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WASHINGTON - A House committee advanced legislation Wednesday to speed up development of technology to allow wireless communication in deep underground mines.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, adds to a comprehensive measure passed last year urging the implementation of some type of deep mine communications system. Matheson's bill, now heading to the House floor, comes in the wake of the Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Utah that killed six miners and three would-be rescue workers.
Crandall Canyon had a communications system - a hybrid wired and wireless system - to allow a one-way page to workers but officials believe the collapse destroyed the antenna.
Matheson's bill is aimed to "jump-start" more advanced mine communications, his office says, and would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to launch an initiative to come up with a new deep mine communications system.
"This is a time for an all-out effort, in order to spare mining families from the ordeal that the families of the Crandall Canyon miners and mine rescuers endured," Matheson said.
"We need next-generation technology that tracks and communicates with miners when accidents occur. Mine safety is our top priority and as we learned in the Crandall Canyon mine tragedy, there's a gap in our ability to locate these miners when tragedy strikes," Matheson said.
The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act, passed by Congress last year, said that mines should have some type of communications system using the best commercially available system. But the industry has complained that there is no system yet that would work as Congress has suggested.