This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.
ADGER, Ala.—Charlie Utterback and his family live on top of longwall mining panel number 53.
Above ground, Utterback’s dogs welcome visitors with a bark and the wag of a tail. They guard, but mostly just lounge around the Utterback home he and his wife built on family land around 25 years ago.
Below ground, it will soon be much less peaceful. There, before the end of 2025, heavy machinery is scheduled to begin shearing off slices of coal along an expanse that, once work is complete, will leave an underground cavern well over a mile long and more than a thousand feet wide. If the Utterbacks are lucky, the only impact on their property may be minor structural damage caused by subsidence, or the sinking of land, a common occurrence at properties above such mining operations. But it’s being unlucky that the Utterbacks worry about.
In early March, a little over a mile away from the Utterback’s place, W.M. Griffice, 74, and his grandson Anthony Hill, 21, were resting in their home when the small house exploded, leaving little but the charred Alabama clay in its footprint. Both Griffice and Hill were transported to a Birmingham hospital in critical condition, authorities said. On Wednesday, Griffice died from his injuries, according to a family lawyer.
In the wake of the explosion, an Inside Climate News investigation confirmed that the Griffice home was located above proposed longwall mine panel 52, operated by Crimson Oak Grove Resources, LLC. Newly obtained regulatory maps confirm that mining was scheduled to reach the area beneath the Griffice home in February, just days before the explosion occurred. In a lawsuit, the family has alleged that Oak Grove Mine, its parent company, and a contractor are responsible for the explosion and, ultimately, for Griffice’s death.
Following the explosion, residents like Utterback are seeking answers about the mine and its activities, which have also led to the closure of a local park and left gas stations unable to sell fuel.
“They have destroyed our community,” Utterback said of those operating the mine. “And there’s no one to answer for it.”
Oak Grove Mine officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and has not yet responded to the lawsuit filed against it. And while federal mine regulators have been quietly citing the mine for various safety violations in the weeks since the Adger explosion that leveled the Griffice home, Alabama officials have done little to act, with state fire investigators still not responding to media inquiries related to the incident.
Utterback said mine officials have left homeowners in the dark, too. When he received a notice that mining would occur under his home, he called the number listed at the bottom for Crimson Oak Grove Resources to ask questions and express his concerns.
“The man who answered said, ‘I no longer work for them,’” Utterback said. So his questions and concerns, Utterback said, remain unaddressed.
A Southern grandfather remembered
Griffice was a typical Southern grandpa, his granddaughter said in a March interview, at one time even working as a coal miner. Kenzie Hill had been raised by Griffice and his late wife alongside her brother Anthony.
She wasn’t at the house when it exploded, but heard the thunderous sound from nearby. Griffice, Hill told ICN, had predicted his own fate, saying he believed his house might explode after hearing booming sounds he believed to come from the mine over and over in the months before the tragedy.
“He enjoyed hunting, fishing, and his dogs,” Griffice’s obituary said. “He retired as a construction worker and equipment operator. He loved his family and friends.”
The family’s lawsuit alleges that negligence on the part of the mining operator led to the explosion. In an amended complaint filed Tuesday, lawyers for the family named an additional defendant—Langley Dirt Works—claiming that at the behest of Oak Grove, company workers…
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