At the Measuring Progress Toward a Safety Culture of Prevention in Mining seminar near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, MSHA assistant secretary of labor Joseph Main told a large crowd the agency was making a positive difference in the mining community while moving mine safety and health in “the right direction” despite the industry’s challenges and recent disasters.

Wednesday’s one-day seminar was sponsored by Pennsylvania State University’s miner training program and held annually.

“When I took the job as assistant secretary over two years ago, I had a clear purpose – to implement and enforce the nation’s mine safety laws and to improve health and safety conditions in the nation’s mines so miners in this country can go to work, do their jobs and return home to their families safe and healthy at the end of every shift,” he told the audience of industry representatives.

“Following the April 2010 explosion of the Upper Big Branch mine, one of my most significant challenges was keeping MSHA focused on our overall mission and agenda to advance mine safety.”

The accident killed 29 workers in southern West Virginia and identified the need for miners to have a voice in the workplace and for MSHA to more aggressively use tools available under the Mine Act for regulation enforcement.

“We began taking actions immediately after the disaster and we are still continuing to implement a number of initiatives to make mines safer,” Main said.

One crossroads for MSHA and its enforcement conduct was the internal review of its actions in the wake of the UBB blast.

The review report was released earlier this year and included recommendations on how the agency could improve its effectiveness.

“We are changing how we do business at MSHA,” Main said.

The agency’s efforts include a comprehensive review of the federal policy directive system and a complete overhaul of the MSHA coal mine inspectors’ handbook.

Also, as has been identified in past reviews of the agency, MSHA is working to increase staff training and examine other shortcomings.

Main said the enhanced enforcement efforts, including the impact inspections initiative to target chronic non-compliant mines, were working.

Since the program commenced in April 2010, MSHA conducted 443 inspections, resulting in 7948 citations, 785 orders and 29 safeguards.

“Overall compliance is improving at these mines,” Main said.

Specifically, violations per inspection hour were down 13% following the initial impact inspection and significant and substantial violations dropped 21%.

Also, 104(d) withdrawal orders were down 43%.

The total lost-time injury rate at the mines targeted in the program also fell 13%.

“Unfortunately, there are some mine operators that still haven’t gotten the message,” he said, though he added MSHA’s pattern of violations initiative was netting positive results.

A recent MSHA analysis of enforcement data for the 14 mines receiving potential POV notices in 2010 revealed the total violation rate dropped 25%, total S&S violations were down 44% and the 104(d) withdrawal orders rate fell 66%.

At the same time, the mines’ lost-time injury rate went down 43%.

“Compliance data also shows that improvements are occurring in the mining industry as a whole,” Main said.

“In 2011, MSHA inspected about 14,170 mines and issued 157,678 citations and orders. This is down from 2010, when MSHA issued 171,018 citations and orders.

“In 2011, MSHA issued 49,582 S&S and 2920 unwarrantable failure citations and orders, down from 56,502 S&S and 3370 unwarrantable issued in 2010, a decrease of about 9 per cent.”

While Main went on to highlight the agency’s other efforts for enhanced mine safety and health, including the Rules to Live By program, stakeholder outreach and a push for more consistency in mine inspections, it was with regard to regulatory actions that perhaps received the most attention.

To that end, he detailed rules issued several months ago that would require more rock dusting in underground mines to prevent explosions, as well as thorough examinations of operations to improve compliance and prevention.

“MSHA’s final rule on examinations in underground mines, effective August 6, mandates operators to identify and correct violations of standards related to ventilation, methane, roof control, combustible materials, rock dust and guarding,” Main said.

“Forty-nine per cent of all violations in 2011 were cited at underground coal mines, even though these mines represent just 5 per cent of all mines inspected.”

US mining recorded 37 miner deaths in 2011, 22 of which occurred in coal.

The figures were the second lowest since the gathering of statistics first began a century ago.

“As low as those numbers are, we all know that one death is one too many and that mining deaths are preventable,” he said.

“The distance to zero is much shorter than in 1977, when the Mine Act went into effect. I know we all share the goal of zero fatalities.”