Mining deaths down significantly: Can something be learned from this?
January 6, 2010 by Fred HosierPosted in: Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, What do you think?
PDF Is tough enforcement a good thing? The number of miners killed on the job in the U.S. last year fell to the lowest number in the 100+ years that records have been kept.
In 2009, there were 34 mining fatalities. That’s down one-third from last year’s total of 52.
The head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Joseph Main, attributed the drop to beefed-up enforcement and stricter regulations in the wake of a series of mining disasters in the middle of the last decade.
In 2006, 12 miners died in a methane explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, and five died in a similar explosion at the Darby Mine in Kentucky. In 2007, six miners were killed in the collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah.
After those tragedies, states revamped their mine safety laws, and Congress toughened federal rules.
So here’s the question: Could a similar sense of outrage among state and federal legislators about the number of worker fatalities in all industries create other measures that would slash the number of deaths? What would those changes be? Let us know in the Comments Box below.
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Tags: Joseph Main, mining deaths, MSHA
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January 7th, 2010 at 10:28 am
Federal and state legislators (99% of them, anyway) will only do what helps them get re-elected.
January 7th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
When a mine accident happens it is likely that a group of people will be killed, while accidents in other industries usually involve a smaller number of people. Even if enforcement is increased, the same proportion of lives would not be saved. The “slash” in numbers - 22 people - is the equivalent of preventing perhaps 2 or 3 incidents in mining. That would only translate to a handful of people in other industries. Regardless, it’s always great to see a drop in fatalities.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:26 am
More than likely the decrease in deaths is directly proportional to tha approximatley 30% decrease in hours during the year due
to the poor economy. My reportables are down the same amount and so our the total hours worked by minors my company.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:47 am
An important factor is not being voiced by the federal government in regards to these statistics - due to the severe downturn of the economy, the mining community is only operating at around one half of the hours, and people, of the past. Let us see what last years overall incident rate is - I will bet it has increased.
In addition, with the recent push by the MSHA inspectors on compliance through the enforcement of extremely questionably actions and interpretations, most miners do not believe MSHA is there to help them as they were in the past.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:00 am
As a CSP and a mining safety professional for over 25 years, I have seen a variety of enforcement activities and legislative changes. Mine safety is exponentially better now than when I started in the industry. Admittedly, many of the major improvements are due to the original mining legislation enacted in 1969. The government, however, is ineffective in actually preventing injuries in most larger mining companies, but they proceed as if compliance is what reduces injuries. Unfortunately, the majority of “violations” are for insignificant items that have little effect on safety. The increased regulatory action has, however, probably shut down many of the small and illegal mining operations where safety and compliance were essentially non-existent and which normally account for the majority of fatalities. Safety and compliance, for the most part, are distinct from each other. During my career, companies that I have worked for have always been setting the standards for SAFETY above and beyond federal compliance efforts. Larger companies focus on employee behaviors to reduce injuries. Only an extremely small number of injuries actually result solely from a violation of a safety standard. Approximately 96% result from an employee’s personal behaviors in not properly following safety procedures. A strong management commitment to safety that teaches employees to recognize and mitigate hazards has been, and still is the real key to injury reduction in mining or any industry.
May 21st, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I did this analysis within my own company. Compliance with MSHA and safety performance are entirely different things. The areas with the best MSHA compliance had the highest injury rates, while the areas with the worst MSHA compliance had the lowest injury rates. MSHA’s focus on trivial and insignificant conditions can be a major distraction from safety performance. Employee behaviors and work practices are the drivers of injuries, not the things that MSHA inspectors look for.