Six groups will share $1 million in grants to develop training for emergency preparedness and accident prevention in underground mines.
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration announced the Brookwood-Sago grants last week.
Receiving grants are the University of Arizona, the Colorado School of Mines, the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Rend Lake College in Ina, Illinois, the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, and West Virginia University.
WVU says in a news release that the university will use a grant of nearly $172,000 to integrate fire brigades and mine rescue teams in an emergency involving fire and trapped miners.
The grant program is named in remembrance of 25 men who died in mining explosions in Alabama in 2001 and at the Sago Mine in West Virginia in 2006.