Just in from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration …

MSHA has issued a new final rule on coal-mine rescue teams, responding to a federal judge’s decision in February to throw out parts of the agency’s initial final rule. This is the first re-write of national mine rescue team rules in years, and was launched after the Sago Mine disaster revealed serious flaws in the government and industry programs meant to help miners escape from fires, explosions and floods.

But the United Mine Workers union challenged several provisions of the rule in court, and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Judge Stephen Williams sided with the union on the UMWA’s arguments against three provisions of the rule:

– That mine site and state-sponsored teams  could train at small mines annually, rather than semi-annually.

–Allowing state employees who are members of state-sponsored teams to substitute certain job duties for participation in one of the two annually required mine rescue contests.

–  Allowing state employees who are members of state-sponsored teams to participate in mine rescue contests by serving as judges.

According to an MSHA news release about today’s action:

The final rule requires that mine-site and state-sponsored teams train semi-annually at small mines, rather than annually, and state employees who are members of state-sponsored teams participate in two mine rescue contests annually.

In the preamble to today’s final rule, MSHA rescinds its intent, as stated in the preamble to the 2008 rule, that members of state-sponsored mine rescue teams may participate in mine rescue contests by serving as judges.  Under this final rule, all members of state-sponsored teams who are full-time employees must participate in two local mine rescue contests.

Delayed compliance dates of six months and one year, respectively, are included for Kentucky mine operators to establish new teams and complete the training in accordance with the requirements of this final rule.

“MSHA recognizes the invaluable role that mine rescue teams play in the aftermath of a mine disaster,” said Michael A. Davis, MSHA’s deputy assistant secretary for operations. “These teams are critical for ensuring the necessary response in the event of a mine emergency.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Mine Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.