Published in American Longwall Magazine

 

Due to a growing aging mining workforce, an influx of new, inexperienced miners has been predicted for a number of years. This raises some concerns in the area of safety as

 

historical precedent suggests that despite enormous progress in reducing the mining fatality incidence rate (Fatal IR), when significant numbers of new miners are hired the Fatal IR increases or improvements stalls. This has occurred during three periods in the past.

 

The inroads achieved in Fatal IR can be attributed to many factors, but one of the most important has been the experience of miners. The ramifications of replacing retiring miners with inexperienced employees for new, sophisticated operations could be dire, especially relative to persistent occupational safety and health problems and jobs with particularly dangerous conditions and work situations.

 

To help address this fast-developing problem the Western Mining Safety and Health Training and Translation Center was established recently through a $4 million grant from the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

 

The Center is a consortium of four universities including the University of Missouri-Rolla (in a lead role), the Colorado School of Mines, Montana Tech and the University of Utah.

 

In the first year of operation, the work effort included 15 education projects and one translation project. The translation project converts research results and outcomes into training products.

 

For example, the virtual reality project is translating research on roof bolting safety into a training tool by which miners can gain experience and develop judgments through virtual exposure to various hazards and work situations.

 

The primary goal of the Center is to help reduce the number of injuries to miners through an integrated program of training intervention and translational research. The Center will specifically develop and implement a broadly collaborative western US program which does the following:

Identifies the training needs of mining personnel, today and in the near future.

Develops and conducts a coordinated, systematic, targeted, and multi-faceted training program which addresses prioritized mine safety and health issues.

Provides qualified instructors and faculty across the western US to train mining personnel in thrust areas.

Evaluates the effectiveness and impact of the training program on reducing injuries to mining personnel.

Conducts limited translational projects which convert essential mining occupational health and safety research results into information, resources, and tools that can achieve wider dissemination.

 

Through its efforts the Center will also address the increasing lack of experience by documenting the expert knowledge and situation-based judgments of miners in some of the industry’s most persistently hazardous jobs. In order to ensure the effectiveness of training tools a set of well defined, measurable outcomes will be assessed to determine the impact on minesites and regional accident and injury experiences.

 

A 1998 review of training research and literature, in which NIOSH outlined critical training elements will be used in pursuing the education projects. By using these important steps in preparing, applying and evaluating training interventions the Center will work to ensure valid content, effective transfer of knowledge and an appropriate assessment of safety outcomes.

 

The critical elements include needs assessment, established training objectives, specific training content and media, accounting for individual differences, specifying learning conditions, evaluation of the training, and revising of the training as necessary.

 

Focusing on western US mines, education projects address the evaluation and control of diesel particulate matter in metal and non-metal mines; surface mine haulage safety; mine rescue; mine ventilation; first responder at minesites; explosives and blasting safety; highwall safety and stability; introduction to industrial hygiene and dust control; fundamentals of noise; inspection of embankment dams; ground control in underground mines; mine radiation and home radon; hazard identification and risk assessment for small mines; jackleg drilling and bolting injury reduction; and material-handling injury reduction.

 

The Center is also establishing an External Advisory Committee (EAC), which will hold regular mining stakeholder meetings in order to ensure the highest priority issues are addressed. The EAC will also re-evaluate priority areas, identify new targets for training each year, re-examine objectives and outcomes, and evaluate the effectiveness of ongoing training projects annually.

 

Through its program the Center aims to develop experience, judgment- and reality-based training for mining jobs and tasks that have persistent poor safety records thereby ensuring the transfer of complex skills, knowledge and judgments from experienced to new miners.

 

Once disseminated systematically and broadly, such training tools could help overcome the emerging problems of the rapid influx of inexperienced miners at new operations and as replacements for retiring expert-miners.

 

* Dr Larry Grayson is chair of the Department of Mining & Nuclear Engineering, University of Missouri-Rolla.