MSHA DATABASEMSHA records · 17 contributing sources · snapshot Oct 13, 2026

MINE DETAILS

Meadow Branch

ActiveSurfaceCoal (Bituminous)
MSHA MINE ID1519890
LOCATIONLetcher, KY
PUBLIC RECORD2,059 linked rows

LOCATION

Mine location

1 of 1 mine with usable MSHA coordinates. Select a marker to open a mine.

Mine coordinates

2025-01-01 – 2026-10-13Applies to production, safety and portfolio metrics. Silica samples have separate filters.

Violations

75

9 significant & substantial (S&S)

  1. 2025 Q10
  2. 2025 Q213
  3. 2025 Q30
  4. 2025 Q424
  5. 2026 Q10
  6. 2026 Q235
  7. 2026 Q33
  8. 2026 Q4 *0

Accident records

2

0 records classified as fatality

  1. 2025 Q10
  2. 2025 Q21
  3. 2025 Q30
  4. 2025 Q41
  5. 2026 Q10
  6. 2026 Q20
  7. 2026 Q30
  8. 2026 Q4 *0

Proposed penalties · USD

36,831.00

72 of 75 violations with amounts

  1. 2025 Q1—
  2. 2025 Q22,471
  3. 2025 Q3—
  4. 2025 Q425,969
  5. 2026 Q1—
  6. 2026 Q27,736
  7. 2026 Q3655
  8. 2026 Q4 *—

On-site inspection hours

470.25

10 inspections · 10 with hours

  1. 2025 Q113.00
  2. 2025 Q2122.00
  3. 2025 Q310.50
  4. 2025 Q4111.50
  5. 2026 Q15.50
  6. 2026 Q2152.50
  7. 2026 Q355.25
  8. 2026 Q4 *—
Quarterly safety data
QuarterViolationsS&SProposed USDAccident recordsFatality recordsInspectionsOn-site hours
2025-Q100—00113.0
2025-Q21312,471.00101122.0
2025-Q300—00110.5
2025-Q424325,969.00102111.5
2026-Q100—0015.5
2026-Q23547,736.00001152.5
2026-Q331655.0000355.3
2026-Q4 *00—000—

Most cited CFR sections

All violations issued in the selected period. Counts combine subsections.

Safety activity

  1. inspectionF00829B

    Spot Inspection · 15.3 on-site hours

  2. violation5085874

    77.1000 · $504.00 proposed

  3. inspectionF0016B9

    Spot Inspection · 16.5 on-site hours

  4. violation5085865

    77.1200 · $151.00 proposed

  5. violation5085864

    77.1000 · S&S

  6. inspectionF01F06C

    Verbal Hazard Complaint Inspections · 23.5 on-site hours

  7. violation5085105

    77.1605(a)

  8. violation5085104

    77.1606(c)

  9. violation5085103

    77.1110 · $151.00 proposed

  10. violation5085102

    77.1606(c) · $151.00 proposed

  11. violation5085101

    77.1606(c) · $245.00 proposed

  12. violation5085100

    77.410(c) · $151.00 proposed

  13. violation5085099

    71.500(a) · $151.00 proposed

  14. violation5085098

    71.600 · $151.00 proposed

  15. violation5085097

    77.1606(c) · $267.00 proposed

  16. violation5085096

    77.1606(c) · $151.00 proposed

  17. violation5080465

    77.1606(c) · S&S · $1,467.00 proposed

  18. violation5080464

    77.410(c) · $151.00 proposed

  19. violation5080463

    77.1605(a) · $168.00 proposed

  20. violation5085095

    45.4(b) · $151.00 proposed

  21. violation5085094

    77.1606(c) · $288.00 proposed

  22. violation5085093

    77.208(d) · $151.00 proposed

  23. violation5080462

    77.1104 · S&S · $504.00 proposed

  24. violation5080461

    77.505 · $151.00 proposed

  25. violation5080460

    77.701-1(c) · $151.00 proposed

Safety sources and definitions

MSHA Violations (issue date), Accidents (accident date), and Inspections (begin date). Snapshot 2026-10-13.

Counts describe published rows, including contractor records; accident records are not distinct incidents or numbers of people injured.

Zero means no matching records in the imported sources, not proof of no events. Historical coverage differs by source; absence before a source begins reporting is not a zero incident rate. Invalid or absent dates and records after the snapshot are excluded.

S&S means SIG_SUB=Y. Fatality records use DEGREE_INJURY_CD=01. Proposed penalties are not final assessed or paid amounts; missing dollar values are omitted.

Inspection hours are SUM_TOTAL_ON_SITE_HOURS attributed to the inspection start date, without supervisor/trainee hours. Missing hours are omitted; a started inspection may still be open.

Portfolio totals use current mine membership, including events before the current owner or operator's tenure.

CFR headings link to the current Title 30 index; they are not historical legal determinations.

Latest EIA month: 2026-07Source checked 2026-10-13 · publication lag differs from MSHA.

REPORTED RECEIPTS · SHORT TONS—0 rows · 0 receiving plants
HEAT CONTENT · BTU/LB—Weighted by reported tons
SULFUR / ASH · % BY WEIGHT— / —Separate averages over measured receipts
DELIVERED COST · USD/TON—No price coverage

No receipts matched this mine in the selected period. EIA-923 does not cover all mine sales, exports or metallurgical coal shipments.

Coverage, sources and calculations
  • Reported coal receipts at EIA-923 power plants/terminals; this is not a census of mine shipments, exports or metallurgical sales.
  • Matches use only the published MSHA ID, normalized to seven digits. Unidentified mine origins remain in the source table but are not assigned to a mine.
  • Portfolio attribution uses current MSHA ownership, not ownership at the shipment date. Receipts and production can differ because of timing, stocks and coverage.
  • Quality means are weighted by positive reported tons with that measurement. Delivered cost uses only rows with published cost, positive heat and positive tons; missing/withheld costs are never zero-filled.
  • USD/ton = (cents/MMBtu ÷ 100) × MMBtu/ton. This is plant delivered cost, not mine sales price or revenue.
  • Receipt month is as published, including records supplied by annual respondents. Recent months are preliminary and subject to revision. Missing rows do not prove zero shipments.

Imported releases start 2008-01. This window includes 12 published months. EIA releases · Survey instructions

  • 2026 · preliminary · EIA923_Schedules_2_3_4_5_M_07_2026_21SEP2026.xlsx · Page 5 Fuel Receipts and Costs
  • 2025 · final · EIA923_Schedules_2_3_4_5_M_12_2025_Final.xlsx · Page 5 Fuel Receipts and Costs

Latest priced year: 2024Source checked 2026-10-13. Prices apply only to their calendar year.

FOB PRICE BENCHMARK · USD/TON92.61Published county average
ESTIMATED SALES · SHORT TONS254,783Allocated from published county sales
ESTIMATED COAL REVENUE · USD23,595,470Covered mines only · not reported revenue
ANNUAL PRODUCTION COVERED100.0%1 of 1 producing annual mine records
Mine / countyAnnual production · tonsCounty FOB · USD/tonEst. sales · tonsEst. coal revenue · USDBasis / availability
Meadow Branch1519890 · Letcher, Kentucky250,70592.61254,78323,595,470County allocation estimate18.28% of eligible county production8 eligible mines / 8 sales respondents
Method, assumptions and source records
  1. This is an annual county-sales allocation, not reported mine or company revenue. Currency is nominal USD in the source year; quantities are short tons.
  2. Mine share = same-year annual mine production / eligible same-county production. Estimated sales = published county sales × share. Estimated coal revenue = estimated sales × published county average FOB price.
  3. The model assumes eligible mines share county sales in proportion to production and receive the county-average price. Matching mine counts is a check, not proof of identical respondents. Mine quality, contracts and sales timing can differ substantially. No statistical confidence interval is implied.
  4. FOB excludes transport and insurance. EIA-923 delivered costs do not enter this model. No grade premium, state/national fallback, quarterly apportionment or carry-forward to a later year is applied.
  5. Eligibility follows the source's production threshold and excludes preparation-only and refuse operations. Withheld values, inconsistent county counts and missing/ambiguous locations produce no estimate.
  6. County sales are published in thousands of tons and prices to cents. Calculations retain precision, but the inputs are rounded and the allocation is approximate.
  7. Portfolio attribution uses current MSHA ownership, not ownership during the sales year. Covered-mine sums exclude unavailable estimates and must not be read as whole-company revenue. Coverage denominators use the annual EIA mine-production release.

Sales-reporting threshold: 50,000 short tons per mine in 2024. Withheld sales or prices stay unavailable.

EIA Table 30 · county sales and FOB prices · EIA annual mine production · Release index

Annual report released November 19, 2025. Method: county-sales-allocation-v1. JSON and CSV preserve source row numbers and file checksums.

OWNERSHIP

Operator and controller history

Current ownership comes from MSHA Mines. Historical start and end dates come from MSHA Controller and Operator History.

CURRENT HIERARCHYThomas R Hamilton → Nally & Hamilton Enterprises, Inc. → Meadow Branch
HISTORY RECORDS13 relationships
INTERVAL CHECKPASScontroller/operator overlap
—

Thomas R Hamilton et alcontrolsNally & Hamilton Enterprises, Inc.operatesMeadow Branch

msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 1519890
Other historical summaries · source-specific periods

RECORD SUMMARY

Production, safety and enforcement

These summaries use the periods stated on each card, independently of the reporting period above.

01 / SAFETYwatch

Accidents and injuries

7 historical accident/injury rows; 0 coded fatalities and 605 lost days across the published record.

ACCIDENT + INJURY RECORD7 since 2021
accidentsmine-production-quarterly
02 / COMPLIANCEwatch

Violations and penalties

243 violation rows across the full record; 24 carry an S&S flag and $84,613 appears in current assessed amounts.

ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY243 since 2021
inspectionsviolationsassessed-violationsorders-107a
03 / HEALTHwatch

Occupational health samples

193 coal dust; 22 coal quartz; 74 noise. 0 personal-sample rows have a published C/E ratio above 1; 3 noise rows have an action-level or PEL dose above 100%. These are separate measures, not a silica exceedance count. Silica results and sample status are shown separately.

OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE289 samples
coal-dust-samplesquartz-samplesnoise-samples
04 / PRODUCTIONcontext

Quarterly production and employment

24K employee hours and 33 summed average employees across reported subunits in the latest published quarter.

2026-Q250K tons
mine-production-quarterlymine-production-yearly
05 / LEGALwatch

Contests, conferences and decisions

5 contested-violation rows, 6 civil-penalty docket/decision rows, and 2 conference records linked by issuance number.

POST-ISSUANCE LIFECYCLE13 linked rows
conferencescontested-violationscivil-penalty-dockets-decisions
06 / CONTRACTORScontext

Contractors

Contractors are linked through this mine’s violation or accident records. Their production and hours cover all their operations, so they are not included in this mine’s totals.

ENTITY-LEVEL CONTEXT10 linked entities
contractor-production-quarterlycontractor-production-yearlyaccidentsviolations
07 / INSPECTIONScontext

Inspections

29 inspection events and 3K published inspection hours across the historical record.

OVERSIGHT COVERAGE28 since 2021
inspectionsviolations

HEALTH SAMPLING

Silica and quartz

Matching records00 coal · 0 personal · 0 area
Sample status0 not voided0 voided · 0 status not reported
Mean coal quartz concentration— µg/m³0 eligible measurements · 0 missing concentration
2026 · No reported dates in this selection
Date / sampleDataset / analyteOccupation / areaMeasurementSample statusPublished action
No silica records match these filters. Missing samples do not establish safe conditions.
Sources and interpretation
  • Coal means use numeric concentrations from samples marked not voided, excluding control/invalid sample types and dates after the snapshot. Missing values remain null; reported zeroes remain zero.
  • Quarterly means describe available samples, not mine-wide or worker-average exposure. Quarters with no eligible measurements remain empty; the current quarter is partial.
  • Personal C/E is MSHA's published concentration-to-limit ratio. A value above 1 is not by itself a citation or a determination under the 2024 silica rule. Personal and area files do not publish a void-status field.
  • Area records include bulk-dust analyses and are kept separate from personal exposure results. Their concentration units are not specified in the source dictionary.
  • Missing samples do not establish safe conditions. Coal quartz percentage and concentration are separate measures. No compliance threshold is inferred for coal samples.

Coal quartz field definitions ↗Metal/nonmetal personal field definitions ↗Metal/nonmetal area field definitions ↗

EIA + TITLE 30

EIA production and cited regulations

EIA annual figures are reported separately from MSHA. Regulation links use the current eCFR snapshot.

RECENT PUBLIC RECORDS

Recent violations and samples

Latest records retained for inspection; aggregates above use the full source history.

VIOLATIONS12 latest shown
508587477.1000Citation
508586577.1200Citation
508586477.1000S&S
508510577.1605(a)Order
508510477.1606(c)Order
508510377.1110Citation
508510277.1606(c)Citation
508510177.1606(c)Citation
OTHER HEALTH SAMPLES8 latest shown

Coal dust, noise and other contaminants. Silica records above ↑

Coal dustBULLDOZER OPERATOR
.052 mg/m³Not voided
NoiseBULLDOZER OPERATOR
PEL dose: 3%Action-level dose: 24%
Coal dustHIGHWALL DRILL OPERATOR
.063 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustBULLDOZER OPERATOR
.048 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustHIGHLIFT OPERATOR/FRONT END LOADER
.042 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustHIGHWALL DRILL OPERATOR
.008 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustBULLDOZER OPERATOR
.019 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustREFUSE TRUCK DRIVER/BACKFILL TRUCK DRIVE
.008 mg/m³Not voided

SOURCE COVERAGE

Reporting dates and coverage

17 datasets contain linked records. Missing datasets are listed below.

DATASETROWSWINDOWSTATUS
Accident, Injuries, and Illnessessafety · contractors7Jan 4, 2022—Oct 24, 2025mine-keyed
Addresses of Recordidentity · logistics1Feb 1, 2021—Feb 1, 2021mine-keyed
Assessed Violationscompliance · legal235Feb 2, 2021—Jul 30, 2026mine-keyed
Civil Penalty Dockets and Decisionscompliance · legal6Mar 11, 2024—Mar 11, 2024mine-keyed
Coal Dust Sampleshealth · safety193Mar 4, 2021—Sep 1, 2026mine-keyed
Conferencescompliance · legal2Jul 2, 2024—Jul 2, 2024mine-keyed
Contested Violationscompliance · legal5May 14, 2026—Jul 30, 2026mine-keyed
Contractor Employment and Production — Quarterlycontractors · production · safety1,030Not published—Not publishedentity-linked
Contractor Employment and Production — Yearlycontractors · production · safety182Not published—Not publishedentity-linked
Controller and Operator Historyidentity · compliance1Oct 14, 2020—Oct 14, 2020mine-keyed
Mine Employment and Production — Quarterlyproduction · safety · compliance22Not published—Not publishedmine-keyed
Mine Employment and Production — Yearlyproduction · safety · compliance6Not published—Not publishedmine-keyed
Inspectionssafety · compliance29Nov 2, 2020—Aug 27, 2026mine-keyed
Minesidentity · production · logistics1Not published—Not publishedmine-keyed
Metal and Nonmetal Area Sampleshealth · safety—No published rowsabsent / not applicable
Metal and Nonmetal Personal Health Sampleshealth · safety—No published rowsabsent / not applicable
Noise Sampleshealth · safety · equipment74Mar 17, 2021—Sep 1, 2026mine-keyed
Quartz Samples — Coalhealth · safety22Mar 17, 2021—Oct 21, 2025mine-keyed
Violationscompliance · safety · legal243Feb 2, 2021—Jul 30, 2026mine-keyed
107(a) Orders Issuedsafety · compliance—No published rowsabsent / not applicable

NOTES

Limitations

  • Contractor production is entity-level and is never represented as mine-attributable.
  • Missing rows can mean no event, publication delay, identity mismatch, or inapplicability.