Mine Safety and Health Administration Story Archives - Page 2 of 3

Mine Safety Agency Should Do More To Protect Coal Miners In The Pandemic, Oversight Office Finds

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has not done enough to protect coal miners during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report from an oversight agency released Tuesday.

Through interviews with MSHA officials and union representatives, as well as reviews of state and national policies, the Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General concluded that MSHA could do more to track coronavirus cases among coal miners, address a growing backlog of inspections, and mandate safety precautions underground.

Following the March determination that coal mines would be considered “critical infrastructure” and exempt from coronavirus-related shutdowns, MSHA issued voluntary guidelines to protect miners during the pandemic, including measures such as frequent hand-washing, wearing masks and maintaining social distance when possible. But the agency has faced significant pressure to make those guidelines mandatory.

“We’ve been trying to get the Mine Safety and Health Administration to establish regulations, emergency temporary standards, to set up a regulation that everybody has to follow, that is enforceable, instead of us going from mine to mine to mine and trying to work something out,” said United Mine Workers of America spokesperson Phil Smith. “Because at the mines where there is no union, there is no protection. It’s that simple.”

The National Coalition of Black Lung and Respiratory Disease Clinics wrote to MSHA requesting an emergency temporary standard, and a bipartisan group of senators in May filed the COVID-19 Mine Worker Protection Act to require the issuance of such a measure.

MSHA has not yet committed to issuing an emergency temporary standard, the inspector general said.

The inspector general’s report also found that because of the coronavirus, MSHA suspended five categories of enforcement actions and seriously reduced 13 more, including ventilation investigations, non-fatal accident investigations and compliance assistance visits. Regular safety and health inspections, plus 14 other enforcement categories, have continued to operate at full capacity.

The report said those suspensions and reductions were a tradeoff: They limited contact between miners and mine safety inspectors and protected MSHA’s workforce from potential exposure to COVID-19, but they resulted in a backlog and increased the safety risk for miners.

Adding to the backlog was the number of MSHA inspectors who self-identified as being at high risk of contracting the coronavirus. About 100 of MSHA’s 750 inspectors, or 13 percent, have removed themselves from regular inspection duties out of concern for their own health.

In a response to the inspector general’s report included in its appendices, MSHA head David Zatezelo said, “MSHA agrees with OIG recommendations to develop a plan to manage the potential backlog of suspended or reduced activities, once full operations resume, and to monitor COVID-19 outbreaks at mines and to use that information to reevaluate our decision not to issue an emergency temporary standard.”

Some potential coronavirus prevention measures for coal mines include PPE, sanitization and staggered shifts. But these measures are an added expense for mine operators already struggling to remain profitable as the industry contracts.

Scientists, Mine Safety Officials Discuss Black Lung Protections

Officials with the Mine Safety and Health Administration met for the first time with miners’ health researchers Wednesday in a new partnership designed to discuss ways to better protect coal miners from the dust that causes black lung disease. In future meetings, representatives from the two agencies will discuss recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences in a 2018 report on monitoring underground coal dust exposure. That report said the coal mining industry needs a “fundamental shift” in the way it controls exposure to coal and rock dust.

“A common theme that occurred throughout the National Academy recommandation is the need for an industry, labor, academia, manufacturers and government to work together on an investigation, training and solution related to respirable coal mine exposure,” said MSHA Director of Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances Sheila McConnell. “This partnership comes directly from those recommendations.”

The meeting comes as researchers with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, continue to track epidemic-levels of black lung disease among coal miners; as many as one in five experienced Appalachian coal miners has some form of the disease. But collaboration between the scientists and the regulators has been tense. Scientists with NIOSH have been encouraging MSHA to regulate silica dust for almost 50 years, while MSHA has resisted those recommendations.

MSHA head David Zatezelo has been reluctant to embrace the science on silica’s toxicity, saying his agency would need to wait to determine the effects of a 2014 coal dust rule. That rule strengthened protections on overall coal dust exposure but did not specifically regulate dust from silica. That wait could last at least a decade.

“Due to the decades-long latency period between exposure and disease manifestation, a medically valid study cannot be completed in the near term,” Zatezelo told a Congressional panel in June. “But MSHA anticipates the study will confirm that dramatic increases in sampling and compliance translate into reduced black lung incidence going forward.”

NIOSH has continued to release research demonstrating more severe cases of black lung disease among younger miners and showing that miners at surface sites are also at risk of disease.

Lawsuit: Agency Didn’t Do Enough To Stop Mine Disaster

A lawsuit filed by a miner’s widow says the Mine Safety and Health Administration didn’t do enough to stop the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports Carolyn Diana Davis filed the lawsuit Thursday that says MSHA didn’t do its job as a watchdog agency to prevent the disaster and was negligent in its enforcement of safety measures at the mine.

“The Plaintiff reasonably relied upon the United States to undertake its inspections and enforcement actions in a competent and non-negligent manner, and that reliance ultimately contributed to the wrongful death of Mr. Davis,” the lawsuit states.

The explosion that killed 29 miners happened in 2010, during a shift change, when a spark ignited a pocket of methane, causing massive explosions at the mine. Federal investigators say an accumulation of coal dust exacerbated the explosion.

The lawsuit cites reports from the Governor’s Independent Investigation Panel, selected by then-Gov. Joe Manchin, which said MSHA knew about UBB’s faulty ventilation system and ignored warning signs.

It also cites a federal Independent Panel Assessment that found MSHA didn’t inspect the mine adequately.

“The IPA concluded that MSHA failed to adequately perform its duties at UBB, and that this failure had a causal relationship to the explosion,” the lawsuit states.

MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere wouldn’t comment on the lawsuit.

Mine Safety Nomination Follows History as Coal Executive

The retired coal company executive from West Virginia chosen by Republican President Trump to oversee U.S. mining safety says his first priority is preventing people from getting hurt and that he replaced the managers of a mine plagued by safety violations in 2010 and 2011 where a miner died.

David Zatezalo of Wheeling, who retired in 2014 as chairman of Rhino Resources, still faces opposition from his home state’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, who says he’s unconvinced the 62-year-old is suited to the job based on his industry safety record, especially as mining deaths have already increased this year with 13 deaths.

Zatezalo had told the Senate committee that advanced his nomination this week, on a 12-11 party-line vote, that the U.S. industry is safer than ever, technology can further improve it and the required four annual mine inspections shouldn’t be reduced.

“Our first priority is preventing people from getting hurt and improving the compliance regime across the board,” he said at his confirmation hearing. His nomination goes next to a floor vote, which hasn’t been scheduled yet. A similar partisan split would confirm him.

Zatezalo told the senators he wouldn’t reopen the investigation sought by ex-Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship in the 2010 West Virginia mine explosion that killed 29 miners unless there is new evidence. Blankenship spent a year in federal prison for misdemeanor conspiracy to violate federal safety standards at the mine.

Questioned about the repeated safety violations cited by MSHA and the 2011 death at one of Rhino’s West Virginia mines, Zatezalo said the management of that site wasn’t doing what it should have. “I felt you know if you haven’t done your job we should be big kids and deal with it as such. Incidentally I replaced that management because I wasn’t too happy with their performance and I hadn’t been for some time,” he said.

At 6,000-pound (2,700-kilogram) piece of an underground rib pillar fell on 33-year-old crew chief Joseph Cassell, crushing him at the Rhino’s Eagle #1 Mine in Raleigh County, MSHA investigators reported. They concluded the pillar was inadequately bolted.

“The operator’s attempts to support the ribs with timbers and/or 42-inch conventional bolts were inadequate, as evidenced by loose, broken and hanging ribs, and broken supports at numerous locations,” the investigators wrote.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said Zatezalo was “uniquely qualified” for the safety job. The Tennessee Republican noted that the engineer and businessman’s 41-year mining career began as a laborer.

But before the committee vote, ranking Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said Zatezalo had failed to commit to stand up for workers against the pro-business Trump administration that has rolled back various worker protections.

At the confirmation hearing, she cited his company’s safety violations and noted that he had been sued for allowing “unchecked” workplace discrimination and then punishing the employee who was the target. “That’s really troubling to me and I fear another example of a fox to guard the hen house,” she said.

Even before that, Manchin said West Virginians are “painfully familiar” with the human toll from mine accidents. He said Zatezalo wouldn’t provide the strong leadership needed at MSHA.

Celeste Monforton, a former MSHA official who watched the hearing, said Zatezalo’s answers were measured. She said she was taking a wait-and-see approach to the selection, adding she was glad Trump hadn’t chosen a lobbyist.

“It ultimately comes down to if he is confirmed, how we see his behavior and his attitude after he’s confirmed there at the agency,” she said.

In his testimony, Zatezalo said he would support Trump’s agenda for the health and safety of American miners. In his career, he said he managed and operated 39 different mines. The U.S. industry, he said, is safer and healthier than ever before, but progress is needed, including technology for real-time monitoring of silica dust blamed for a virulent variation of the black lung disease that has afflicted even some younger coal miners.

Zatezalo said the number of federal inspectors is “pretty good today,” and that the data show them making the four annual mine inspections required by law.

“We certainly don’t want to let that fall down, just as I wouldn’t want to drive on the highways without police … to take control of speeders and drunk drivers. Inspections in mines in the United States are a necessity, and they have to continue,” he said.

Coal Miner Found Dead at Carter Roag Facility

A coal miner has died in West Virginia, the sixth mining fatality in the state this year.

In a news release, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) confirmed the fatality Friday at Carter Roag Coal Co.’s Pleasant Hill Mine on the Upshur-Randolph county border near Tallmansville, south of Buckhannon.

Carter Roag is owned by Metinvest, a mining and metals firm headquartered in Ukraine.

MSHA said Owen Mark Jones, 51, of Pickens, was found dead on the surface of the mine. The cause of death is unknown. Jones was a fireboss at the mine, according to the release.

The mine is idle while inspectors from the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training and MSHA investigate.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and his wife, Cathy, issued the following statement in response to the incident:

“Cathy and I are deeply saddened at the news of the death of one of our miners. It is especially heartbreaking to learn that this family has been devastated twice in the last 11 years by losing loved ones in the mines. Our prayers are with the Jones family, their friends and all of our dedicated miners in West Virginia.”

According to The Charleston Gazette-Mail, Owen Jones’ brother, Jesse, died in the 2006 Sago mine disaster.

MSHA said three coal miners were killed on the job in West Virginia last year. The agency said 12 coal miners have died on the job so far this year, up from eight in 2016.

Mine Safety Academy Opens: August 17, 1976

The National Mine Health and Safety Academy opened at Beaver, near Beckley, on August 17, 1976. The 80-acre campus, which can accommodate 600 students, is the largest in the world devoted solely to mine safety and health.

It is the central training facility for federal mine inspectors and mine safety professionals, with a stated goal of reducing accidents and improving miners’ health and safety.

In addition to coal miners, the academy also serves those who mine sand and gravel, gold, silver, copper, uranium, and other minerals.

The academy is operated by the Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. About 28,000 students attend annually—an average of 200 to 300 daily. In response to growing international concern about mine health and safety, the academy has expanded to address the health and safety of miners worldwide. Cooperative programs allow representatives and inspectors from other nations to participate in health and safety classes, training programs, and activities. International visitors to the National Mine Health and Safety Academy have included delegations from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, China, Thailand, and South Africa.