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Posted: 9:20 PM- As coal mines enter more challenging environments and the acceptance of accidents diminishes, inspectors are handing out more citations than ever before - a trend that's likely to continue, a federal mining official said Tuesday.
Kevin Stricklin, who oversees the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's coal division, said his agency has handed out 73,000 citations in the first nine months of the fiscal year and probably will reach 100,000 by year's end (Sept. 30). The fines for those citations will add up to $84 million, more than triple the $25 million assessed last year.
And with 170 new trainees "biting at the bit to inspect coal mines for the right reason - to make them safer," he expects enforcement only to increase in the years ahead.
Stricklin outlined MSHA's increased enforcement activity near the conclusion of a two-day mine safety symposium organized by former MSHA boss Davitt McAteer with assistance from the Utah Labor Commission. McAteer, now a vice president at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, held this third annual conference in Salt Lake City because of its proximity to last August's Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Emery County.
Six miners were entombed there Aug. 6 when the mine's walls imploded. Three rescuers died 10 days later in a second violent outburst. MSHA's investigation of the tragedy will be released Thursday.
"Utah had been off the [mine safety] radar screen until Crandall Canyon," said Stricklin, noting that agency officials had been concentrating more on responding to issues - the strength of seals, the use of breathing apparatus, the response times of mine-rescue crews - that became apparent in three deadly mining accidents in West Virginia early in 2006.
But Crandall Canyon suddenly elevated concerns about the hazards of mining deep underground, with mines' ground-control systems subjected to incredible pressure from the weight of a mountain overhead.
Stricklin said that although mining is not nearly as dangerous as a century ago, new threats are constantly arising as conditions change in the Earth and in the industry.
"We're going into areas that are not as conducive to getting coal as in the past," he said. "We have to make sure we're putting in better plans for conditions we haven't been in before."
Examining statistics for Utah, which has some of the country's deepest mines, Stricklin noted that 15 percent (54) of the 346 incidents here in the past two years involved bumps similar to but much smaller and less devastating than Crandall Canyon.
"That's something we have to be cognizant of," he said. "We can't say that's what happens in Utah and we have to accept it."
Consequently, inspectors out of MSHA's Price field office have handed out 4,000 citations in the past couple of years and four more "orders," which are more serious than citations. As is the case nationwide, a large percentage of those are for accumulations of potentially explosive or flammable coal dust in a mine, prompting Stricklin to observe that if he was a mine operator, "I'd put more people with shovels" in those areas to keep them clean.
Like other speakers before him, he said the commitment to safety starts at the top but includes everyone from owners to individual miners. "Everybody has to take their little part of the world and make sure it's safe."
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