Mine: "If you had problems up there on the north side, I would expect you would have the same problem on the south side."

Memo shows mine already had roof problems in March | By Robert Gehrke | The Salt Lake Tribune

Operators at the Crandall Canyon mine experienced serious structural problems in the mine in March and entirely abandoned work in an area about 900 feet from where six miners remained trapped Saturday.

A memo obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune shows that mine owners were trying to work around "poor roof conditions" before halting mining of the northern tunnels in early March after a "large bump occurred . . . resulting in heavy damage" in those tunnels.
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"It's dangerous. Damn dangerous I would say," Robert Ferriter, now director of the mine safety program at the Colorado School of Mines and a 27-year veteran of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. "What is MSHA doing in all this? They're the ones who are supposed to catch this sort of thing."
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But in a mine that stretches for miles, conditions in both areas would be "nearly identical," Ferriter said. "If you had problems up there on the north side, I would expect you would have the same problem on the south side."
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"I'm surprised that they would try to take that last section," Ferriter said. "I would've thought that would have triggered someone from MSHA to say, 'Wait a minute, let's take a look at this.' . . . I think this needs to be looked at in a lot more detail."