over its books, “discussed black lung and handed out stickers,” according to handwritten notes.

He made an “imminent danger” run in the mine, checked for dust collection and inspected the toilet, the notes say. He checked the conveyer belt and the roof, and took air readings in two locations that showed no methane.

The inspector then issued two citations, for an improperly insulated spliced electrical cable and for the lack of an updated map of escape routes in one section of the mine. Then he left.

That afternoon, the mine blew up.

Tag: Michigan

All kinds of greetings this season

Are mines as risky as potato salad?