Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

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  • Competition... Consol Energy Inc.’s Buchanan Mine Rescue Black Team Competes in the 5th annual ‘Smoke eaters’ Mine Rescue Team competition at Higginbotham Sports Complex on the Bluefield State College campus Saturday. Eric DiNovo

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May 22, 2011

‘Smoke eaters’ — Teams show their expertise during mine rescue competition

BILL ARCHER Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD — Consol Energy Inc.’s Buchanan Mine Rescue Black Team took top honors in the “Smoke eaters” 5th Annual Mine Rescue Team competition on Saturday. The competition took place at the Higginbotham Sports Complex on the Bluefield State College campus. It is sponsored by Welch Post #1 National Mine Rescue Association (Smoke eaters) and CART, the Center for Applied Research and Technology Inc.

“We have 10 teams out here competing today,” Heather N. Williams of CART said. “We started working with the Smoke Eaters four years ago, and the number of teams participating has ranged from 8 to 13,” she said. “This seems to be a pretty good number to work with.”

Three Consol teams as well as mine rescue teams from Southern Pocahontas, two International Coal Group teams, Massey Energy, two Jewell Smokeless teams, and United Coal participated in this year’s competition.

“About all of the judges are from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration or the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training,” Mike Plumley said. Plumley, senior safety & loss consultant for Brickstreet Insurance, is coordinator of the Smoke Eaters competition. “Brickstreet is supportive of efforts that emphasize safety and training in coal mining,” Plumley said.

Each of the teams received the same problem to solve in a test that measures the teams ability to plan, map and execute their plan on a course laid out in the outfield of the baseball field. Richard Crockett, the trainer of the mine rescue team at Pinnacle Mine in Wyoming County, developed the problem this year, just as he has in each of the years that the Smoke Eaters has hosted the competition.

“It takes a team an average of 60 minutes to work through the problem,” Crockett said. Crockett started working at the Pinnacle Mine in 1975 and started with the mine rescue team in 1980. “I was captain of the team for 25 years. I was captain in 2005 when we won the national championship. Mike (Plumley) was my map man.”

Another Consol team, the Buchanan Mine’s Red Team took second place honors in the competition and the Jewell Smokeless Red Team earned third place honors. For final standings, visit CART’s web site, (www.cartinc.com) and click on the mine rescue slide.

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com

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