Published in the December 2006 American Longwall Magazine
Hudson is a 31-year veteran of the coal industry with a career dedicated to mine safety. Starting his career life underground with ARMCO Steel he has worked on continuous miner and longwall crews.
It wasn’t long before he moved into the safety arena as a safety inspector and engineer at the company’s Big Mt. and Walhonde Division when Peabody bought the operations and made him underground safety manager of WV mines.
He moved on to become the safety manager of the Harris Complex before taking up the position of Peabody WV safety director. Over the years he’s gained practical experience in emergency situations as part of mine rescue teams, and is now on the WV Diesel Commission, Governor’s Technology Task Force, and is chairman of the WV Coal Association Health and Safety Committee.
Q: Which event/s affected you most in your personal motivations to drive safety?
A: Mining was a tradition in my family. I knew very little about mining until my father was severely injured in a mine haulage incident. As a young man, I would attend safety training and mine rescue practices with my uncle and loved it … After starting my mining career, I worked with others that were very dedicated mining professionals and began my mining career with companies that were very safety oriented. The 1969 Health and Safety Act was fairly new and the innovations and processes directed toward the improvement of the miner’s environment was fascinating.
Participated as a mine rescue team member in recovery activities of other mines that has reinforced the need for high safety standards and mine emergency preparedness.
Love people and respect the miner’s culture.
Q: What do you feel are the greatest challenges to the progression of underground mining safety?
A: Culture and public perception. Contrary to most non-coal people’s beliefs, the mining of coal can be performed safely … Laws and inspections help to create the environment needed for a safe workplace but improvements cannot be made without the support of the miners being committed to working incident free each day.
It’s like the speed limit – the standard is established for a reason but it takes safe, responsible drivers to observe the speed limit postings for vehicle accidents to be avoided. The same is true with mining.
It frustrates me when safety in mining becomes a political issue. Miners are professional, hard workers and given the chance can develop processes that improve their safety and can work each day, incident free. Laws are not the total answer to making our mines safer. People make mines safer.
Q: This year has seen rapid legislation changes regarding mine safety. What is your view on the rate of change and what issues do you think legislators need to take into consideration when setting timelines for these changes?
A: All loss of life is tragic. The public focus as a result of recent events affected every miner. While we have improved our safety greatly during my career, I believe we as miners, regulators, enforcement and operators were shocked into action.
Again, the answer was not continuing business as usual but to stop and take stock of where we had come from and to evaluate how we can continue to improve mine safety. While I don’t agree that passing lines and lines of legislative guidelines were needed, the politicians did compel the industry/agencies to look at different paths for taking mine safety to another level.
While I feel that some of the proposed changes are needed and those changes need implementation schedules on a fast track, I fear that in our rush to do something, we will ignore emerging technologies or eliminate their development by using what’s on the shelf right now.
We need more research now and it needs to be a priority … These events, because of the close intervals and the level of national attention, spurred immediate legislation without completion of the investigation. Some of the initial proposals were misguided since our full understandings of the causes were yet to be determined.
But I believe we have caught up with this runaway train and are at least adding some semblance of rationality to the process. It’s important that we improve, but it’s more important that we get it right!
Q: How do past mining accidents (not just recent) help to shape Peabody’s safety program?
A: While we at Peabody Energy have core values that support a culture for safer operations, we try and prepare for the possibility of any such event.
The history of mine safety has come at a terrible price. It would be totally irresponsible to not learn from our past mistakes and disasters. We try and take a comprehensive system approach to safer mines and the center of our philosophy is our people. We believe that well-trained and knowledgeable people can recognize and eliminate hazards. Our standards must be higher than most if we are to safeguard our people.
Q: Please comment on some of the recent innovations in mine safety, such as proximity protection systems, two-way communication and more.
A: Our introspection has revealed a lot of information. SCSR units and their performance have been placed in the spotlight. The need for better communication with and the tracking of miners, pre and post event, has been identified.
Mine rescue principles, techniques, equipment and team availability are being reviewed. The concept of safety chambers or “safe houses” designed to sustain miners in those cases where escape is cut off has been revived. Training, a very important element is being revisited. A solution to these issues and more is important to protect our miners after an event.
Proximity devices are now being perfected and have been in the works for some time. This type of research and development is exactly what this industry needs to reach our goal of zero fatals in the coal industry.
Q: Do you see zero fatalities as a possibility in the short-term future?
A: Yes, zero fatality performances are truly possible. It starts with the people in the industry and daily awareness. Laws and fines don’t...click here to read on.
