A Resource Blog on MSHA and Above Ground Aggregate Mines

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Hi,

Thanks for stopping by to take a look! We hope that you will find some useful information as you browse this site. We welcome you as part of this informal group where we can communicate about what is going on in the industry regarding MSHA. Please feel free to leave your comments (but remember that MSHA does read this site too.) To contact us through the phone or email with your stories and concerns, call Cary or Kathy Matthews, at 541-536-1771 or 541-410-4673 (Cary's cell). Our fax number is 541-536-1772. You can email us at: lapineredimixinc@hotmail.com

New blog posts are featured on this page, and other information is found by category by clicking on the pages links above.

We encourage you to join up with your local aggregate association, because there is strength in numbers. If there is not one in your area yet, please consider forming one.

Take care, and remember to be in contact with your state officials to voice your concerns about MSHA. Our tax dollars pay for MSHA, which is under the Department of Labor. Our fine money goes into the general fund, and we cannot afford to keep paying out costly fines on the more and more frequent trivial citations to essentially support government spending. At least that is how I feel about it.

~ Kathy


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Thursday, April 29, 2010

Full Committee Hearing - Putting Safety First: Strengthening Enforcement and Creating a Culture of Compliance at Mines and Other Dangerous Workplaces


Link to HELPS Hearing on Safety:
http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=1c73dd04-5056-9502-5d66-5b82b85e591d


Link to Joe Main's Testimony:
http://help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Main.pdf


Link to Sen. Tom Harkin's Facebook Page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/tomharkin

Monday, April 26, 2010

See the video of this hearing tomorrow at 2:00 ET:

Full Committee Hearing - Putting Safety First: Strengthening Enforcement and Creating a Culture of Compliance at Mines and Other Dangerous Workplaces

Date:

Tuesday, April 27 2010, 2:00 PM

Place:

430 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Witnesses

Panel I

  • Joe Main , Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, Washington, DC

Panel II

  • Cecil Roberts , President, United Mine Workers, Triangle, VA
  • Jeff Harris , Mine Worker, Farley, WV
  • Wes Addington , Deputy Director, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, Whitesburg, KY
  • Bruce Watzman , Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, National Mining Association, Washington, DC

Panel III

  • David Michaels , Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC

Panel IV

  • Peg Seminario , Director of Safety and Health, AFL-CIO, Bethesda, MD
  • Holly Shaw , Philadelphia, PA
  • Dr. Michael Brandt , Board President (2010-2011), American Industrial Hygiene Association, Los Alamos, NM
  • Kelli Heflin , Coordinator of Regulatory Compliance and Safety Manager, Scott’s Liquid Gold, Denver, CO

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Washington D.C. Meeting:

This is from the April 2010 OIAA Newsletter. I am posting it here so that you can use it as an idea for your state or region. ~ Kathy

OIAA Director, Dan Kauffman has been working with Jim Sharpe of Sharpe’s Point: The Newsletter on Safety and Health in Mining regarding a meeting between Matt Bormet of Senator Ron Wyden’s office in Washington D.C. and Mr. Sharpe.

Following is a summary of Jim’s meeting notes, along with suggestions for Mr. Wyden’s office to consider.

“What MSHA is doing today is deeply troubling. The heavy hand of enforcement is hitting the small mines, who do not have deep resources. We are looking for a win-win scenario for everybody involved.

There are unintended consequences to the MINER Act that has been passed by Congress. Mines have become safer, but MSHA has taken enforcement to the extreme. Economic survival is the issue now. Money spent on excessive fines is no longer available for capital investment, job hiring, raises, 401K’s, health benefits, and sometimes even safety improvements. There is also the hidden cost of abatement.

Did Congress intend for any federal agency to exert this level of influence over such a vital sector of the economy? There is anger toward MSHA, and a backlash is coming. MSHA is making the federal government look bad.

To turn this around, we are asking Sen. Wyden’s office to hold a hearing in Washington D.C. that is exclusively for Metal/Non-Metal, and build momentum for changing the civil penalty structure in that area of mining. We ask that you invite Oregon and other Pacific Northwest producers to testify at the hearing. Also, please direct MSHA to not terminate its Small Mine Office program. Ask them to expand it instead. In addition, we are asking Mr. Wyden’s office to do all they can to limit the fallout to the aggregate sector from the Big Branch tragedy. We urge you to oppose the expansion of the S-MINER legislation beyond coal mines.”

A Ready Made Letter to the Editor :

Jim Sharpe has written the following for Aggregate Producers to submit to their local newspaper editors. Please make sure to give him credit by mentioning the information in the white box below.

MSHA WOUNDS ITSELF WITH DECISION

TO DROP SMO

MSHA has shot itself in the foot with its decision to eliminate its Small Mine Office (SMO).

SMO is an important player within MSHA because of the vital role it plays in providing compliance assistance to small mines, especially in the dimension stone, sand & gravel and quarry sectors. It also helps make mines safer. Its demise will leave a serious void in MSHA’s resources for helping small mine operators.

MSHA’s decision is a self-inflicted injury for several reasons. First, MSHA’s own data show SMO to be effective. In a self-evaluation released in 2008, the Office reported a 66% decline in the fatal incidence rate among mines it had served over the previous 5-year period. SMO’s performance was sufficiently impressive to elicit a strong expression of praise recently from the agency’s own top policy official, Deputy Assistant Secretary Greg Wagner.

Thousands of small mines around the country don’t need Wagner to tell them what they already know: SMO is a valuable asset and a ray of sunshine amidst the otherwise dark shadow MSHA has been casting of late. As we reported last month, 15 of 16 small operators who have used SMO reported being very pleased with the service. In a web-based poll this month, 34 of 40 respondents did not favor SMO’s elimination.

The decision also makes the agency look bad because of the bumbling way MSHA went about it. In January, an agency spokesperson said SMO will not be “dismantled.” At the same time, the agency gave at least four different reasons why it was looking at alternatives. MSHA also said SMO’s compliance assistance function would continue.

But just days after promising not to terminate the Office, the agency released its FY 2011 budget justification statement to Congress. It carried a line item stating that SMO would go, effective Oct. 1. At the same time, the agency did not adequately explain how SMO’s critical compliance assistance functions would continue.

MSHA said the 21 staffers at SMO would be assigned to enforcement and litigation duties within MSHA’s six metal/non-metal districts. That change highlights another reason the decision is bad. Assigning compliance assistance responsibilities to enforcers won’t work. MSHA’s inspectors are not dedicated to compliance assistance. Enforcement is their mantra, their bread and butter, how they will ultimately be evaluated. Any responsibility on top of that is apt to be seen as an imposition and resented.

Nor can operators on the receiving end of this repackaged “compliance assistance” be expected to take it well. Handing someone several thousand dollars in citations does not create a healthy atmosphere for a teachable moment.

Just ask any newspaper that decides to run it to run this credit line: Adapted from an article published in Sharpe's Point, a mining trade publication.

James Sharpe, CIH
Sharpe Media, LLC
Publisher of Sharpe's Point, The Newsletter on Safety and Health in Mining
4519 34th St. S.
Arlington, VA 22206-1914
703-379-0652 (o)
914-840-0716 (f)
sharpemedia@verizon.net or grosharp@msn.com
www.sharpespoint.com

HONK SO YOU DON'T GET FINED:


Remember to honk your horn if you move your vehicle (car, pickup, truck, loader, etc.) when you move either forward or backward at your mine site. Also, even personal vehicles need to be chocked when you are in the mining area. The rules say that if you are on flat ground, you don't need to, but do it anyway because some inspectors are handing out citations even then.

In addition, make sure that your toilets are flushed. Apparently, "if it's yellow, let it mellow" does not fly with some MSHA inspectors. Speaking of bathrooms, another operator who had 3 guys out in the woods rock crushing got fined for not having an outhouse available.

Keep the garbage can lids in your break room covered at all times. An Oregon mining operation got a ticket for an empty potato chip wrapper in an uncovered kitchen garbage can. True story.

Then MSHA complains that everybody is fighting their citations and clogging up the court system for years. Even the little tickets above can go toward a Pattern of Violations history.



Friday, April 16, 2010

Presidental Speech:

Here is the MSNBC link to President Obama's speech on Thursday, April 15, 2010 regarding the latest underground coal mine tragedy and how MSHA should have more power:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/36557921#36557921

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Link to NY Times Article on MSHA and the latest coal mine disaster:

Here is a link to the NY Times article on MSHA and the latest mine disaster. What do you think about this article? Is MSHA using it to let American’s know how kind they have been in letting things slide? Is MSHA trying to play the victim here? Will this help MSHA enforce the "S Miner’s Act"? While the sand, gravel and crushing operations are racking up tickets for unflushed toilets and potato chip wrappers in garbage cans for their pattern of violations; apparently the huge companies have gotten a pass, according to parts of the NY Times article.



MSHA's Kevin Stricklin speaks at a press conference.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36364165/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/

"The agency can seek to close mines that it deems unsafe and to close repeat offenders, but it rarely does so. The fines it levies are relatively small, and many go uncollected for years. It lacks subpoena power, a basic investigatory tool. Its investigators are not technically law enforcement officers, like those at other agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.


And its criminal sanctions are weak, the result of compromises over the 1977 Mine Act that created the agency. Falsifying records is a felony, for example, while deliberate violations of safety standards that may lead to deaths are misdemeanors."

Friday, April 9, 2010

From OIAA Board Member Gary Clapshaw:

Unacceptable!

I am sitting at my desk contemplating the tragedy that occurred just two days ago in West Virginia. Twenty-five, maybe more, hard working individuals in the underground coal industry have perished as the result of another catastrophic failure.

This particular company has what seems to be a rather large number of citations for some very severe violations.

To an aboveground aggregate producer half a world away, I have a hard time understanding why my small company should suffer the effects from the fallout of yet another obvious catastrophic failure by this company as well as the federal agency that oversees them, MSHA.

MSHA rolls out new laws and programs every time one of these incidents takes place and then here comes another witch hunt! You know the story, no trash can lids, un-flushed toilets, chock the wheels on your passenger vehicle parked in front of the office on level ground… All the paperwork to write the violation and then more paperwork to terminate the citation, asses fines and collect fines, contest citations and on and on… It seems to me that energy being used on the aboveground aggregate producers in this country to enforce such violations should be redirected and focused on safety. Underground coal producers are far and away from aboveground aggregate producers practice and MSHA’s time, energy and focus should be directed to those areas that, after devastating disasters such as this latest incident, remind us of where the serious safety issues lie.

This is why I must conclude that it is time to call for the resignation of the Heads of each District in the Agency. In addition, a full congressional review of the Agency as to the effectiveness of the Agency to oversee the safety in the industry should be conducted. MSHA’s policies directly affect my company. So, why shouldn’t they also be held responsible for the policies, enforcement, and programs that are constantly being implemented into law after such catastrophic events take place?

In a nutshell what I am saying is these leaders are fiddling while Rome burns.

It is time for the complete separation between underground coal and aboveground aggregate producers. MSHA should be protecting the safety of the miner from serious injury and/or death. Tell me the last time a miner died or was injured from a toilet not being flushed or a lid not being placed on a garbage can. Enough of the madness!

Gary D. Clapshaw

President, Turner Gravel, Inc., Turner, Oregon

Monday, April 5, 2010

West Virginia Coal Mine Disaster:

Our hearts and prayers go out to the coal miners in West Virginia. So far, 7 miners have died, and 19 miners are missing. This is very heartbreaking. We sincerely hope that the other 19 people are okay. We are praying for your rescue, wholeheartedly. God bless you and your families.

Here are some links to this story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36183425/ns/us_news-life/
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/05/west.virginia.mine.explosion/index.html?hpt=T1


At the same time, I hope that MSHA does not use this as an excuse to beat up the above ground sand and gravel pits. It will not help the coal miners, and it would not be justified.