Reviews from mine-safety advocates are mixed about the Mine Safety and Health Administration's new fatality prevention program, which calls for inspectors to look for the most common citations that lead to fatalities. "We could have had two guys sit down in a room for 15 minutes and come up with the types of issues that are raised in this campaign," Kentucky lawyer and longtime mine safety advocate Tony Oppegard told Jessica Lilly of West Virginia Public Radio. "We don't need more slogans and compliance assistance. I understand that education is always a part of mine safety and that's ok but ... it's really nothing different than anything we saw in the last 25 or 30 years."
West Virginia's chief mine safety officer, Ron Wooten, commended MSHA for recognizing specific standards that, if not met, can lead to fatalities. "Any time any agency, federal or state, raises the specter of increased initiatives towards prevention of fatalities that's a positive," he told Lilly. "Even if it's not followed up that's a positive." Wooten promised West Virginia would commission a similar review of its standards to find possible improvement in fatality rates.
Oppegard said MSHA should have looked to Kentucky for guidance on new regulations. He told Lilly, "In 2007 we passed a mine safety law that had a dozen provisions in it that exceed the federal law, and there's no reasons why those can't be made in the federal law; they're all common sense." He advocated "a revamped special investigation program, more subpoena power in fatality cases, and 48-hour notification before starting the most dangerous type of mining: retreat or pillar mining," Lilly reports. (Read more)
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