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Federal safety regulators have given the go-ahead to resume operations at the Tower mine, where 170 miners have been idled since shortly after the disaster at Crandall Canyon because of concerns about mining coal so deep underground.

"If they get everything in place, they could start up today," said Kevin Stricklin, administrator of coal-mine safety for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

The company is in the process of installing the necessary safety equipment, said Rob Murray, vice president of Murray Energy Corp. and the son of company founder Robert Murray.

"We hope to have the longwall automation completed and the Tower mine operational in early January 2008, at which time we will call back our laid-off employees," Murray said. MSHA approved the longwall mining plan at Tower late last week, after UtahÂAmerican Energy Inc., which co-owns both Crandall Canyon and Tower mines, consented to MSHA's safety demands.

Specifically, MSHA required the company to install a longwall mining system that can be operated from a safer distance, working farther from where the longwall machines are shearing coal from the working "face."

"We were concerned about people working on the face area, and we came up with a plan that basically a lot of the work will be done remote-control," Stricklin said.

Murray says that the longwall system being installed is cutting-edge technology.

"The health, safety and overall well-being of our employees is the highest priority to UtahAmerican and Murray Energy Corporation, and we remain committed to restarting the Tower mine and getting our employees back to work at the earliest possible time."

After the Aug. 6 collapse at Crandall Canyon, Murray Energy voluntarily halted work at the Tower mine on Aug. 27. The move left more than 170 workers out of a job; another 11 were laid off from Tower last week.

Murray Energy offered workers jobs at other mines, and some Utah workers relocated.

It took months for MSHA and UtahAmerican to hammer out specifics of the Tower proposal.

There were concerns, Stricklin said, about the depth of the Tower mine.

Records show mining has been done at 2,800 feet below the surface and is projected to reach depths of 3,200 feet, "deeper than any longwall machine has ever successfully been used in the United States," according to The Utah Coal Report, released by the Utah Geological Survey in August.

The Tower mine was doing longwall mining, while at Crandall Canyon miners were conducting retreat mining - a technique in which the thick coal pillars that support the mine are cut away, allowing the roof to fall in.

MSHA, in cooperation with mine operators, imposed a moratorium on retreat mining in deep mines - those at depths greater than 1,500 feet - after the Crandall Canyon collapse. At the time, no mines were doing retreat mining, but six mines had received permission from MSHA to do retreat mining in the future.