US Department of Labor Awards US$400 000 for mine safety education and training

The Fiscal Year 2019 grants focus on powered haulage safety (such as reducing vehicle-on-vehicle collisions, increasing seat belt use, and improving belt conveyor safety), emergency prevention and preparedness, examinations of working places at metal and non-metal mines, or other programmes to prevent unsafe conditions in and around mines. Funding will enable grant recipients to develop training materials, provide mine safety training or educational programmes, recruit mine operators and miners for the training and conduct and evaluate the training.

Established by the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act of 2006, the programme promotes mine safety in honour of 25 miners who died in 2001 in Brookwood, Alabama, at the Jim Walter Resources #5 mine, and in 2006 in Buckhannon, West Virginia, at the Sago Mine.

The grant recipients are as follows:

• Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, Kansas, received US$50 000 to develop a powered haulage training module, including virtual reality simulation, that will focus on powered haulage-blind spot safety and workplace examinations.
• Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, received US$158 181 to plan, design and develop a three-module, web-based mobile equipment safety education and training programme on the potential hazards associated with mobile equipment visibility, designing and maintaining berms, and performing proper, thorough pre-shift examinations per the equipment manufacturer's specifications.
• The United Mine Workers of America Career Centers Inc. in Prosperity, Pennsylvania, received US$50 000 to develop a video and companion training documents emphasising mine rescue team exploration and recovery procedures.
• University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, received US$85 974 to develop modular training programmes for workplace examinations, conveyor and mobile equipment interactions, and mine emergency preparedness, with a focus on small and medium-sized metal and nonmetal mines. The training programme will include an evidence-based, train-the-trainer and evaluations programme.
• West Virginia University Research Corporation in Morgantown, West Virginia, received US$55 845 to provide emergency prevention and preparedness training to coal miners and operators in the areas of self-contained self-rescuer expectations and mine rescue.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/02102019/us-department-of-labor-awards-us400-000-for-mine-safety-education-and-training/