It is a body blow to an industry that prides itself on working hard to reduce fatalities and had experienced several years of record low fatalities prior to October 2013.
“This increase in mining deaths is unacceptable for our industry,” US Department of Labor assistant secretary for the MSHA Joseph Main said.
“Many of these deaths involved deficiencies that should be part of any safety and health plan, such as daily and effective workplace exams to find and fix hazards; training, in particular task training for miners and supervisors performing work; providing and using personal protective equipment (seat belts, life vests, fall protection); de-energising and lock out/tag out procedures; and pre-operational equipment checks followed by prompt management action to address deficiencies.
“These are safety fundamentals, which if done and done correctly will save lives.”
Yesterday, the MSHA started increasing its efforts through education, outreach and enforcement to address this increase. It will enlist the support of the entire industry to refocus on safety and redouble efforts to make mines safer for the nation’s miners.
“MSHA’s efforts will focus attention and the enforcement tools available to us on the types of conditions that have caused these deaths and on the specific categories of work where increased deaths have occurred,” Main said.
“MSHA inspectors, managers and educational field staff will be engaging with miners and mine operators to talk about this troubling trend and the need to ensure that safety standards are met, proper training is conducted and engrained and protections are in place to protect miners.”
Putting it in perspective, however, Main said that while more work needed to be done, the average annual number of mining fatalities over the past five years was 45 – half of the 96-a-year average during the 1990s.
In coal mining alone, the averages fell from 45 in the 1990s to a yearly average of 19 following the department’s 2010 reforms.
Preliminary results show that overall 41 miners died in 2014. Of those fatalities, 16 were at coal mines – the lowest number ever recorded in mining history. The 25 deaths at metal and non-metal mines were an increase from last year.
Putting a positive spin on the issue, Main noted that compliance had improved significantly with the number of citations and orders issued to coal mine operators in 2010 about 96,352, compared to 62,828 last year.
Respirable coal mine dust levels in underground coal mines have also dropped successively to new lows since 2009, when MSHA launched its End Black Lung – Act Now campaign.
He also noted that the yearly average of respirable dust levels of designated mining occupations in underground coal mines, from mine operator samples, dropped to a historic low in 2014 of 0.67 milligrams per cubic metre of air (m/mg3) – down from 0.77 m/mg3 in 2009 when the MSHA launched the aforementioned campaign.
The yearly average of respirable dust levels of designated mining occupations in samples collected by MSHA inspectors in 2014 dropped to an average of 0.70 m/mg3 compared to 0.83m/mg3 in 2009 – another new low.
Main said a reformed pattern of violations program had also helped reduce the number of coal mines with chronic violation records by over 80% and improved safety at mines undergoing the MSHA enforcement program with marked improvements in mine compliance in the industry.
New rules have been put into place to prevent coal dust explosions and improve mine operator examinations to correct violations before miners are injured or killed.
A new rule requiring proximity detection devices on continuous mining machines will also prevent accidents that could crush or pin miners in a confined environment underground.
