Preliminary research has identified longwall changeouts as having the highest exposure rates to diesel particulates. This was largely due to the larger machines used in longwall operations and the very heavy workload they performed during changeouts.

 

Seminar speaker and occupational health and safety consultant Alan Rogers said future research would continue to look at practices used by industry during changeouts to try and find which were the most effective methods to reduce exposure.

 

“Problems arise from everyone getting in together and trying to get the job done, you need to sit back and plan out the whole thing so to reduce the number of machines working at any one time,” Rogers said.

 

“Studies have shown that if you can do it in a more reasonable manner you can end up getting less exposure, complete the job faster and save money.”

 

“A recent trial at a Illawarra Coal colliery worked extremely well and to me that is the way forward. We need to say to industry, hey there is no point all getting down there together and busting your backsides to get the job done, if you plan it well you can get it done faster and with less worker exposures,” Rogers said.

 

He said the use of standard methods of longwall changeouts would predicably result in exposure levels likely to exceed any exposure standards if and when they were implemented.

 

The has been identified by the coal industry an important issue and consequently the NSW Coal Services Health and Safety Trust has funded further studies over the next 18 months to identify key work practices and control strategies that will reduce exposures.

 

Rogers has been part of a team involved with diesel particulate monitoring projects in the coal and metalliferous mining industry for the past 12 years researching how diesel particulate is formed, what it is composed of and how that complicates the exposure measurements particularly in coal mines.

 

He said research had concentrated on developing sampling techniques to separate the diesel particulate from the normal mining dust so risk assessments could be carried out. The research was centred on surveys of New South Wales and Queensland mining operations and various machinery exposure levels to mine workers.

 

Exposure monitoring was performed with a two-stage impactor which separated the diesel particulate and measured the various carbon species.

 

“It has been fairly well proven that it is the fine particles of carbon soot which may be responsible for any potential health affects rather than the chemicals absorbed onto the particulates themselves,” Rogers said.

 

An understanding of the parameters that effect particle formation assist in design and implementation of various control strategies. Much of the work carried out in these projects has been incorporated into the NSW Mineral Council taskforce’s Code of Practice “Diesel Emissions in Underground Mines – Management and Control”