It looks like these guys have a start on what’s coming to them, to the tune of $20,000,000.00. That’s a lot of zeros. The last paragraph below seems to put them into perspective. Maybe it is just the bad press coverage, but they certainly seem like a bunch of low lifes…. how do folks like this sleep at night? Never can tell, could be wrong – maybe it’s just the image put out there.

Read it all here.

“The country’s fourth-largest coal producer, Massey Energy Co., will pay a $20 million fine as part of a settlement with the government over allegations it routinely polluted hundreds of streams and waterways in West Virginia and Kentucky with sediment-filled waste water and coal slurry….

…Currently its president and chairman, Don Blankenship, is at the center of conflict of interest allegations involving the chief justice of West Virginia’s supreme court. Photographs surfaced with Blankenship and the justice, Elliott Maynard, socializing together on the Mediterranean last summer _ four months before the court in a 3-2 decision with Maynard in the majority reversed a $76.3 million judgment against Massey in a dispute brought by a bankrupt coal company. Other problems facing Massey include a $219.8 million jury verdict awarded to Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. in a contract dispute and a record $1.5 million in fines by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration for safety violations involving the deaths of two miners in a January 2006 mine fire. The fire at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County, W.Va., also is the subject of a federal criminal investigation. “