Copper Canyon
By Tim Means (MPubAd'75)
(Thomas Cornell Means, 378 pages; 2021)
As the Mine struggles to survive the climate-change driven disappearing market for its coal, it comes under increasingly costly regulatory pressure to protect the miners’ safety. The Mine’s survival and the miners’ safety are imperiled by the combined personal vendettas of a powerful government safety inspector and a venal and vicious coal miner.
Enforcement of the federal law intended to protect miners’ safety rights and a trial held to vindicate those rights instead jeopardize their very survival and a disastrous accident results. Although the end seems near for the Mine and the little town of Heavenly that depends on it, a talented lawyer and a young Mine foreman trained in metallurgy come to the rescue, bringing hope for the future.
Copper Canyon is an exploration of the fascinating and unfamiliar world of coal miners maneuvering monstrously massive mining machines tunneling through the darkness thousands of feet beneath the surface. At the same time, it is an exploration of the role of law versus religion and morality in regulating behavior and striking the proper balance between too little and too much government regulation in protecting public safety and health.