In his presentation before a packed auditorium at the Charleston Civic Center in the state’s capital city, the MSHA leader said that the nation’s 14,000 mines inspected in 2011 recorded a total of 157,894 citations and orders. It was notably down from the 2010 total of 171,373.

“Compliance is showing signs of improvement,” Main said.

Alarmingly however, he noted that 49% of those violations were cited at underground coal mines, a sector which represents just 5% of the total number of US operations.

Between 2010 and 2011, the total fell from 80,079 to 76,732 but at the same time the number of underground coal mines increased almost 6% and mining units jumped 9%.

While MSHA has “seen the numbers continue to fall” in terms of overall compliance, coal has remained on its radar.

“Underground coal mines unquestionably have the most challenging compliance issues and received much of the agency’s attention.”

Over the last year, 21 coal miners and 37 individuals across all mining types were killed on the job – the second lowest total on record since statistics began being logged in1902.

Main said by comparison, 273 workers died in 1977, the first year post-passage of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act.

“We’ve seen those numbers continue to fall since then,” he said.

“The distance to zero is much shorter now than it was in 1977.”

Making the important point that one death is too many and that fatalities are preventable, Main said the key to continued improvement was for operators to take more responsibility over safe production.

“The law is clear – operators need to take ownership of safety and health [and] those leaving the task to MSHA will face stiff penalties,” he said.

“If an MSHA inspector can travel through a mine and identify these conditions, so can mine operators.”

The agency is doing its part in continued improvement through greater enforcement and initiatives, including its impact inspection push that it began in April 2010 following the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine.

Since that time, it has conducted 387 surprise inspections at mines across the US and handed out 7655 citations, orders and safeguards.

Overall compliance at those mines is improving as well, reflecting the program’s success.

“Violations per inspection hour are down 11 per cent after mines received an initial impact inspection,” Main told the crowd.

“Significant and substantial [S&S] violation rates are down 18 per cent and 104(d) orders are down 38 per cent.

“The total self-reported lost-time injury rate at these mines is down 18 per cent.”

He cited changes in the pattern of violations process for the trend in the numbers, noting that since beefing up efforts in November 2010, it had issued 26 mines a total of 28 potential pattern of violations (PPOV) notices.

Also, two mines were on pattern of violations (POV), which he said were the first two closure orders it had issued since the Mine Act was signed.

“Since completing the PPOV process, the total violation rate among 14 mines that received PPOV notices in 2010 is down 21 per cent, the total S&S violation rate is down 38 per cent and the rate of 104(d) withdrawal orders is down 60 per cent,” Main said.

“The lost-time injury rate at these mines has dropped 39 per cent.”

Another initiative MSHA has pushed has been consistency in its inspections.

It developed a training program for all of the agency’s supervisors, which every individual has now received.

They will be retrained on a biennial basis.

The West Virginia Coal Association symposium runs through Friday