Thirteen grants totaling $1 million have been awarded to promote U.S. mine safety.
The U.S. Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration announced the funding Tuesday through its Brookwood-Sago grant program.
The program was established in 2006 in honor of 25 miners who died in 2001 in Brookwood, Alabama, at the Jim Walter Resources No. 5 mine and in 2006 in Buckhannon, West Virginia, at the Sago Mine.
Among the grants awarded were $140,000 to the University of Arizona in Tucson for the development of app-based training materials, $130,000 to Marshall University Research Corp. in Huntington, for production of a video on safety and emergency preparedness, and $120,000 to the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City to provide virtual reality training materials.
Other grant recipients include schools, state agencies and other groups in Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.