Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993 TAG: 9303070151
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HUNTINGTON, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium
REPORT CRITICIZES AGENCY
The federal government knew as early as 1975 that tamper-resistant equipment was needed to protect miners from coal dust, although it failed to pursue its development, an independent audit has reported.The General Accounting Office, a non-partisan congressional agency that audits federal programs, on Friday released the results of an 18-month study requested in 1991 by Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.
The request came after the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration accused more than half of the nation's underground coal mines defrauding the dust-sampling program.
The program was intended to gauge coal miners' exposure to the dust that causes black lung disease.
"The federal government's failure to develop and require the use of technologies that would vastly improve the coal dust control program is tantamount to an abdication of responsibility to the nation's coal miners," Rahall said.
The report found the Mine Safety and Health Administration knew as early as 1975 that a tamper-proof dust sampling cassette was needed.
A contract was awarded that year for its development, but the mine safety agency, the Bureau of Mines and the National Institute For Occupational Safety and Health did not pursue it, the report said.
Development was not pushed because "the urgency for it decreased after an earlier tampering scandal ended," the report said.
The report concluded the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has done little to revise the program since April 1991, when it accused more than 500 coal operators of 4,700 separate instances of tampering with the dust samples.
At the time, the mine safety agency said the tampering had occurred at about 850 mines, more than half of the nation's underground mines. Many companies challenged the citations.
"The federal government can provide miners no better assurances of a healthy working environment than it could in 1991," Rahall said.
Among the findings of the investigation:
A tamper-resistant dust pump to collect samples is available, but the mine safety agency has refused to require operators to purchase the pumps.
Methods for tampering with coal dust samples still exist. The sampling unit can be removed from the mine to decrease dust collected on the cassette.
A group assigned to review the mine safety agency's dust control program only reinforced the agency's own reluctance to take control of the monitoring program from operators.
The group recommended against agency control of the sampling program "because the majority of operators do not engage in tampering."
A spokesman for the Mine Safety and Health Administration, Wayne Veneman, said Friday that officials at the agency had not seen the report.
However, he challenged the findings as summarized by Rahall.
"Since the discovery of coal dust sample tampering, we've done a great deal to enforce compliance," Veneman said.
The 1991 citations issued by the Mine Safety and Health Administration accused operators of deliberately defrauding the monitoring system.
Where dust exceeds permitted levels, mine operators are required to reduce the dust.
Critics say the operators are reluctant to control dust because most methods of control slow production.
Miners must wear a pump that collects dust from the atmosphere in a sealed pre-weighed filter cassette while they perform specific jobs in each section of the mine.