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mine rescue Inventory of U.S. Mine Rescue Training Facilities Researchers document progress as well as areas that need improvement BY LAURIE RUBERG, PH.D., DOUG MOORE AND LISA MCFARLAND Researchers for the Mining and Industrial Safety Technology and Training Innovation (MISTTI) at Wheeling Jesuit University recently prepared a report on underground coal mine rescue training facilities. This study reviews the 12 major training facilities available to serve the 105 mine rescue teams on call for 500 underground coal mines with a total of approximately 54,000 employees. It also compares 2013 mine rescue issues and concerns with those voiced in the 2008 survey. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) requested this research as a follow-up study to its 2008 inventory of mine rescue training facilities. The MISTTI researchers contacted existing mine rescue training facility staff to identify how training, geographic locations, capabilities, professional services and approaches have changed in the past five years. These mine rescue training facilities provide real-life and/or state-of-the-art emergency response preparedness training. They are mostly concentrated in the mid-Atlantic region. Since 1970, 13 of the 21 coal mine disasters (defined as five or more fatalities in an accident) have occurred in the central Appalachian (CAPP) coalfields. The previous inventory recommendations suggested that an additional facility was needed in the Appalachian region. For these reasons, questions about proximal and remote audiences served are included in this research. Comparison of Issues & Concerns The 2008 inventory of mine rescue training facilities involved geographically distributed stakeholder groups in a series of focus group interviews. The interviews were designed to investigate and identify pressing issues, concerns, barriers and suggestions for improved mine emergency response. Seventy-one coal mine emergency response expert practitioners and trainers, mostly from the industry, participated. The following issues emerged from the 2007-2008 study: • the need for more emergency response preparedness training; • a disparity in standardization of skills and equipment; • incident command shortfalls between teams and the command center; • the desire for more realism for mine rescue contests and rules; and • a shortage of available mine rescue training facilities. A high-level review of the data collected from the 12 mine rescue facilities contacted in this study reveals that all five recommendations have been addressed by the mine rescue training facilities as a group. All but two facilities responded that they have expanded their emergency response preparedness training. While there is still a disparity in the level of rigorous and standardized skills and equipment training, this is an area that each facility has addressed within their localized needs assessment and service upgrades. 34 www.coalage.com Figure 1: The top 12 mine rescue training facilities are located where they are needed most, close to the mines. All of the facilities are cognizant of the need to improve the communications between incident command and command center, and a few facilities have used innovative strategies to address this need. Facility efforts to bring more realism to mine rescue contests and rules can be seen in the images of training activities under way that are featured in many of the facility profiles. The shortage of mine rescue training facilities, especially in the Appalachian area, which was referenced in the previous report, has been addressed with two brand new company-managed miner training facilities added to the Appalachian region. However, since the previous inventory study, two mine rescue training facilities that were listed in the prior study are now closed — one in Pennsylvania and one in Utah. 1. NIOSH Office of Mine Safety and Health Research Bruceton Research Lab, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Spokane Research Lab, Spokane, Wash. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/ The NIOSH Office of Mine Safety and Health Research (OMSHR) Pittsburgh site encompasses 180 acres and houses six different mine safety and health research laboratories. The experimental coal mines and the Mine Rescue and Escape Training Theatre have the strongest connections to mine rescue technologies and training research. The Safety Research and Experimental Coal Mines at the Pittsburgh OMSHR site is a multipurpose four-mile, underground November 2013