Feds: Southern Illinois coal mine managers concealed ‘deadly conditions’
[August 08, 2026]
By Molly Parker
Four coal mine managers were indicted this week, accused of concealing
an August 2021 underground fire at a sprawling southern Illinois mining
operation, lying about hazardous conditions and obstructing the federal
investigation that followed.
The fire began on the afternoon of Aug. 13, 2021, when mine personnel,
using cutting torches to remove collapsed steel beams, ignited a fire
underground, according to court records.
Though no workers died, prosecutors say the mine managers put more than
100 miners’ lives at risk. The indictments allege that federal
regulations and the mine’s own emergency plan required an evacuation
after the fire could not be extinguished within 10 minutes. Instead,
prosecutors say, managers kept miners working underground for portions
of three shifts while trying to fight the uncontrolled fire.
“When people in positions of authority conceal deadly conditions and
then cover up their actions, they put lives at risk and prevent federal
authorities from doing the job the law requires them to do,” U.S.
Attorney Steven Weinhoeft said in a news release.
The nine-count indictment charges Ronald Dale Koontz, 69, of
Hendersonville, Tennessee; Demitrios George Macropoulos, 38, of Buckeye,
Arizona; Randy L. Nowland, 67, of Waltonville, Illinois; and Cory Taylor
Humphrey, 37, of Prospect, Kentucky, with conspiracy, failing to
evacuate miners and failing to notify the Mine Safety and Health
Administration, or MSHA, of the fire.
A fifth mine manager, Brandon Timothy Parsons, was charged separately
last year and pleaded guilty in August 2025 to conspiring to defraud
MSHA by helping conceal the same fire.
The fire and alleged crimes
As the fire burned on Aug. 13, prosecutors allege, Nowland, the
second-shift mine manager, signed a required safety report saying there
were no hazardous conditions. Humphrey, the third-shift mine manager,
allegedly signed two similar reports that night and the following
morning. Both men are charged with falsifying the records.
MSHA still had not been told about the fire. The agency learned about it
the following morning from an anonymous tip. Federal officials later
ordered everyone out of the mine.
But prosecutors say some managers went back underground anyway.
Macropoulos, the mine superintendent, allegedly went back down without
permission on Aug. 15. Prosecutors say he moved ventilation curtains to
change the airflow in an attempt to manipulate air samples MSHA was
using to determine whether the fire was still burning.
Two days later, prosecutors say Koontz did the same thing. Prosecutors
say Koontz then directed another person to delete a record from Parsons’
cellphone showing a call from Koontz.
Prosecutors also allege that when MSHA began collecting the portable gas
detectors miners had worn during the fire, an employee directed another
miner to get rid of his.
In an interview with Capitol News Illinois on Friday, Weinhoeft said
“well in excess of over 100 miners” were underground in “extraordinarily
dangerous circumstances.”
“The indictment alleges that there were affirmative acts of concealment
and affirmative acts of misrepresentation to keep MSHA from
understanding the scope of what was going on, and it put individuals at
risk,” he said.
‘Focusing on protecting lives’
The mine complex is owned by Sugar Camp Energy LLC, and operated by M-Clas
Mining LLC, both part of St. Louis-based Foresight Energy’s mining
operation. Foresight Energy did not return a phone call and email
seeking comment on Friday.
The prosecution comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has
aggressively promoted coal and other fossil fuel production while
pulling back some federal environmental enforcement. That shift has also
extended to the Justice Department, which earlier this year shut down a
criminal investigation into potential Clean Water Act violations by coal
companies owned by Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia, a
Trump ally, according to an investigation by ProPublica. Career
prosecutors and investigators had been examining whether repeated
pollution violations warranted criminal charges, but DOJ officials
directed that the matter be handled through civil enforcement instead.
Weinhoeft stressed that the Sugar Camp case is “entirely about focusing
on protecting lives.”
“We’ve taken a strong stance on this case,” he said.
The indictments, filed this week in federal court in Benton, are the
latest in a years-long series of criminal, regulatory and civil actions
stemming from the fire at the Sugar Camp mining complex in rural
Franklin County.
Sugar Camp is Illinois’ largest coal mine and one of the nation’s
largest underground coal operations.
[to top of second column]
|
An aerial view of Sugar Camp mine in Franklin County. (Photo
provided by Prairie Rivers Network)
Prosecutors say Parsons, who was charged separately last year, helped
keep the fire hidden from workers who did not already know about it.
When hourly employees were finally evacuated, prosecutors said Parsons
falsely told them that a coal conveyor belt had broken rather than
telling them an uncontrolled fire was burning underground. After the
workers left, prosecutors say Parsons and others went back underground
to continue trying to fight the fire.
Neither Foresight Energy nor its subsidiaries are charged in the new
criminal indictment.
“We are pleased to see accountability for actions that threatened the
health and safety of coal miners in Southern Illinois,” said Amanda
Pankau, director of Energy and Community Resiliency with Prairie Rivers
Network. The environmental advocacy organization has pushed for
accountability over the fire and its aftermath for years.
Illinois attorney general sues
The federal criminal case does not include charges related to the
environmental consequences of the fire. But efforts to extinguish it led
to separate state enforcement actions and lawsuits over contamination
from firefighting foam containing PFAS, commonly known as “forever
chemicals.”
Mine operators used about 46,000 gallons of firefighting foam to control
the underground fire, including at least 660 gallons of concentrated
PFAS-based foam. Testing by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
later detected PFAS in nearby surface waters.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul sued Sugar Camp Energy in January
2022. The lawsuit, which is pending in Franklin County Circuit Court,
alleges the company violated the Illinois Environmental Protection Act
by discharging PFAS into waters near the mine. In July 2022, Raoul
announced an interim consent order requiring Sugar Camp Energy to test
its ponds and wastewater for PFAS, install treatment systems to remove
the chemicals and control discharge of PFAS-contaminated water.
Prairie Rivers Network and Illinois Sierra Club joined the attorney
general’s lawsuit. Pankau said the PFAS contamination at the mine will
“likely remain in the environment for many years to come.”
“This will require continued oversight and monitoring to ensure the PFAS
materials do not spread to the nearby Big Muddy River tributaries and
groundwater aquifers,” she said.
The contamination also became the subject of private litigation. Among
them, Franklin County farmer Dennis Clark sued Foresight Energy and
related entities in 2023, alleging PFAS-contaminated water reached his
farm about a quarter-mile from the mining complex, resulting in the
death of several farm animals who drank from it. The companies denied
liability, and an Illinois appellate court ordered the dispute into
arbitration.
All four men charged this week are presumed innocent unless proven
guilty. If convicted, they could potentially face imprisonment.
MSHA is a division of the U.S. Department of Labor responsible for
enforcing federal mine-safety laws. The agency inspects mines,
investigates accidents and requires operators to correct dangerous
conditions.
MSHA itself faced uncertainty last year. The Trump administration
initially moved to terminate leases for 34 agency offices around the
country as part of a broader federal cost-cutting effort. The
administration later reversed course. The Labor Department announced in
May 2025 that the offices would remain open.
In announcing the Sugar Camp indictments this week, Principal Deputy
Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s
Energy and Natural Resources Division emphasized the agency’s role in
protecting miners.
“As Congress has long recognized, a strong, productive coal industry
depends on miners who feel safe and trust that their leaders are not
putting them at unnecessary risk,” Gustafson said. “Supporting MSHA’s
work to protect coal miners is an important part of ENRD’s mission.”
Separately, MSHA proposed nearly $1.2 million in civil penalties against
mine operator M-Class Mining in 2022, issuing 14 citations related to
the fire, including two classified as “flagrant.”
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
