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It’s over 90 degrees as the sun beats down on a soccer pitch at Mylan Park in Morgantown. Teams line up – 21 of them – but they’re not here to kick a ball.
These are coal miners, and despite the heat, they’re wearing helmets and a self-contained breathing apparatus.
Josh Brady, director of the Mining and Industrial Extension at West Virginia University, explains that in a real mine emergency, conditions would be much worse.
“A lot of people want to talk about, ‘oh my, we got a heat index over 90. The sun’s beating on us. The sun blasts off this astroturf. These guys are wearing machines, and it’s hot,'” Brady says. “Yeah, it is. But it’s nowhere near as hot and dangerous as it is when you have black smoke in front of your face and you’re fighting a fire. These conditions are mild compared to that.”
The field is set up with Division of Highways orange barriers to simulate the passages of an underground mining complex. Simulated hazards are placed in the way of the teams.
“There could be unsafe water levels, there can be unsafe roof and rib conditions. There can be ventilation problems,” Brady says “There can be gases that don’t support life, gases that are explosive. What they’re trying to do is find all those issues and correct them.”
Some members are designated as victims who need to be rescued.
“They’re dressed like they’re team members. They’re just patients wearing the same clothes,” Brady says. “This individual out here on the left that just put his hand up, he’s a patient waiting be rescued right across that white tent, has his hand on his hips. They’re just standing in an area. But you can’t just go get that individual and bypass all the hazards. You’ve got to correct all the hazards, correctly, and then go. Then you’re allowed to rescue him.”
Coal mine fatalities have reached record lows in recent years. Some of that has resulted from a decline in production and jobs. The Mine Safety and Health Administration last recorded a death in a coal mine in February. There have been four fatalities in coal mines this year, two in West Virginia, and one each in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Brady says the competition includes participants from those states and others. And the states’ mine safety agencies provide support, he says.
“We get a great deal of support from from the state agencies. West Virginia Miners’ Health, Safety and Training has been very helpful to us,” Brady says. “State of Ohio, state of Pennsylvania, state of Kentucky. Virginia, has been been very helpful, given us great support. So state agencies do a great job, and we work as very well with all of them, and do the best we can with what they send us.”
One missing participant this year: the Pittsburgh Mine Research Division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Its workers were put on administrative leave in April after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. implemented a reduction in force at NIOSH.
NIOSH also has an office in Morgantown, where the Coal Worker Health Surveillance Program is based. With an order from a U.S. district judge in May, those workers were brought back, including the ones operating the mobile black lung clinic parked near the soccer field.
The Mine Research Division workers, though, have not been called back.
“We have historically always gotten support from NIOSH Pittsburgh,” Brady says. “NIOSH in Morgantown usually brings their black lung screening group down to offer that to the miners that come in, bunch of retired guys come in. We are void of of NIOSH support this year, from a judging standpoint.”
April marked 15 years since 29 miners were killed in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion in Raleigh County. Part of the purpose of the mine rescue competition, Brady says, is to prepare miners in case it happens and save lives.
“I think the end message is, we’re delivering for mining companies who need to comply with the federal regulation, and we do it at the highest level, and we don’t want to brag about it, but we’re proud of it, and we enjoy the fact that we have 21 teams here from multiple companies who are displaying what you hope you never have to deploy,” Brady says. “The whole idea is, is that you maintain your operation so you never have to do this. If you ever do need these individuals, they’re prepared and ready to get your miners and protect your operation.”
So the families of these miners won’t have to get the call they long feared.