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
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