MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Federal regulators and safety
officials should consider requiring more backup air supplies and work to
develop better breathing devices that would help the nation's coal
miners escape underground emergencies, a panel of experts said in a
report released Thursday.
The report from the National Research
Council makes seven wide-ranging recommendations to two agencies — the
Mine Safety and Health Administration and the National Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. Among other things, it urges better
technology, including systems for communicating with people on the
surface, real-time gas monitors and fail-safe tracking devices.
The
independent, nonprofit National Research Council is the main operating
agency of the National Academy of Sciences. The report was authored by a
nine-member committee of experts with universities, the private sector,
NASA and the United Mine Workers of America.
The report doesn't
propose new laws or regulations, instead focusing on ways to better
equip the nation's 50,000 underground miners to save themselves from
potential disasters.
Few will ever have to evacuate, the
nine-member committee on mine safety wrote. But when they do, the
response must be automatic — the result of deeply ingrained training
that prevents hesitation, confusion or bad decision-making.
MSHA didn't immediately comment on the report, which grew in part from several West Virginia mine disasters.
In
2006, 12 men died after an explosion trapped them at International Coal
Group's Sago Mine. Randal McCloy, the only miner to survive the 40-hour
wait for a rescue in poisoned air, later told investigators that
several air packs his crew had been carrying failed.
Last year,
MSHA ordered mine operators to begin phasing out that model of
"self-contained self-rescuer," the SR-100, after it proved unreliable in
tests. All of the estimated 66,000 potentially defective air packs must
be out of U.S. mines by the end of this year, and CSE Corp. of
Monroeville, Pa., no longer manufactures that model.
Many of air packs were stored in the emergency caches required under a federal law passed after Sago.
Mine
operators are supposed to supply at least two hours of emergency air
per miner and stash more air packs in escapeways. No miner should have
to walk more than 30 minutes to reach one, and they are to be available
in regular intervals the whole way to the surface.
Scrutiny of
both industry and regulators has increased since Sago, the report says
more must be done. The Upper Big Branch mine explosion, which killed 29
West Virginia miners in April 2010, is "a reminder to remain ever
vigilant."
Although the laws are now stronger and the industry has
spent nearly $1 billion on emergency preparations since 2006, the
report says there's little research to indicate how well mine operators
have complied with the new regulations or whether they've been
effective.
The industry and NIOSH must work to promote safety "as a
core value of the industry," the report said, and that includes
compiling existing research and recommendations from other high-hazard
industries to help identify strengths and weaknesses.
The
committee also recommended more research on effective, science-based
materials, training and procedures to help miners make better decisions
in crisis.
It suggests comprehensive self-escape scenarios be
played out at every underground mine at least once a year, and that the
lessons learned from those drills be collected and analyzed. It
recommends the creation of a public database that could help anyone
who's interested examine the outcomes.
NIOSH should also work with MSHA to ensure any new training is effective, and that miners retain what they learn.
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