A Durango miner who died from apparent carbon-monoxide poisoning was remembered Monday as a loving father, dedicated provider and hard worker who had a deep respect for the rugged San Juan Mountains.
Rick Williams, 59, who died Sunday in a mining accident south of Ouray, was well-known for his skills in mining, excavating, building, repairing and remodeling people’s homes, said his son, Nathan Williams of Durango.
“He was sought after for what he knew about that (mining) profession,” Nathan Williams said.
Rick Williams and fellow miner Nick Cappanno, 34, of Montrose, were killed at the start of their shift Sunday morning at the Revenue-Virginius Mine about six miles south of Ouray.
The miners apparently entered an area of the mine where an explosive had been previously detonated, federal investigators said Monday.
Preliminary information indicates one of the men entered the area first, said Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, which is investigating the deaths.
When the miner did not emerge, a shift foreman went in to search for the missing miner. Both men were eventually found by other miners in the area, and those miners immediately evacuated.
Mine rescue teams entered the mine and found the two men.
During the recovery operation, they detected fatal levels of carbon monoxide, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The teams brought the victims to the surface about 2 p.m. Twenty other miners were taken to a Montrose hospital, where three were kept overnight. All 20 had been released as of Monday afternoon, according to MSHA.
Mine manager Rory Williams previously said there was a blast in the mine to remove rock on Saturday that may have been a source of the carbon monoxide. Louviere said the blast occurred during the previous shift, so it likely happened on Saturday.
About 100 miners work at the site, which will be closed until the end of the investigation.
“The Mine Safety and Health Administration will conduct a thorough investigation of the accident,” Louviere wrote in an email. “It has required the mine operator to submit a plan for the rescue teams to re-enter the mine in order to determine that it is properly ventilated and all harmful gases have been removed so that the investigation can begin.”
At a news conference late Sunday, Rory Williams, who is not related to Rick Williams, said all of the miners had air packs to help them breathe in an emergency, but he didn’t know whether they carried gas detectors to alert them to dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. He said there didn’t appear to be any equipment malfunction.
Regulators weren’t aware of any previous carbon-monoxide problems.
Carbon-monoxide exposure is a long-standing problem within the mining industry – the invisible, odorless “silent killer” can quickly overwhelm its victims at high concentrations, said Tom Hethmon, a mine safety expert from the University of Utah. It results from the incomplete combustion of gas, wood or other fuels, and in mines can come from machinery or the use of explosives to blast rock.
Improvements in ventilation practices have helped reduce accidents, Hethmon said. But if ventilation systems fail or the volume of gas is too great, carbon monoxide can overwhelm those exposed in a matter of seconds, he said.
Short-term symptoms of exposure include dizziness, confusion and headache. Miners are typically required to carry or have ready access to portable, self-rescue breathing devices that provide enough oxygen to last about 45 minutes to an hour.
Robert Ferriter, a senior mine safety specialist at the Colorado School of Mines, said routine air tests done after blasting should have detected any problems from earlier blasting at the Revenue mine.
“The big question here is how you got 20 people exposed to such a massive amount of carbon monoxide,” he said.
Nathan Williams said Monday evening that his family has unanswered questions about his father’s death.
“We’re still in the midst of learning about what’s going on,” he said.
He was husband to Judy Williams, a longtime nurse with Durango School District 9-R; father to two sons, Nathan and Aaron; and grandfather to Marley, 4.
“We’re hanging in there,” Nathan Williams said Monday. “My mom is devastated. We’re all pretty shaken up about it.”
Rick Williams spent most of his life in the “humbling mountains of the San Juans,” Nathan Williams said.
“He really loved the mountains,” he said. “He saw the beauty in it. He was very passionate about it. He felt like he was very lucky to grow up in this area.”
No services had been announced as of Monday night.
The mine dates to the 1870s and was taken over by its current owner, Denver-based Star Mine Operations, in 2011. The company, which also has a mine in Cerro Blanco, Peru, received a permit to resume mining at the site near Ouray in February. All the mining is done by drilling and blasting, according to state regulators.
Federal records show the mine reported eight employee accidents in the past two years, including five that resulted in days away from work for the injured worker.
The mine has received 33 citations since Star Mine became the operator, including 13 that regulators determined were reasonably likely to result in injury or illness. The most recent came last month after inspectors found tire chains stacked in a walking area that created a tripping hazard.
No surface environmental issues are noted in any inspection reports, said Loretta Pineda, director of the Colorado Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety, which regulates environmental impacts at the mine.
“Our inspectors don’t normally go underground, because we’re focused on the surface activities related to the environment,” she said.
Colorado saw a surge of mine reactivations last year as a result of higher gold prices, which have since come down.
Historic mining sites, particularly in the San Juans, often have various environmental problems associated with them. In the past, the environmental rules and laws that exist today weren’t in place, so companies tended leave a mess after doing their business, Pineda said.
“It’s really important that mining operations that go into these areas now know what they’re getting into in terms of what was left there historically and what their obligation is going to be,” she said.
Colorado has a long history of mining. The industry played a key role in several small towns, including Ouray, Silverton and Creede.
“Even now, when a new mine starts up, it is really important to the local economy,” Pineda said. “These are really good-paying jobs, and there’s some sustainability there that they can see in these jobs as opposed to tourist jobs.”
shane@durangoherald.com
