The 26-page document released late last week was the culmination of more than 18 months of meetings between NIOSH’s four-member expert panel appointed by US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and the internal review team for the US Mine Safety and Health Administration.

It assessed that agency’s internal review process, conclusions from its probe of the blast and recommendations for future enforcement.

“After reviewing the MSHA IR report in detail, the [panel] does not take exception to the report’s conclusion that the mine operator, not MSHA, caused the explosion,” the NIOSH reviewers said.

“However, the independent panel believes that the characterization of the facts underlying this conclusion understates the role that MSHA’s enforcement could have had in preventing the explosion.

“Had the MSHA IR team considered the causation issues from a broader viewpoint … the team could have posed and addressed the question: would a more effective enforcement effort have prevented the UBB explosion?”

The panel went on to say that had the MSHA team addressed that query, it would have left the agency in a much better place to “define and prioritize” the recommendations it made and implement them.

NIOSH’s panel examined the three “concurrent and critical events” which it said led to the April 5, 2010 explosion that killed 29 workers in West Virginia.

These were a frictional ignition at the longwall shearer, the ignition of a methane gas accumulation and the accumulation of float dust that propagated the blast.

“If MSHA enforcement personnel had completed required enforcement actions during at least one of the four UBB inspections, it is unlikely that a roof fall would have occurred and that airflow would have been reduced as a consequence,” the panel said.

“With the proper quantity of air, there would not have been an accumulation of methane, thereby eliminating the fuel sources for the gas explosion.”

It pointed to MSHA’s lacking inspections in the months prior to the explosions for the dust that was present in the mine the day of the incident.

If appropriate actions had been taken at that time, the experts said, the build-up would have been rendered inert or officials would have idled the mine.

“In short, even if there had been a gas explosion, it would have lacked sufficient fuel to trigger a massive dust explosion,” the report said.

“Therefore, the IP’s overall analysis suggests that if MSHA had engaged in timely enforcement of the Mine Act and applicable standards and regulations, it would have lessened the chances of – and possibly could have prevented – the UBB explosion.”

In the report’s conclusions, NIOSH’s independent panel put forth a collection of recommendations for changes MSHA should make.

It said the recommendations were developed to complement those generated for the MSHA IR report released earlier this month.

The panel says to address the underlying and structural issues existing at MSHA that it feels “may impair the long-term efficacy” of its recommendations, MSHA needs to modify the strategic paradigm that informs its enforcement activities.

Also, NIOSH said, the quality of internal investigations that federal officials, or independent investigators, conducted must be improved.

Finally, “technical deficiencies in current mining practice that could compromise safety” must be addressed by MSHA staff.

Also put forth was a six-pronged technical achievement goal plan including targets to:

• Develop best practice for ventilating the longwall face and its tailgate corner to minimize dangerous accumulations of methane gas
• Define the relative merits of bleeder and bleederless ventilation systems for controlling methane accumulation on longwall panels
• Develop best practice for the location of monitors on and around the face to readily detect dangerous levels of methane
• Develop best practice for employing monitoring systems to detect unexpected changes to the ventilation system and to identify and forecast potentially dangerous conditions
• Develop appropriate sampling procedures to detect and determine if adequate inertization of float dust has occurred
• Determine the relative merits of applying active and passive barriers in specific circumstances.

“The IP believes that guidelines and best practices must be developed and adopted to address these critical gaps in knowledge and practice,” the report said.

“Research to support the development of these ... and to inform future statutory and regulatory efforts should be conducted expeditiously.”

The UBB mine in Raleigh County has been closed since the 2010 blast.

It was owned by Massey Energy at the time of the incident and sold last year to Alpha Natural Resources in the producer’s takeover of Massey.

Several investigative reports on the blast have already been released, including that of the agency, the United Mine Workers of America and an independent panel commissioned by then-West Virginia governor Joe Manchin.

Last year Alpha said it was developing its own review but had not yet released any of its findings.