CHAPTER 2 ADMINISTRATION OF THE MINE HEALTH AND SAFETY LAWS

• Jurisdiction: United States

Mine Health and Safety
(Oct 1973)
CHAPTER 2
ADMINISTRATION OF THE MINE HEALTH AND SAFETY LAWS
James M. Day
Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration U.S. Bureau of Mines
Washington, D.C.

I would like to thank you of the Foundation who asked me to talk to you here today. And, I thank you all for the special attention you are giving to the problems of Coal Mine Health and Safety. This program can go a long way towards educating and revitalizing our approach to improving health and safety in the Nation's mines. The Foundation is to be commended for presenting its members with a forum to highlight some of the problems we are all facing.

I'm going to begin with a description of the organization which the Interior Department has designed to implement and enforce the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 and the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act of 1966.

First, as most of you are aware, last May Secretary Rogers Morton created the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration as a separate organization to replace the Bureau of Mines as the Federal enforcement agency of these Acts. MESA, as it has come to be called, was organized to intensify and concentrate under one head the health and safety efforts of the Department to avoid any real or apparent conflict of interest.

MESA is now responsible for:

1. Coal Mine Health and Safety Inspections

2. Metal and Nonmetal Mine Health and Safety Inspections

3. Education and Training

4. Technical Support

5. Assessment and Compliance

Many of you are already familiar with these activities as former Bureau functions.

At this time, Coal Mine Health and Safety houses almost half of MESA's personnel — over 1500 inspectors and staff. The primary function of this unit is to conduct the four required complete health and safety inspections of each underground coal mine each year and one spot inspection of hazardous mines at least once every five working days. Also, it conducts at least two complete safety, and one complete health annual inspections, and as many inspections as required of surface coal mines to gain compliance with the Act.

I will not bore you with any statistics, comparisions or statements alleging that we are doing a great job. We have a long way to go. Although we have been relatively successful in reducing the number of fatalities in the coal mining industry, we have not been successful in reducing the number of disabling injuries. As a result, Secretary Morton has mandated that our primary target for the coming year is to reduce the number of disabling injuries.

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We plan to do this by inspecting, on a daily basis, a selected number of mines having disabling frequency rates higher than the National average until they come in line. Inspections will be conducted by personnel who have received specialized training and instructions in advanced techniques of accident prevention.

The second and fastest growing of the two enforcement wings of MESA is Metal and Nonmetal Mine Health and Safety. We hope to add 75 more inspectors to this force in both fiscal years 1974 and 1975. Also, we are pushing for new legislation with teeth in it to help us do the job. Frankly, both fatalities and disabling injuries in Metal and Nonmetal mines have not been reduced over the past few years. Therefore, you can look forward to more inspections and tougher standards. Furthermore, we hope to increase the health and safety inspection frequency of underground Metal and Nonmetal mines from one to four times per calendar year.

The Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act provides that MESA may enter into agreements with the various State mine inspection agencies whereby the State agency maintains the primary responsibility for the enforcement of standards. Once an agreement is consummated, the role of MESA is one of monitoring the effectiveness of the State program. To date six States have implemented such plans, including Colorado.

Please do not get the notion that MESA's concept of enforcement is to issue notices of violation and that health and safety conditions will improve and accident rates will decline. Such a policy would be foolish and would diminish our effectiveness. One solution towards the elimination of unsafe work practices is training. This task falls on our Education and Training Division.

Our Education and Training activities cover a broad spectrum of services designed to assist the mining industry to meet Federal and State regulatory health and safety requirements for the training of certified and qualified workers, enhance in-house capabilities, particularly for training Federal Mine Inspectors, and provide training in special safety programs for industry, such as first-aid and mine rescue. In addition to training provided at nine training centers throughout the country and a Federal Mine Health and Safety Academy at Beckley, West Virginia, MESA plans, develops, and disseminates health and safety training courses, course materials, and training aids.

A recently completed study of training found that training programs in the industry vary widely, ranging from comprehensive training operations and health and safety programs to the complete absence of any training other than on-the-job training. On-the-job training can be dangerous. The first one to three weeks of a job are extremely hazardous when compared to the remainder of the worker's career at a particular task. This danger becomes even greater when the trainee is working in a highly responsible crew-dependent position.

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Statistics and fatality reports clearly indicate that a large percentage of accidents occur because someone took an unnecessary risk, made a mistake, used the wrong procedure, or did not fully understand what he was doing. In other words, miners are injuring and killing themselves and the most susceptible to this are the newly employed miners or miners who have recently changed jobs. It is our intention that they be trained and it is management's duty to train them! Therefore, one of our major objectives is to promulgate mandatory standards which will require that all new mine employees receive safety and job training prior to actual work assignment and that industry must provide the training. We will help by instructor training and certification and help develop training materials. Those mine operators whose size of operation make it impossible to provide the necessary training will be helped through Federal and State training programs.

The artificial, hostile, and continually changing environment of mining makes it one of the most hazardous and technologically challenging of industries. As a result we feel that Government and industry must work together to improve technology and solve problems many of which are too costly for the average mine operator to cope with. For the Government not to recognize this would be like an ostrich burying his head in the sand. The Department of the Interior will spend 28 million dollars this year on mine health and safety research. Presently, such research is being carried on by the Bureau of Mines with assistance by MESA.

This brings us to the fourth arm of MESA — Technical Support. MESA Technical Support activity involves some 265 personnel. Its technical and engineering assistance is available to individual mine operators, the mining industry, and manufacturers of mining equipment and supplies. In other words where complex problems are encountered, technical investigations may be made in an attempt to develop solutions, for example, to assist on critical engineering problems affecting the health and safety of miners including ventilation, roof and ground control, dust collection and...