Mining safety and health issues
Mining safety and health issues encompass the myriad hazards faced by workers in one of the most dangerous major industries. Miners, especially those in underground environments, confront immediate dangers such as fires, explosions, cave-ins, and the risks associated with heavy machinery. In addition to these acute threats, long-term exposure to airborne dust and toxic gases can lead to serious health conditions, including pneumoconiosis and various forms of lung disease. Historical efforts to improve mining safety have involved collaboration between labor organizations, management, and regulatory agencies, which have collectively reduced injury and illness rates over time.
Despite significant advancements, mining safety practices and health standards remain inconsistent globally, particularly between industrialized and developing nations. Regulatory measures, such as the establishment of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), have been crucial in enforcing safety regulations and conducting research to mitigate risks. Continued diligence in training, technological improvements, and health monitoring is necessary to protect miners from both immediate and long-term hazards. Overall, the mining industry must navigate a complex landscape of safety challenges while striving to improve conditions for its workforce.
Subject Terms
Mining safety and health issues
Mining is an inherently hazardous industry. Significant reforms and improvements were made in the twentieth century to address the health and safety hazards faced by miners, often in response to major disasters that heightened public awareness of these problems.
Background
Mining is one of the most hazardous of major industries. Miners, particularly in underground operations, face a wide range of safety and health hazards, from immediate threats such as fire or explosion to the risk of developing lung disease or other illnesses from years of exposure to adverse conditions. Most of the effort to address mining safety and health came in the twentieth century, with labor organizations, mining management, and government working (both separately and collectively) toward reform. Increased worker and management awareness as well as the efforts of regulatory agencies have led to a decrease in industry-related injury and illness. However, while the industrialized nations have made considerable progress in mining safety and health, technological and labor standards vary greatly throughout the world.
Safety Hazards
One of the greatest safety hazards facing underground miners is that of fire and explosion. Workers can be trapped underground and asphyxiated, or crushed as mine structures collapse. Many gases found in mines have explosive properties. Firedamp, a highly flammable gaseous mixture composed mainly of methane, is common in coal and lignite mines and is sometimes found in potassium mines and bituminous shales. It is explosive in concentrations of 5 to 15 percent in air. In some coal mines, huge amounts of carbon dioxide may be released from the exposed coal with explosive force. Increasing ventilation or the draining off of flammable and explosive gases can dilute their concentrations to safe levels. Controlling outside ignition sources, such as electrical equipment that could spark or heat excessively, is another way to reduce the risk of fire and explosion.
Airborne dust is also capable of igniting and exploding. Drilling, cutting, and breaking with compressed-air equipment generates airborne rock dust. Drills and other equipment with an internal water feed that sprays rock surfaces during operation help to reduce dust concentrations. Exhaust ventilation and dust collection systems also reduce the dust-ignition hazard.
Other safety hazards that miners face include cave-ins, flooding, falling rocks and other objects, slipping and falling, handling of explosives, and working with and around heavy machinery and vehicles. While some accidents and injuries are inevitable, many can be reduced or eliminated through worker training and safe work practices.
Health Hazards
As noted above, mining equipment generates airborne dust. Dust particles measuring 0.5 to 5 micrometers in diameter are especially dangerous, as they can settle in the lungs. Prolonged inhalation of metallic or dusts can lead to a lung disease called pneumoconiosis. Black lung disease is a well-publicized form of pneumoconiosis brought on by coal dust. The effects of asbestos exposure are also widely known: Inhaling particles of this fibrous mineral can cause asbestosis, a chronic lung inflammation, and lung cancer. Workers in quarries and limestone mines can develop silicosis, a fibrous lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust. Dust control measures and respiratory protection equipment are crucial to miner health.
Gases and vapors pose another inhalation hazard for miners. Certain ores—notably those of arsenic, manganese, mercury, and sulfur—can emit toxic fumes. Hydrogen sulfide, a gas produced by the decomposition of pyrites by water, is poisonous and kills quickly. Radium and uranium disintegrate to form radon gas, which can cause lung cancer when inhaled. Other gases, such as methane, can cause asphyxiation. Ventilation systems, air monitoring, and respiratory protective equipment all contribute to worker safety where inhalation hazards are present.
Another common problem in mines is extreme heat, the result of the increase of temperature with depth (the gradient) coupled with the heat generated by mining equipment. Many mines are also naturally damp, a problem compounded by water sprays used for dust suppression. High humidity interferes with the evaporation of sweat and hence with the body’s natural cooling ability. The warm, damp environment not only leads to heat-related illnesses such as heatstroke but also is conducive to parasite infestation. Overly hot conditions can be eased through good ventilation systems, control, clothing cooled by dry ice, and limited work times.
History
The importance of the physical well-being of miners has been recognized for centuries. Georgius Agricola, the sixteenth century German scientist known as the father of mineralogy, writes of the hazardous conditions in mines of his day. In addition to the health and safety hazards noted above, early miners (particularly prospectors in the American West during the 1800s) contended with food shortages, vermin, cold, epidemics, and general poor health brought on by poor sanitation and a lack of proper medical attention for injuries and illnesses.
Early safety measures employed at mining operations included the drilling of ventilation tunnels to provide fresh air at depth; the use of canaries or dogs to test for carbon monoxide; the introduction of the Davy safety lamp for use in coal mines in 1815; and the introduction of ventilation blowers in 1865.
The first officially recorded mining disaster in the United States was an explosion at the Black Heath Coal Mine near Richmond, Virginia, in 1839, in which 52 men died. In 1869, there were two major coal-mine disasters: a fire at the Yellowjacket Mine that claimed 49 miners’ lives, and another at the Avondale Mine in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, in which 179 miners died. Subsequent legislation was passed that required two exits at every mine and prohibited the placement of ore-breaking equipment over the shaft.
There were several large coal-mining disasters in the United States in the twentieth century. In 1900, an explosion at the Scofield Mine in Scofield, Utah, killed 200 miners. In 1907, another 361 died in an explosion and fire at Monongah, West Virginia, the worst mining disaster in the history of the United States. Two weeks later, 239 miners were killed at Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania. In 1908, at Marianna, Pennsylvania, 154 miners were killed. Another 259 died in 1909 in a fire at Cherry, Illinois.
This series of disasters led Congress to pass the Organic Act of 1910, which established the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) under the Department of the Interior. The idea of such a bureau, which would oversee the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of scientific, technical, and economic data of value to the mineral industries, had been under consideration for a number of years. The early USBM focused on reducing the mortality rate of miners; to this end, it investigated mine explosions, promoted miner safety and accident prevention through training, and strove toward improvement of working conditions for miners. However, the Organic Act did not permit the USBM to inspect mines, and adoption of its technical recommendations was entirely voluntary. In 1915, Congress passed an act that authorized the establishment of seven mine-safety stations.
While the USBM’s early research helped to reduce the rate of mining-related fatalities, disasters continued to claim miners’ lives. From about 1910 until about 1940, miners died in work-related accidents at an average rate of 2,000 per year. The death of 276 miners in a 1940 coal mine disaster led to passage of the Coal Mine Inspection and Investigation Act of 1941, which authorized the USBM to enter and inspect mines and recommend corrective action.
Coal mine explosions killed 111 miners at the Centralia Number 5 Mine in southern Illinois in 1947 and 119 miners at the Orient Number 2 Mine of the Chicago, Wilmington, and Franklin Coal Company in West Frankfort, Illinois, in 1951. These disasters led to passage of the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act of 1952, in which federal mine inspectors were given limited enforcement power to prevent major disasters. Hearings led to the closure of 518 unsafe mines.
The 1960s to the 2000s
The Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act of 1966, which applied to operations at mines other than those producing coal and lignite, provided for the establishment of mandatory standards addressing conditions or practices that could cause death or serious physical harm. Inspectors were empowered to stop operations that were deemed health- or life-threatening.
In 1968, a series of explosions at Consolidation Coal’s Number 9 Mine in West Virginia killed 78 miners. In response, Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. It established procedures for developing mandatory standards for the coal mining industry and called for expanded health and safety research to eliminate or reduce the risk of health impairment, injury, or death. Inspectors were given authority to withdraw miners from dangerous areas. It also provided benefits for miners disabled by black lung disease. (A 1965 survey had found more than 100,000 active or retired coal miners in the United States suffering from black lung disease.)
In 1973, the secretary of the interior separated the USBM’s regulatory function from its mining research function by establishing the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA). MESA was responsible for administering the 1966 and 1969 mine safety acts, which included enforcing mining health and safety regulations, assessing penalties for violating those regulations, prioritizing education and training in mining health and safety, and developing mandatory health and safety standards.
The Federal Coal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act of 1977 provided the first single piece of comprehensive legislation for all types of mining operations and extended the research directives of previous legislation to all segments of the mining industry. Under this act, MESA became the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) of the Department of Labor. With the closure of the US Bureau of Mines in 1996, the Department of Energy assumed responsibility for conducting mine safety and health research. In 2002, at the Quecreek Mine in Pennsylvania, nine miners were trapped for a period of seventy-eight hours; all nine were rescued, indicating the progress that had been made in mine safety and accident prevention. Although progress has been made in mine safety and accident prevention, mining accidents still occurred. A coal dust explosion in 2010 in Montcoal, West Virginia, killed 29 miners. The Department of Labor reported that 136 miners died from 2020 to 2023.
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