Updated Jan 13, 2021 Coal Company Officials Plead Guilty After Hiding Black Lung Dangers So far three former officials with Armstrong Coal have acknowledged their part in a fraud made public by HuffPost. A former supervisor at the Parkway coal mine in Western Kentucky pleaded guilty Tuesday to taking part in a scheme to hide the threat of black lung disease from federal safety officials. Steve DeMoss, a former safety director and foreman for Armstrong Coal, which owned and operated the Parkway mine, acknowledged in court that he helped submit misleadingly low coal dust readings to mine regulators. Miners can develop black lung disease by breathing too much coal dust in a mine’s atmosphere, leading to a debilitating ailment that sufferers compare to the sensation of drowning.