Federal Safety

From: NIOSH Mining Safety and Health

MSHA recently announced a proposed rule requiring that continuous mining machines be equipped with proximity detection systems. NIOSH has been working on this problem for over ten years and believes that an Intelligent Proximity Detection (IPD) system may be the answer to keeping miners safe around underground equipment. Continuous mining machines, the initial target of the rule, present one of the biggest challenges to safety because of the number of workers close to the machine and the variety of ways the machine can move, pivot and tram.

Information about the 2011 National Mine Rescue competition may be found here.

The contest rules may be found here.

The Contest Agenda for all five days (including registration on October 2nd) is attached below.

2011ContestAgenda

MSHA PROGRAM INFORMATION BULLETIN NO. P11-49

FROM:            KEVIN G. STRICKLIN
                      Administrator for
                      Coal Mine Safety and Health

                      LINDA F. ZEILER
                      Acting Director of Technical Support

SUBJECT:    Reissue of P08-16 – Clarification of Procedures to Use When
                   Reporting Self-Contained Self-Rescuer (SCSR) Inventories

Who needs this information?
This Program Information Bulletin (PIB) is intended for underground coal mine operators, independent contractors, miners’ representatives, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) personnel, and other interested parties.

From: MSHA

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration today announced that it has allocated $8,441,000 in health and safety training grants for fiscal year 2011.

Grantees will use the funds to provide federally mandated training to miners. The grants cover training and retraining of miners working at surface and underground coal, and metal and nonmetal, mines, including miners engaged in shell dredging or employed at surface stone, sand and gravel mining operations.

The MSHA Alert attached below highlights the dangers of explosive arc flashes and provides recommended best practice precautions that “should be taken before performing electrical work to reduce the probability of an arc flash exposure.”

ARCFLASHAlert082011