HUNTINGTON — Drilling is scheduled to begin this afternoon for what may be the final attempt to reach six miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon Mine.

It comes after no signs of life were detected inside the last 8 5/8-inch hole to be drilled through a mountain, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said this afternoon.

"No pictures or air samples were obtained from bore hole No. 5 as the hole became plugged with mud," MSHA said in a brief statement this afternoon.

The sixth hole will be the final one, the mine's owner has said.

"This is the last hole," mine owner Bob Murray said Wednesday night. "If we don't find anybody in that hole, there is nowhere else that anyone ... would know where to drill anymore holes to try to find these trapped miners."

Rescuers are drilling 1,700 feet through a mountain to a cavern where the miners were last believed to be. The drill is expected to break through Saturday, and it may bring a heartbreaking and frustrating halt to the frantic search for trapped miners Don Erickson, Kerry Allred, Luis Hernandez, Brandon Phillips, Carlos Payan and Manuel Sanchez. The men may be entombed inside a mountain.

Rescue efforts trudge along "until we're assured there's no life, and we can't get the folks," said Jack Kuzar, a regional director for MSHA.

A fifth hole that punched through 1,586 feet of mountain Wednesday went only 6 inches into the cavern before hitting a coal bed.

"It was within 6 inches of the roof. There was no one going to get in that area," Kuzar said Wednesday.

Air samples were being taken and a camera was lowered Wednesday night in an attempt to glean information about the miners' fate.

Four previous drilling operations have shown no sign of the miners, who have been trapped since a 3.9 magnitude seismic event collapsed the section of the mine where they were working Aug. 6. In addition, air samples taken from the drilled holes have shown that oxygen levels in those areas of the mine are insufficient to sustain human life.

Families react

Federal authorities met with some of the families of the trapped miners this morning. They left without commenting to reporters. The families have urged the rescue effort to continue and said they would ask Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to exert some pressure.

"They're hoping that Mr. Murray will retract his statement that he won't retrieve them if they did, in fact, perish, that they'll find some way and utilize some method, regardless if it takes three months for seismic activity to stop," family spokesman Sonny Olsen said Wednesday. "They want some method to go down and get their family members."

Some family members say Murray's plan to close the mine is his way of avoiding potentially critical investigations. In a written statement, the family of a trapped miner said: "Bob Murray is trying to quit searching for miners and wants to shut the mine down as soon as possible. He wants to close the mine forever and make it so that it will never be accessed again. It is all part of his plan to keep an investigation away from his mine."

The family members asked the Deseret Morning News not to use their names. Relations between the outspoken mine owner and the families have deteriorated since Monday night, when family members say Murray bluntly told them their loved ones were likely dead and that their bodies wouldn't be recovered.

"He very aggressively told the families to give up," according to the statement, "that we might as well stop thinking we could pressure him to recover the bodies dead or alive because he changed his mind."

Murray said Wednesday he does not know how to appease the families.

"It's going to take the Lord, and it's going to take humans a lot better than I am to help them find closure," he said.

The local United Mine Workers of America said the families have signed forms consenting to allow the union to represent the six trapped miners in any discussions of rescue or recovery efforts.

"It gives them an equal voice in any decision-making," said Mike Dalpiaz of the local coal miners union in Price.

Under the federal MINER Act, miners can have a representative in discussions. Dalpiaz said since the miners were trapped and unable to speak for themselves, their families did.

"I don't think they've had a voice in what's happened to this point," Dalpiaz said of the families. "All they've heard is a script told to them by Murray."

"Bring them home"

Ruth Dunn stood by the creek this morning, reading from her well-worn scriptures. She drove 2,100 miles to pray before the mountain.

"We're expecting a miracle," she said. "We know our trip was not in vain."

Her son, Daniel, raised a ram's horn and blew into it, projecting the sound toward the mine.

"Hallelujah," Dunn said.

For days, the Dunns watched the tragedy unfold on the news. Then, compelled to be here by God, they said, the family drove from South Carolina to Utah where they have spent the past three days on the road outside the mine, praying and hoping for a miracle.

"This is just a show of Father's loving kindness," Michael Dunn said. "He sent us here just to show His kindness."

Nearby, six American flags were planted along the roadside to symbolize the trapped miners. A few feet away, three more flags were placed to symbolize the fallen rescuers.

Down the road, nearly a dozen handmade signs plaster the side of the road.

"DON'T LEAVE THEM," one reads.

"Dead or alive, they need to come home," said Stephanie McNeal, who put up the signs. "They don't need to stay down there in hell. They need to come home."

Others said Murray has not done enough to rescue the trapped miners. However, officials insist it's too dangerous to send rescuers underground again.

Mining experts brought in over the weekend by mine owners and MSHA concluded Monday that the mine is too unstable to continue underground rescue efforts. Rescuers had been trying to tunnel through the collapsed mine to reach the trapped men when three workers — local coal miners Dale Black, 49, and Brandon Kimber, 29, and mine safety inspector Gary Jensen, 53 — were killed and six others were injured in another seismic event, or "mountain bump."

A woman named Carol, who said her son works at the Crandall Canyon Mine, put up another sign. It read: "Keep your promise. Bring them home. Don't leave them in a black hole."

She's angry the mine could be sealed, yet Murray Energy Corp. could continue mining.

"You still have six men in that mine, but you're still mining?" she said.

Mine closure?

While insisting he would never reopen the Crandall Canyon Mine, Murray left the possibility open to explore it in the future.

"I will never come back to that evil mountain that is alive," Murray said Wednesday night.

Murray said he told MSHA director Richard Stickler that he would submit papers to close the Crandall Canyon Mine. He said comments that he would continue mining were distorted by the United Mine Workers of America. He accused the union of taking advantage of the situation for political gain.

Miners who have been seen returning to the mine have removed some heavy equipment. Mine employees have transferred to other mines in the Price area owned by Utah American Energy, which is owned by Murray Energy Corp.

Murray said he decided to close the mine immediately after he helped pull injured and dead miners from last Thursday's mine collapse. That contradicts statements Murray made Monday when he told reporters the collapsed section of the mine likely would be sealed but that mining may continue elsewhere in it.

The South Crandall Mine has some 11 million tons of coal left in it, according to the Utah Geological Survey's newly released 2006 Coal Report. In his Wednesday night news conference, Murray conceded the company may do studies that look at the feasibility of mining there once again.

"After this is all over and these miners' families are administered to the best we can," he said. "Some years down the road, we'll do engineering studies. We'll examine it and we'll look at the remaining reserves and see if we'll ever mine it."

For now, Murray remains adamant that the mine won't operate again.

Investigations

As the rescue efforts wind down, MSHA will begin investigating the mine disaster. However, Kuzar said, that may be difficult if the mine is sealed.

"If you can't get to the area where the accident originated from, we'll never know what really caused it," he said.

Instead, investigators will rely on interviews and what they can see inside the mine.

In a letter to Congress, the UMWA asks for an independent investigation, suggesting that MSHA cannot be trusted to conduct another "status quo" investigation.

"I do not believe the American public and our nation's coal miners will be well-served by another instance of MSHA investigating itself in this disaster," UMWA president Cecil Roberts wrote in a letter released Wednesday.

Huntsman said he wants all of Murray's mines investigated, as well as a state probe into the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster. That move has been applauded by the Utah Democratic Party.

"This is a time when Utah Democrats and Republicans can stand together to do what needs to be done to prevent another tragedy," party chairman Wayne Holland said in a statement.

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State senators opened their special legislative session Wednesday with a moment of silence for those killed, injured or missing in the mine disaster. Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, praised what he described as the heroic rescue attempts.

"Right now we have three fatalities," Dmitrich said before senators bowed their heads in silent prayer. "We have six still under that cruel mountain."


Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche


E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com; jpage@desnews.com

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