Data / Mines / Kentucky / Trace Fork
Trace Fork, Letcher County, Kentucky: 27 MSHA citations
Updated November 6, 2026. Source: US Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Open Government Data Sets.
Trace Fork is an active coal (bituminous) surface mine in Letcher County, Kentucky, operated by Mark Energy, LLC with 31 employees on MSHA's record (mine ID 1519872). Since January 1, 2022 MSHA inspectors issued 27 citations and orders there with $4,460 in proposed penalties, and 0 accident reports were filed there, with no injury or illness cases.
The request: Watch Trace Fork (MSHA mine ID 1519872) in Letcher County, Kentucky: each new citation and each accident report. $10 of work on sign-up, no card.
SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. It reads the mine, citation, inspection and accident files that MSHA publishes, and this page is that reading. Ask for the mines of a commodity, state or operator with the operator's headquarters, website and size added from the web, and new mines, new citations and new accident reports arrive in your sheet, CRM, Slack or agent as MSHA posts them.
- MSHA mine ID
- 1519872
- Status
- Active since December 13, 2019
- Main commodity
- Coal (bituminous)
- Mine type
- Surface
- County
- Letcher County, Kentucky
- Nearest town
- Eolia
- Operator
- Mark Energy, LLC
- Parent company
- Mark Energy Holdings LLC
- Employees
- 31
- MSHA field office
- Harlan KY Field Office
- Citations and orders since January 1, 2022
- 27
- Significant and substantial
- 4 (14.8%)
- Closure orders
- 1
- High negligence or reckless
- 0
- Proposed penalties
- $4,460
- Amount paid so far
- $3,944
- Inspections
- 28
- Inspector hours on site
- 756
- Citations per inspection
- 0.96 (all mines 2.30)
- Accident reports
- 0
- Injury and illness cases
- 0
- Fatalities
- 0
- Latest MSHA record
- October 1, 2026
- Citations issued to contractors here
- 33 ($46,124 proposed)
Citations and injury cases by year
Calendar years since 2022; 2026 runs to the date of the MSHA files.
| Year | Citations and orders | Significant and substantial | Proposed penalties | Injury and illness cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2 | 0 | $266 | 0 |
| 2023 | 6 | 1 | $843 | 0 |
| 2024 | 8 | 3 | $1,841 | 0 |
| 2025 | 7 | 0 | $1,057 | 0 |
| 2026 | 4 | 0 | $453 | 0 |
Standards cited most at Trace Fork
Sections of Title 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations named on the citations, with the part each belongs to.
| Standard | What the part covers | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 30 CFR 77.1000 | Surface coal mines, safety | 5 |
| 30 CFR 77.1606 | Surface coal mines, safety | 4 |
| 30 CFR 71.403 | Surface coal mines, health | 3 |
| 30 CFR 77.1605 | Surface coal mines, safety | 2 |
| 30 CFR 71.501 | Surface coal mines, health | 2 |
| 30 CFR 77.410 | Surface coal mines, safety | 2 |
| 30 CFR 77.1104 | Surface coal mines, safety | 1 |
| 30 CFR 77.1607 | Surface coal mines, safety | 1 |
| 30 CFR 77.502 | Surface coal mines, safety | 1 |
| 30 CFR 77.1110 | Surface coal mines, safety | 1 |
| 30 CFR 77.400 | Surface coal mines, safety | 1 |
| 30 CFR 77.1703 | Surface coal mines, safety | 1 |
| 30 CFR 47.41 | Hazard communication | 1 |
| 30 CFR 72.100 | Part 72 | 1 |
Other open mines in Letcher County, Kentucky
| Mine | Operator | County | Main commodity | Employees | Citations since 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trace Fork #2 | Cumberland Coal Corporation | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 3 | 241 |
| Meadow Branch | Nally & Hamilton Enterprises Inc | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 34 | 183 |
| River Ridge P-1 | 4TH Gen Fuels | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 30 | 97 |
| Defeated Creek | Nally & Hamilton Enterprises Inc | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 6 | 81 |
| Pine Mountain Stone | Mountain Aggregates, Inc | Letcher County, KY | Crushed, broken limestone | 23 | 62 |
| No 3 | RGB Resources and Development LLC | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 15 | 52 |
| Mill Creek Prep Plant | Deane Mining, LLC | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 1 | 33 |
| Deadening Branch | Mark Energy, LLC | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 8 | 32 |
| No. 2 | Beldon Processing LLC. | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 0 | 20 |
| Auger #38 | DirtWorx Mining LLC | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 4 | 10 |
| SHM-70 | Mega Highwall Mining LLC | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 10 | 8 |
| Razorblade Surface | Bluegrass Resources | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 0 | 6 |
| Roxana Prep Plant | Kingdom Coal, LLC | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 1 | 4 |
| #1 | Genesis Group, LLC | Letcher County, KY | Coal (bituminous) | 0 | 4 |
| Cumberland Quarry | Bluegrass Materials Company, LLC | Letcher County, KY | Crushed, broken limestone | 3 | 1 |
US government work, public domain. Counts come from the MSHA files published on November 6, 2026. An open mine is one MSHA lists as Active, Intermittent, New Mine, Temporarily Idled or NonProducing; 13,673 were open that day. Citations, penalties, inspections and accident reports run from January 1, 2022. A citation is an inspector's allegation and an operator can contest it; the penalty is the amount MSHA first proposed, before any contest or settlement. An operator is the legal entity MSHA assesses, and a parent company is its controller. Mines run by sole proprietors or by individuals are counted in every total and are not named. This page uses MSHA data and is not endorsed or certified by MSHA. Free to reuse with credit to SpecStream under CC BY 4.0. Spot a wrong value? Write to [email protected] with the link to this page.