Coal Age Magazine - For nearly 100 years, Coal Age has been the magazine that readers can trust for guidance and insight on this important industry.
mine rescue continued
any issues a team might have. Teams also take a written exam and are judged by how well they populate a map.
But in the end, it all comes down to time. "The judges work really hard to try to find something they can dock. They are very critical. We put judges on the field from different areas than where the coal mine is situated. If the team on this field is from Indiana. If the team on this field is from Indiana, there are no judges on the field from Indiana. We try to make sure to keep it as squeaky clean as we can so there's no favoritism to any of the teams. We work really hard at that and the judges do a good job but the teams do an even better job," said Stricklin.
Though the situation wasn't real, the sweat pouring off the mine rescuers was. "While each is miner, collectively they become members of rescue teams. When everyone else is running away from an emergency, these folks are gearing up to go and fight it. There's never a good emer- gency and these noble men and women are determined to go into harm's way to try to rescue people," said Stricklin. During the competition, team mem- bers would rush from one section of the
Kevin Stricklin (left), MSHA's coal administrator and Joe Main, asst. secretary of labor for mine safety and health and MSHA director at the National Mine Rescue Contest.
field to another as they raced to solve problems. Audience members watched from the stands as teams would locate "injured" miners and bring them out to fresh air bases. Once tasks were complet-
ed, team captains would head over to the contest clock and, upon the judge's sig- nal, stop it and mark the time. Individual competitions were even more grueling since there was no one else to rely on. While waiting for results, hundreds of coal miners roamed the area, shared ideas and reviewed some of the latest mine safety innovations.
Displaying some of the newest prod- ucts in mine safety and rescue, one of the biggest sponsors of the event, Draeger Safety was on hand celebrating both its 100-year anniversary of mine rescue con- tests and the company's own century of involvement in this vital field (see side- bar). The company developed the first closed-circuit breathing apparatus in 1904, opening a new era in mine safety and rescue. "Times change, but values do not. The values we have shared for 100 years will continue through the next cen- tury of mine rescue and safety. And, we will be there to help provide the products and assistance we can to these brave men and women, these Draegermen," said Stefan Draeger, chairman of the manage- ment board for Draeger International and a direct descendent of the original inven-
ers equipped with proximity detection equipment as well. They really took the lead on this—even before there were regulations. The experiences they had, and the experiences CONSOL Energy is hav- ing, are going to help us get the bugs worked out of the system.
miners killed since 1984 due to proximity issues. Today there are new technologies that we've applied to fix that.
I believe it is a vital part of this country's future. My mission is to do everything I can to make it safe. I took this job for a simple reason, to give miners a chance to go home free of injury and ill- ness and enjoy life like most other folks do. I believe that's an achievable goal. Enforcing these regula- tions is critical. There are still some large problems out there, in particular where it comes to black lung. Younger miners are still getting the disease. When we looked at data from the autopsies of the men who were killed at Upper Big Branch, we found that more than 70% of them had some level of black lung already. We need to fix that.
The proximity rules will start another round of re- investment to take care of our miners and protect workers. If we don't do this we're going to continue to crush and kill these people. We've seen almost 40
The pattern of violations program has been controversial in many ways because no single mine ever met the standards that were intended by Congress, or the standard was not applied in a way Congress had intended. We needed to sit back and look at what Congress said and implement a program of enforcement. Our proposed rules are going through the public process. Anyone who attended or paid attention to any of the eight Congressional hearings that I've been through would realize that this issue is something Congress expects to fix. They weren't satisfied with the status quo. Last year there were about 172,000 violations issued by MSHA. About 80,000 of those citations were issued at coal operations. But coal only represent 3.5% of the mining popu- lation. If you look where the injuries or deaths are most prevalent, it's in underground coal mines. If you look at where most of the violations are issued, and where we find the greatest lack of compli- ance, it's in underground coal mines.
industry today is much better than when I started. You can go to our website [www.MSHA.gov] and see which mines are the safest. We now have the ability to breakdown the accident, injury and com- pliance history of every mine that we inspect. The pattern of violations program is one of the things helping to alert people. We need to let folks know what we expect them to do. When we did the potential pattern of violations criteria under the current rule, one thing we did was post all of the criteria on the website so every mine operator knows what the rules would be and are currently. Then we created the potential pattern of violations screen tool where any miner can go on our website, plug in the ID number of that mine, and find out every day how they stack up against the potential pattern of violations criteria. So now a miner look- ing for work can research various mines and decide for themselves how much risk they want to take. This screening tool gives them that much more control over their own destiny.
Editor's Note: At this point, Main asked to stop recording. His answer though was unforgettable.
I started in the mining industry when I was 18 years old. And I can happily say that the mining
Though coal is extremely important, market forces will determine the future of the industry. But there's an awful lot of natural gas coming online.
38 www.coalage.com
December 2011
Continued from Page 35...
Yes, but given the pressure coming down from your administration, what role will coal play going for- ward?
If you talk to the average coal miner today, they feel like they are being hit by a blizzard of rules, not just from MSHA but through the various agencies in this administration. What's the future of mining in this country?
Main:
When you talk to young people about the industry, is mining a career you suggest that they pursue?
Main: Main: