How MSHA, mine safety should be reshaped in 2025--Margo Lopez and Bill Doran Published Dec 20, 2024 --Pit & Quarry

How MSHA, mine safety should be reshaped in 2025--Margo Lopez and Bill Doran Published Dec 20, 2024

Photo: Alexandr Baranov/iStock / Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

As the new year gets underway, everyone has goals and aspirations.  

Maybe the garage needs to be cleaned out. Or you want to commit to being more forgiving to the person who cuts you off in traffic.

There are always things we wish we could do better or accomplish. In our world of mine safety, we also have some things we’d like to see done in 2025. Here is our short 2025 wish list.

MSHA’s direction

With the outcome of November’s presidential election, the leadership at all federal agencies will change when the new administration takes over Jan. 20. The Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA) is no exception in this transition.  

Keeping politics out of this discussion, our wish for the next assistant secretary for MSHA is simply that he or she originate on the metal/nonmetal side of the mining community. It’s just time.  

This is not in any way a criticism of the assistant secretaries whose backgrounds and experience were in coal country – Chris Williamson, David Zatezalo, Joe Main, David Lauriski and Davitt McAteer, to name a few. It’s simply a recognition of the fact that the mining industry’s demographics have changed.  

Based on our less-than-scientific review of National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health statistics, there are fewer than 1,000 coal mines and more than 12,000 metal/nonmetal mines in the U.S. Metal/nonmetal miners outnumber coal miners five to one.

Of course, this does not mean coal mine safety and health issues are any less important. It just means it’s time that metal/nonmetal miners have a voice at the top who has a greater understanding of their industry.

Workplace exams

Additionally, the workplace examination standard needs to be reined in from the “gotcha” regulation that it is turning into.  

During ramp-up and stakeholder outreach for the revised standard back in 2019, the industry was assured that the regulation would not be the basis for a default, follow-on citation anytime multiple citations were issued at an operation. In some districts, however, this clearly is now the case.  

The boiler plate language that has become all too familiar is this: “Based on the number of citations issued during this inspection, it is clear that adequate workplace examinations are not being conducted.”

There need to be clearer guidelines for inspectors on what factors must be in place for this catch-all citation to be issued. For instance, more emphasis should be placed on the operator’s workplace exam training efforts and actual workplace exam performance (i.e., exams conducted, as well as adverse conditions documented and corrected) rather than just numbers. 

We have seen this citation following the issuance of six citations – two S&S and four non-S&S. That should not happen.

Press release tactic

Also, the agency’s monthly impact inspection press release practice must end.  

This release that shares the findings of the inspections and singles out specific mine operators for their inspection results is a snapshot in time. It often does not relate to the enforcement picture that exists after informal conferences and contests.

At a minimum, the agency should follow up after the end of that process with the changes that have been made in informal and formal proceedings. That is probably a bridge too far, but ending the process altogether certainly is not.

Safety spirit

Finally, while the mining industry rebounded in 2024 from the 41 fatal accidents that occurred in 2023, the 28 that did occur (as of press time for this month’s edition) set a significant target for the industry.

During its 2021 fatality spike, the industry doubled down in its training and compliance efforts to tackle the problem and emphasize safe work procedures. Our hope is that this spirit and commitment, supported by best practices and strong leadership, will reduce the number even further.

The miners, supervisors and mine safety professionals that we are regularly around have a laser focus on keeping each other safe. That level of care and support, with cooperation and encouragement from MSHA, can only get the industry closer to its goals.

If the downward trend in the fatality rate can continue in 2025, it really will be a happy new year.

Related: A look back and what’s ahead for MSHA

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Bill Doran and Margo Lopez are with the national labor, employment and safety law firm Ogletree Deakins. They can be reached at william.doran@ogletree.com and margaret.lopez@ogletree.com.

READ ARTICLE here>>> www.pitandquarry.com/how-msha-mine-safety-should-be-reshaped-in-2025/

www.DavittMcAteer.com

Former mine safety secretary worries about NIOSH cuts- Jim Bissett/Inter Mountain 

JIM BISSETT

For The Inter-Mountain

There was an expression heard in San Giovanni in Fiore, and the other little mountain and coastal towns near the arch of the boot in southern Italy that have West Virginia coal-mining connections.  People would say it when they were on the way to work, an errand or evening with friends.

Roughly translated, it was: “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to Monongah.”

It meant that the loved one leaving through the front door at that moment fully anticipated safe travels and a routine return.

And, yes, they were referring to Monongah in Marion County.

On the morning of Dec. 6, 1907, in the ragged coal camp, hundreds of miners — many of whom were immigrants from San Giovanni — had gone out the door for their shifts at Fairmont Coal’s adjoining No. 6 and No. 8 mines.

A coupling snapped on a trainload of cars laden with coal coming up a shaft from the processing plant. Like a roller coaster ride, the cars clanked and banged as they rolled down the slope and back into the mine.

Metal on metal in the ensuing crash created sparks, which ignited the very air. The highly flammable “black damp” coal dust was thick and ever-present, and the explosions that followed were horrific.

As many as 500 lives were lost that day, and 100 or better of the death toll, as it came out later, were boys — many not even out of their teens — working underage and off the books.

“And now, with one wave of the hand, this administration is going to put us right back to where we were,” J. Davitt McAteer said Tuesday.

Trapped?

McAteer was assistant secretary for the Mine Safety and Health Administration for most of the 1990s during the Clinton administration. Among his subsequent roles was a stint as vice president at the former Wheeling Jesuit University overseeing sponsored programs — including the National Technology Transfer Center. 

He’s a Fairmont native who grew up watching his father — who sailed to the U.S. from Ireland to carve his purchase of the American dream in coal — go out the door every day to a job that could have killed him in the blink of an eye.

In 1968, when the Farmington No. 9 Mine blew, McAteer was a WVU law student with an eye toward labor relations.

His resulting white paper on the disaster got him a job with consumer activist Ralph Nader and helped line the portal to the country’s first comprehensive miner safety and health legislation a year later.

McAteer has been watching with dismay while scientists and researchers who have been furloughed from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown have been swapping their lab coats and laminated employee badges in exchange for protest signs.

A total of 10,000 workers in NIOSH divisions in Morgantown, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Spokane, Wash., were told in early April by the Trump administration that their jobs are going away in June. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is carrying out the reduction in force mandates as part of ongoing initiatives to “right-size” government, which the president says is bloated by bureaucracy.

Other layoffs are reportedly looming at MSHA, which has McAteer doubly concerned.

“There’s nothing ‘right’ about compromising miner safety and health,” he said.

Life, death and other assessments

Following Monongah and other disasters, safety analysts had formulated a grim analogy about mining and the Mountain State in the 1920s.

If given a choice, they said, of spending a day in a West Virginia coal mine or a day on a World War I battlefield, you would have been statistically safer taking your chances in the war, those analysts determined — even with the bombs, bullets and mustard gas.

NIOSH in Morgantown has its beginnings in coal miner health, in particular, with its early research looking at the scourge of black lung, which robs miners of their lives — one breath at a time.

That includes providing regular chest X-rays, along with research and development of respirators and other protective equipment to quell the amount of coal dust a miner will take in during a shift.

Continuous “long wall” mining machines and other innovations in the industry move metric tons of coal like never before, that also means more potentially lethal coal dust, McAteer said.

And with the Trump administration wanting to increase coal production at the same time coal safety effects such as NIOSH and MSHA are being curtailed, that means, McAteer said, the inevitability of even more Monongahs to come — in an already tenuous industry.

“In mine safety, the lessons are in blood,” he said.

“The only way you can measure what you’re doing is by asking, ‘How many miners were hurt and killed last year? How many have been hurt and killed so far this year?'”

For full story click here>>>https://www.theintermountain.com/news/local-news/2025/05/former-mine-safety-secretary-worries-about-niosh-cuts/

www.DavittMcAteer.com

WORKERS’ RIGHTS Published — June 26, 2019 BLIND SPOT: MINERS DIED WHILE THEIR BOSSES REFUSED SAFETY EQUIPMENT

Thomas Benavidez died on June 20, 2010, when a haul truck driver could not see Benavidez's pickup in a blind spot and crushed the smaller vehicle. (Pinal County Sheriff's Office)

This story was published in partnership with The Arizona Republic and USA TODAY.

INTRODUCTION

ORACLE, Arizona — Thomas Benavidez never came home that Father’s Day.

His wife and three children knew he had to work, so they didn’t make plans to celebrate that Sunday. Instead, they spent it trying to confirm rumors of his death that swirled through this Arizona community of fewer than 4,000 people and quickly spread alongside details of a mining accident posted to Facebook.

Police photos from the scene show the flipped pickup truck Benavidez had parked in an open-pit copper mine in 2010. A 240-ton truck the size of a two-story house, designed to lug rock, drove over the smaller vehicle, flattening it. Benavidez, 52, was caught in one of the haul truck’s blind spots and crushed to death.

The mining industry has known for decades about these blind spots and the role they played in dozens of deaths. All the while, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has pushed companies to install readily available and relatively cheap safety features that, it says, could save lives.

Mining companies and trade groups have responded with strong opposition.

A Center for Public Integrity review of MSHA investigative reports, police files and court documents reveals that weak oversight has mixed with mistakes at mines to deadly effect, as the industry and its regulators bicker over proposed rules. Various types of heavy machinery have directly or indirectly been involved in nearly 500 deaths, dozens of them caused by blind spots, at underground and surface mines since 2000, according to MSHA data.

A recent analysis by the agency found that 23 deaths could have been avoided in surface mines alone between 2003 and 2018 if heavy machinery were equipped with safety measures such as backup cameras, proximity sensors or other collision-warning systems.

Benavidez suffered one of those avoidable deaths when a haul truck driver, even after following the mine’s safety protocols, never saw Benavidez’s Chevrolet pickup and drove over it. A mechanic in the seat next to Benavidez was extricated from the vehicle, but with serious injuries.

“Think about having a million blind spots all around you,” Benavidez’s 30-year-old daughter, Amanda, said. “That’s what it’s like to be in one of those. You don’t know what’s right under you.

“These large haulage trucks cost a fortune, but inexpensive camera systems which are currently available, are not required by MSHA,” Davitt McAteer, the head of MSHA during the Clinton administration, wrote in a statement accompanying testimony before Congress in 2007. “In the late 90s, I initiated a voluntary program to encourage operators to install them, and sadly that program has languished in the last several years.”

INDUSTRY OPPOSITION

McAteer blames the industry, particularly the politically powerful National Mining Association, for the lack of progress on blind spot deaths. “Rules can be stalled now by virtue of anything,” he said. “The association’s bread and butter is to stall. That is their whole reason for being.”

The association came out against proposed rules in 2011 and 2015 requiring proximity-detection systems on underground continuous miners and mine vehicles.

In recent, written comments, the trade group acknowledged that such systems could increase safety in surface mines and that some mining companies were using them. But it said more research is needed, and, in general, “rapid introduction of unproven technology can pose unforeseen safety risks.”

In a statement to the Center for Public Integrity, the association said it did not track the extent to which its members employed these safety features, although “safety is the top concern for mining companies.”

State mining associations also wield considerable influence. The Nevada Mining Association, for example, fought the same rules proposing the use of proximity-detection systems, saying the technology wasn’t advanced enough.

“Safety is the highest priority for the Nevada Mining Association and its members,” association president Dana Bennett said in a statement. But she said that retrofitting equipment is difficult because “third-party aftermarket devices have often been found to be complex and have unintended consequences that pose potential risks.”

Read the whole story here>>>

www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates

Feds, UBB widow settle in lawsuit that alleged MSHA didn't do its job By Kate Mishkin Staff writer Mar 9, 2019

The federal government will pay $550,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged it didn’t do its job in preventing the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.

Carolyn Diana Davis, who filed the suit on behalf of her husband, and the United States reached a settlement last week, according to Davis’ attorney, Bruce Stanley. Davis’ husband, Charles Timothy Davis, was killed in the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine, which was operated by Performance Coal, a subsidiary of Massey Energy.

Because the settlement is money funded by taxpayers, it was made public, Stanley said. The settlement is still subject to a public hearing and approval by U.S. District Judge Irene C. Berger.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia in Beckley under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Davis filed the suit on April 5, 2018, the eighth anniversary of the explosion that killed 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County. Davis’ husband was one of the four bodies found by a rescue crew in the headgate entry to the longwall.

The lawsuit cites reports from the Governor’s Independent Investigation Panel, which said MSHA knew about UBB’s faulty ventilation system and yet ignored warning signs. The panel, led by former MSHA Assistant Secretary of Labor J. Davitt McAteer, found four failures: The mine had a history of methane-related events; it had ventilation issues MSHA knew about; MSHA was required to sample rock dust; and MSHA failed to “see the entire picture,” the report says.

The federal government’s own Independent Panel Assessment also found MSHA “failed to adequately perform its duties at UBB, and that this failure had a casual relationship to the explosion,” the complaint states.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration didn’t “exercise reasonable care” and breached its responsibility to Charles Timothy Davis by “failing to inspect and/or report numerous blatant, fundamental and grave violations of generally accepted coal mine safety standards,” the complaint states.

The federal government filed a motion to dismiss in response, saying Davis never cited any specific directives that MSHA employees violated.

Don Blankenship, former Massey Energy CEO, spent a year in federal prison for conspiring to violate mine safety laws. Last year, he ran in the Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia and lost to Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.The disaster could’ve been prevented, Stanley said. He referenced the 2006 fire at Massey Energy’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County, which killed two Aracoma mine workers.“I’ve always believed that had the federal government acted more diligently and with more resolve after the Aracoma Mine Fire we would’ve never had Upper Big Branch. I believe that in my heart,” Stanley said. “I think they had an opportunity to rid us of Don Blankenship and his management techniques long ago.”

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/health/feds-ubb-widow-settle-in-lawsuit-that-alleged-msha-didn/article_ad170398-992e-5820-ac08-47c5cd611322.html

www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates

Injury rates jump at coal giant Murray's West Virginia mines, Richard Valdmanis, Valerie Volcovici

(Reuters) - Injury rates have more than doubled at five West Virginia coal mines acquired by Murray Energy Corp. in 2013, according to a Reuters review of federal data, as the firm sharply increased the amount of coal produced per manhour.

Although injuries and productivity rates rose over the same period, the causes of the increase in injuries remain unknown and could include a host of factors in the complex business of underground coal mining.

Murray - the nation’s largest underground coal mining company with about 6,000 employees producing more than 60 million tonnes of coal annually - bought the mines from rival CONSOL Energy. Those mines now account for more than half the firm’s production.

Murray controls six other mines - in Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, and Utah - and each has an injury rate below the national average, according to the data. The company has won numerous safety awards in recent years, including from the U.S. government’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in 2015.

Davitt McAteer, a mine safety expert in West Virginia who had directed MSHA under former President Bill Clinton, said that many factors could have played into the increased injury rates at the Murray mines in West Virginia.

“Those particular mines are decades old, meaning miners are having to work deeper, more complicated coal seams, with aging equipment and infrastructure,” he said, adding that such conditions are more dangerous for workers.

READ THE FULL STORY

www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates

Who Is Caring For The Health And Safety Of Coal Miners?

Coal miner Doug Rutherford takes a break after his shift at a small mine on May 19, 2017 outside the city of Welch, West Virginia.

SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

A multi-year investigation published by Frontline and NPR reached devastating conclusions about the outbreak of advanced black lung disease affecting Appalachia.

The report found that federal government regulators failed to respond to warning signs ahead of the outbreak. Regulators were “were urged to take specific and direct action to stop it.” But they didn’t.

From the story:

It’s an “epidemic” and “clearly one of the worst industrial medicine disasters that’s ever been described,” said Scott Laney, an epidemiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

“We’re counting thousands of cases,” he said. “Thousands and thousands and thousands of black lung cases. Thousands of cases of the most severe form of black lung. And we’re not done counting yet.”

The reporters spoke to Danny Smith, who spent about 12 years underground in the mines. His father suffered from the same disease.

GUESTS

Charles Shortridge, Diagnosed with black lung disease, worked in the mines for over 25 years.

Howard Berkes, Correspondent – Investigations, NPR, @hberkes

Davitt McAteer, Former Assistant Secretary, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), 1993-2000, retired attorney

Amy Harder, Reporter covering energy and climate, Axios; former reporter, The Wall Street Journal; @AmyAHarder

For more, visit https://the1a.org.

READ THE FULL STORY>>
https://www.wfae.org/post/who-caring-health-and-safety-coal-miners#stream/0

© 2018 WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio.

www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates

An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands Of Coal Miners. Regulators Could Have Stopped It--NPR

An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands Of Coal Miners. Regulators Could Have Stopped It

December 18, 20185:00 AM ET

Heard on All Things Considered

 Greg Kelly's grandson, Caden, scampers to the tree-shaded creek behind his grandfather's house to catch crawdads, as Kelly shuffles along, trying to keep up. Kelly's small day pack holds an oxygen tank with a clear tube clipped to his nose. He has chairs spaced out on the short route so he can stop every few minutes, sit down and catch his breath, until he has enough wind and strength to start out again for the creek.

Caden is 9 years old, and even at his age he knows what happened to his paw-paw at the Harlan County, Ky., coal mines where Kelly labored as a roof bolter for 31 years."I just pray that the Lord give me as much time as I can with him," Kelly said, his eyes welling with tears. "He just lightens my life. I want to be as fun with him as I can. And do as much as I can with him."

"That coal mine made your lungs dirty, didn't it?'" Kelly recalled Caden asking. "Yeah it did. ... And I can't breathe and I have to have my backpack to breathe," Kelly told him.

Since being diagnosed with advanced black lung, Smith is able to mow his lawn only a few minutes at a time before needing to catch his breath.

Howard Berkes/NPR
READ THE WHOLE STORY ON NPR HERE

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/18/675253856/an-epidemic-is-killing-thousands-of-coal-miners-regulators-could-have-stopped-it

www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates

Update: 3 missing found alive in Raleigh County, WV, mine--WV NEWS

CLEAR CREEK — Officials with the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety & Training said Wednesday evening that three people who have been in a mine in Raleigh County since Sunday have been located.

Efforts were underway to get the people out of the mine, and transport them for medical treatment, according to a release from the state Department of Commerce.

Reports came in earlier Wednesday afternoon that progress had been made in rescue teams' advancements into the Rock House Powellton Mine in Clear Creek.

Rescuers who entered the mine through an entrance in Raleigh County — near which an ATV was found Sunday, kicking off the search — had progressed around 4,000 feet into the mine, according to another release. The teams had established a fresh air base and continued to explore the mine Wednesday.

However, teams had been unable to enter the mine through the main entrance located nearby in Boone County, according to the release. Crews on the surface continued to pump water out of and air into the mine Wednesday, but the water was still too deep to traverse.

An update from the department Wednesday morning said one team had been set to go into the Boone entrance and two teams for the Raleigh entrance.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE>>>
www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates

What Might Have Prevented The Soma Mining Disaster? Davitt McAteer:NPR Interview Middle East, Turkey

Since the mine explosion in Soma, Turkey, May 2014, Davitt McAteer has been looking into what went wrong. He's the former head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, and he addresses the tragedy.

Read the entire transcript here>>>www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates

Davitt McAteer on Massey Report: Probe Finds Company Systemically Failed to Comply with Law 1 of 2

Davitt McAteer on Massey Report: Probe Finds Company Systemically Failed Comply with Law 1 of 2

DemocracyNow.org - In independent state probe in West Virginia reports that mining giant, Massey Energy, was responsible for the April 2010 explosion that killed 29 underground coal mining workers. In stark language, the report concludes: "The story of Upper Big Branch is a cautionary tale of hubris. A company that was a towering presence in the Appalachian coal fields operated its mines in a profoundly reckless manner, and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk taking." The probe was overseen by J. Davitt McAteer, a former top federal mine safety official. It echoes preliminary findings by federal investigators earlier this year that Massey repeatedly violated federal rules on ventilation and minimizing coal dust to reduce the risk of explosion, and rejects Massey's claim that a burst of gas from a hole in the mine floor was at fault. The report also notes Massey's strong political influence, which it uses "to attempt to control West Virginia's political system" and regulatory bodies. For more on the report, Democracy Now! interviews J. Davitt McAteer. Part 2 of the interview can be found here: http://youtu.be/z17FaqRSvhk To watch the entire interview, read the complete transcript, download the video/audio podcast, and for Democracy Now!'s news archive on coal mining and the consequences of burning coal for electricity, visit http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/23
www.DavittMcAteer.com Davitt McAteer & Associates