NIOSH study backs mine shelters (airtight refuge chambers could save trapped miners and merit instal

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-wv--minesafety-refuge0124jan24,0,5836427.story

By TIM HUBER | AP Business Writer
January 24, 2008

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Federal researchers have concluded that airtight refuge chambers could save trapped miners and merit installation in the nation's 731 underground coal mines.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health researchers also have determined the current approach--building barricades from fire-resistant or plastic sheets--is not viable for keeping trapped miners alive, according to a report sent to Congress on Wednesday.

The report suggests reversing more than a century of practice in the U.S. coal industry and decades of inaction by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. Congress gave federal regulators the authority to require refuge chambers in the federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, but MSHA has never exercised that power.

If shelters are required it would be another in a long string of mine safety changes adopted after 12 men died of carbon monoxide poisoning following the January 2006 explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia. Aiming to improve protection for the nation's 43,000 underground coal miners, Congress ordered the study in the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act, or MINER Act, in 2006. The sweeping safety law was approved after Sago and two other high-profile fatal accidents that year that killed seven other miners.

"Refuge alternatives have the potential for saving the lives of mine workers if they are part of a comprehensive escape and rescue plan, and if appropriate training is provided," NIOSH wrote in its report obtained by The Associated Press.

"These alternatives are practical, survivable, useful," said Jeff Kohler, NIOSH's associate director for Mine Safety and Health Research. "Eighteen months ago, when Congress was crafting and writing the MINER Act, in Congress' mind, there were serious questions."


FULL story at link.