OAK GROVE, Ala.—For the first time, an Alabama official has said that a fatal March 2024 home explosion above an expanding longwall mine in the central part of the Yellowhammer State was “likely” caused by the ignition of methane, a gas produced in the mining of coal. 

The revelation came in a letter from Kathy Love, director of one of the state’s mining oversight agencies, to federal officials who had demanded state regulators act to mitigate the risk of escaping methane in the wake of the March blast that led to the death of Oak Grove resident W.M. Griffice. 

Love had refused to release a copy of the letter, but Inside Climate News obtained the document—the state’s only formal response to an unprecedented regulatory action by the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement—through a Freedom of Information Act request of federal officials. 

Both state and federal officials had previously avoided attributing the explosion to escaping methane, despite the continued release of the potentially explosive gas at the site of Griffice’s home, which was completely destroyed in the blast. A state fire marshal’s investigation into the explosion had deemed the cause of the blast “undetermined.”

In court documents related to a wrongful death suit filed by Griffice’s family, lawyers for Crimson Oak Grove Resources, the operators of the mine, have denied the private coal company is responsible for the explosion or Griffice’s death. The coal company did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

In the letter dated Jan. 14, Love suggested that the home explosion was a tragedy that could not have been envisioned by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act , the 1977 federal law governing longwall mining in the United States. 

“The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) was written to protect the public and environment from hazards created by coal mining,” Love wrote. “And yet in 1977 the authors of the SMCRA regulations could not have envisioned all circumstances that might result in danger to the public. Such was the discovery of an uncapped abandoned well under Mr. Griffice’s home emitting methane gas that likely caused the tragic event of March 8, 2024.”

An Inside Climate News investigation revealed last year that Alabama residents have complained about the risks of methane explosions above coal mines for decades. 

“Currently we are living in fear of gas escaping from the underground mines and causing an explosion or burns,” one Alabamian wrote in a letter to regulators in September 1999. “There have been people killed who were above longwall mines.”

Another coalfield resident, Bobby Snow, put it more colorfully at the time.

“You can go down there and play or go down there and hunt, but don’t smoke or you’ll be standing in your smutty underwear wondering what the heck happened because the methane gas is coming up out the ground,” he told regulators 25 years ago. 

Longwall mining involves a large machine shearing swaths of coal hundreds of feet underground, releasing methane gas and leaving vast underground caverns that collapse once mining has moved on. That collapse, experts say, causes subsidence, or the sinking of the land above, a process that often damages surface structures like homes or businesses. 

Fissures in the land above the mined area can also provide a path of escape for the methane released during mining. It’s that escaping methane that Griffice’s family claims was the cause of the explosion that left their loved one dead.

Oak Grove Mine has been labelled by experts as one of the “gassiest” in the country. 

Specific risks posed by water wells above coal mines have also been on the regulatory radar for years. Federal regulators published a technical manual on how to deal with gassy wells in 2011, well over a decade before Love wrote that such risks were largely unforeseeable. Federal regulators pointed Alabama regulators to the manual, which had already been highlighted by Inside Climate News, in their communications late last year. 

December’s so-called “ten-day notice” was the first time in the state’s history that the Alabama Surface Mining Commission, charged with regulating the surface impacts of underground coal mining in the state, had been put on formal notice by its federal counterpart to force a coal mine’s compliance with the law or face further regulatory action.

In the ten-day notice, officials with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement wrote that investigators had determined that Oak Grove Mine in western Jefferson County may be out of legal compliance for failing to adequately monitor potentially explosive methane emissions from the mine.

The notice by U.S. regulators was issued following a federal inspection of the mine and visits to residences across Oak Grove that came days after an Inside Climate News investigation into federal inaction on the issue.

The state’s response, reported here for the first time, is the first clear move by state regulators to address concerns over the risks of longwall mining since the March 2024 explosion. 

State regulators had previously failed to act to address such risks and citizen concerns. It took regulators months to hold a public meeting for citizens to voice those worries, and officials said they had little power to intervene. So far, Alabama legislators have made no move toward proposing legislation to address the issues in Oak Grove, or risks from longwall mining more generally.

The inspection report underlying the ten-day notice shows that federal investigators followed in the footsteps of Inside Climate News’ reporting on Oak Grove, visiting the Griffice home and the mine as well as the homes of Lisa Lindsay, Clara Riley and Randy Myrick, all residents profiled as part of the newsroom’s Undermined series.

Love’s January response to state regulators also confirmed that state regulators believe they have the power to shut down operations at Oak Grove Mine if they believe there to be an imminent risk to citizens. 

“It should be noted that on September 18, 2024, ASMC met with the management of Crimson Oak Grove Resources (Crimson),” she wrote. “During this meeting, ASMC stressed to Crimson that ASMC had the full authority to shut down the mine unless actions were taken to address the severity of the situation. The management team expressed their understanding and their desire to voluntarily go above and beyond SMCRA required rules and regulations.”

Love wrote that because of the risks involved, “all Alabama underground mine operators should be required to evaluate and strengthen processes for identifying and locating both active and abandoned water wells and implement active methane monitoring processes to further protect public health and safety.”

Federal and state regulators will then “conduct oversight to validate mine operator compliance with revised procedures,” she wrote, which will be implemented through revisions to subsidence plans required for all Alabama underground mine operators.

Oak Grove Mine has had a checkered safety history below ground. The mine ended 2024 with a record 870 safety citations and orders, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, totalling more than $1 million dollars in penalties, So far, nearly $790,000 of those penalties have gone unpaid.