For daily news updates and Web-exclusive news items, visit the “AggBeat Online” section of our Web site at www.aggman.com

Stone mining exempt from mine safety bill

By Tina Grady Barbaccia, News and Digital Editor

After another tragic coal mine explosion, the aggregates industry prepares for increased scrutiny despite its own increased safety record.

After intense lobbying to exclude surface and underground aggregates mines from the new mine safety and health legislation, the industry has dodged what the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) says are “potentially devastating provisions that were designed to prevent reoccurrences of coal mine tragedies” such as those at Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia in April and the disasters at Sago and Alameda mines in recent years.

At a full House Education and Labor Committee markup of proposed mine safety legislation on July 21, surface and underground aggregates mines were excluded from H.R. 5663. The bill was originally introduced as the “Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010,” but is now known as the “Robert C. Byrd Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010.”

This legislation is “one giant step for aggregates,” NSSGA says. The association and a coalition of other non-coal mining industries had been covering Capitol Hill in an effort to prevent being included in what the organizations considered to be “wide-ranging” legislation that would increase penalties, make inadvertent violations of the act a felony, as well as mandate stringent new reporting requirements.

The constant struggle

The entire mining industry has always struggled with a negative image. But after the tragic Sago coal mine explosion and Aracoma Coal Alma No. 1 coal mine incident, both in 2006, and Utah and Indiana coal mine incidents in 2007, legislation and federal regulations have been rampant and mining has been brought more into the public eye.

In reaction to the Sago incident, The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 passed in May of that year in an effort to further protect the safety and heath of the nation’s mine workers. However, coal mining and aggregate mining are very different, NSSGA notes, and sometimes the various types of mining aren’t differentiated and a “one-size-fits-all” mentality unintentionally creates unnecessary and unfair burdens on the regulated community. This was a major concern after the Sago incident because the construction aggregates industry is subject to the federal Mine Safety and Health Act, which has an extensive set of regulatory requirements.

The final version of the bill mostly applied to the coal industry. However, says NSSGA, the legislation codified provisions that were applicable to all mining sectors — such as the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) 15-minute emergency notification requirement when an incident or accident poses a reasonable risk of death; increased penalties, including a minimum $2,000 fine for Section 104 (d) (1) violation; and the increase of the civil fine for “flagrant” violations to a maximum $220,000.

Despite safety improvements in the aggregates mining sector, regulation has continued after mining tragedies regardless of the mining industry sector. In 2008, the House passed supplemental mine safety legislation (S-MINER) in response to the 2007 coal mine incidents. The aggregates industry, particularly NSSGA, vehemently opposed the legislation because it was geared toward the coal mining industry. (Go to http://www.bit.ly/NSSGApaper to see NSSGA’s Public Policy Position Paper on S-MINER. Go to www.aggman.com, click on Digital Edition, and go to the May 2010 AggBeat archive for a story about the coal incidents’ impact on the aggregates industry.)

Shortly after the Upper Big Branch Mine incident, Springfield Underground President and NSSGA Chairman Louis Griesemer said that he was concerned that Congress would pass broader legislation that would adversely impact the aggregates industry, despite the fact that it was “already seeing increases in safety and not being recognized for the good job we’re doing.” Griesemer also agreed that the legislation developed after increased violations and several coal mine incidents was too wide in scope: that the focus should be on coal mines not on aggregate operations.

“We think it’s not appropriate for our industry because we don’t think we’re the problem,” Griesemer told WY3-News in Springfield, Mo. (http://www.bit.ly/SpringfieldUndergroundKY3). “The type of material we’re extracting does not produce explosive gases like methane. The structure of limestone mines is a lot stronger and we’re not as deep as a coal mine.”

Real Needs

Knife River CEO: ‘A need for real jobs meeting

National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) Chairman Bill Schneider, president and CEO of Knife River Corp., testified July 27 before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the status of the stimulus and impacts on the aggregate industry. Schneider told the committee that, since passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his company has been awarded nearly $200 million in stimulus projects throughout its 17-state operation, NSSGA’s eDigest & Washington Watch reports.