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This article originally provided by
The Charleston Gazette
More methane sampling of sealed areas ordered in
an effort to avoid another Sago disaster
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration on Friday
finalized a rule that requires stronger underground mine seals, but
does not toughen seal standards as much as studies by two other
government agencies suggested was needed.
MSHA more than doubled the minimum strength requirement for all
seals built after Oct. 1 in the nation's more than 620 underground
coal mines, in one of the more significant safety reforms initiated
after the January 2006 Sago Mine disaster.
Agency officials also required additional methane sampling of sealed
areas in an effort to avoid a repeat of Sago, where 12 miners died
after a massive explosion in a sealed area of the International Coal
Group mine in Upshur County.
"Certainly, the final rule will provide miners a much greater
protection than they had before," said Phil Smith, a spokesman for
the United Mine Workers union.
However, the final rule, published in Friday's Federal Register,
continues MSHA's previous discounting of studies by the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers.
"If MSHA allows operators to use seals, then the law requires the
seals to be explosion proof," said Nathan Fetty, a mine safety
lawyer with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the
Environment. "But if MSHA doesn't plan for the worst-case scenarios,
how is it going to assure that each and every seal can withstand an
explosion."
Since 1969, federal law has required coal operators who want to seal
off mined-out areas to build all underground seals so that they were
"explosion proof." In a 1992 rule, though, MSHA essentially defined
"explosion proof" to mean able to withstand blast forces of 20
pounds per square inch.
In that 1992 rule, MSHA cited a 1971 Bureau of Mines study that they
said made the case for the 20-psi standard. But that study, by the
late researcher Donald W. Mitchell, noted that federal standards for
mine seals on government property, dating back to 1921, required
seals to be more than twice as strong as the 20-psi rule.
Mine seals are widespread, with estimates ranging into the thousands
at hundreds of mines across the coalfields. Throughout the 1990s,
regulators said and did little about them, despite a series of
lightning-induced explosions in sealed areas of mines in Alabama and
West Virginia.
Seals drew new, national attention with Sago, on Jan. 2, 2006.
Still, regulators did little, until five more miners died in a May
20, 2006, explosion at the Kentucky Darby Mine in Harlan County, Ky.
Two days after the Darby disaster, MSHA issued a temporary
moratorium on the use of lightweight, alternative seals like those
at Sago and Darby. Two months after that, MSHA announced that it was
- without actually rewriting its regulations - going to require that
all seals withstand at least 50 pounds per square inch of force.
Then, in May 2007, MSHA issued an emergency temporary standard to
require stronger seals. The emergency action gave MSHA nine months,
until late February 2008, to finalize a new seal rule. In June 2006,
Congress passed the MINER Act, which required MSHA to increase the
20-psi standard by mid-December 2007.
So, the rule finalized Friday was several months late, according to
either legal deadline. It had been under review by the White House
Office of Management and Budget since early February.
MSHA's final rule kept with the outline of its original emergency
rule to require stronger seal construction on a three-tiered
approach modeled generally after a NIOSH study.
New seals would have to withstand pressures of at least 50 pounds
per square inch when the atmosphere inside a sealed area is
monitored and maintained without explosive methane concentrations.
New seals in areas that are not being monitored or maintained inert
must withstand pressure of at least 120 pounds per square inch,
according to the final rule.
In other areas, where explosive methane concentrations are likely
or conditions such as bottom mining might increase blast forces,
seals must be designed to withstand pressures of more than 120
pounds per square inch.
MSHA estimated that the rule will cost mine operators nearly $40
million a year, or about 0.30 percent of all revenues for
underground mines nationwide. The rule will save a yearly average of
about two miners' lives, MSHA estimated.
"This final rule assures that miners can rely on seals to protect
them from the hazardous and sometimes explosive environments within
sealed areas," MSHA said in a 29-page Federal Register notice
announcing the rule.
MSHA again discounted a NIOSH recommendation that seals on some
large mined-out areas that are not going to be monitored should be
able to withstand pressures of more than 640 pounds per square inch.
MSHA also again dismissed the findings of a Corps of Engineers study
- which MSHA initially tried to keep secret - that found the Sago
blast could have involved forces of up to 1,300 pounds per square
inch.
MSHA said data needed for the type of study conducted by the corps
was not available, and that much of the information corps experts
used was "speculative."
"It looks like MSHA's washing its hands of the issue, rather than
doing everything it can to protect miners," said Fetty, who
submitted written comments urging MSHA to tighten its rule based on
the corps study.
Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, said
the final rule is tougher in some respects than what MSHA originally
proposed. For example, methane sampling of some sealed areas would
have to occur every 24 hours, rather than on a weekly basis, as
originally proposed.
However, the final rule also gives local MSHA officials more
flexibility to approve site-specific seal plans.
"This is important, as it will permit MSHA field personnel - those
with the best understanding of each mine's unique conditions - to
implement the rule to best serve the miners at that given
operation," Popovich said.
Ronald Wooten, director of the West Virginia Office of Miners
Health, Safety and Training, said state regulators now have 30 days
to review the final MSHA rule and report to Gov. Joe Manchin about
what, if any, changes the state should make in its own seal rules.
"It's a good, tough rule," Wooten said. "There are a number of
safeguards, and it will change the way sealing is conducted in the
future."
Wooten said the rule might prompt some mine operators to avoid
sealing mined-out areas and instead revert to the older practice of
ventilating those areas and conducted routine inspections of them.
To download a copy of the final rule, go to
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/08-1152.pdf
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call
348-1702.
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