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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (703) 235-1452
For years, sand and gravel pits and some other kinds of
mines were exempt from enforcement of safety and health training requirements
but that is about to change. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration
published new regulations today that will allow the agency to inspect for
training programs at 10,000 mines across the country involving 120,000 miners.
"Extending this protection is one of the most important
steps we can take to improve safety in this industry," Secretary of Labor
Alexis M. Herman said. MSHA is part of the Labor Department.
Congress directed MSHA to develop training regulations by
Sept. 30 for all miners who work at shell dredging, surface clay, surface
stone, sand, gravel, colloidal phosphate and surface limestone mines. MSHA
conducted seven public meetings around the country in late 1998 and early 1999
to hear from everyone interested in the development of the new rules.
The final training rule comes at a time when new highway
construction is bringing increased demand for quarried gravel and other highway
materials. "With passage last year of the $217 billion highway construction
bill we have already seen a steady increase in the number of aggregate
operations that produce road-building material," said Davitt McAteer, assistant
secretary of labor for mine safety and health. "Clearly, the demand for
aggregates has prompted an increased need for trained miners, which certainly
will challenge us to increase our own efforts to protect miners' health and
safety."
Key provisions of the training regulation include:
-- Mine operators must establish miner health and safety
training programs.
-- New miners must get at least 24 hours of training,
with a minimum of four hours of instruction in seven specific areas before they
start to work. The seven areas are: introduction to the work environment,
instruction in recognizing and avoiding hazards, review of escape and emergency
plans, instruction on health and safety aspects of the work they will be doing,
instruction on statutory rights of miners, a review and description of the line
of authority and an introduction to the procedures for reporting mine
hazards.
-- Miners must receive at least eight hours of refresher training
yearly, which covers major changes at the mine. They must also be trained on
safety features of each newly assigned task.
-- Training must be provided
by someone qualified on the particular subject. Instructors do not need MSHA
approval.
-- Mine operators are allowed to substitute equivalent training
required by OSHA or other federal or state agencies.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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