Tuesday, April 27 2010, 2:00 PM
430 Dirksen Senate Office Building
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
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.
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."
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
