The award was given to Cumberland in the Group 1 large mine category by the Pennsylvania State Council at its annual meeting held in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The honour is bestowed to operations which accomplish the industry’s lowest incident rates over the prior year.
In 2005, the Cumberland mine near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, reported a commendable 2.66 lost-time accident frequency rate and operated more than 1.45 million man-hours.
“We are honoured to be recognised as the safest coal producer among Pennsylvania’s largest coal mine operators,” said Maryland-based Foundation Coal’s eastern operations vice-president Jim Bryja.
“We have invested a tremendous amount of time and resources to develop, execute and promote consistent safety and prevention practices ... and we remain committed to the safety and health of our miners as our first priority and concern.”
Statistics are also down industry-wide, according to a statement by the company. Over the course of 14 years, there has been a 68% reduction in injuries – from 1990’s total of 15,826 to a much lower 5129 in 2004.
“The Joseph A Holmes Safety Association presents a wide variety of awards to recognise individuals and organisations who have made a difference in safety and health,” said the group, according to its website. Those annual accolades include safety records for small operations, milestone years for individuals without any work-related injury and safety records for operations overall.
News at Cumberland has been quite positive for the mine’s staff and parent company Foundation over recent months. In January, the operation announced it had taken the record for production from a single longwall mine among all of Foundation Coal's operations, including subsidiaries and predecessors.
It broke a record set by Emerald, with 7.09 million tonnes of clean coal production and 6.98Mt of shipments last year versus Emerald's 6.74Mt of production and 6.66Mt of shipments in 2001. The record was broken on December 13, 2005, less than halfway through the month.
Emerald, considered Cumberland’s “sister” mine in Foundation’s mine portfolio, also received the honour of a business unit record, with 13.79Mt produced and 13.68Mt shipped from the mine. That amount beat two other 2001 records of 13.39Mt of production and 13.48Mt in shipments.
The Joseph A Holmes Safety Association, established in 1916, was organised with the sole effort of recognising proper health and safety practices throughout the industry. Based in Arlington, Virginia, the group is lead by Doug Conaway.
