Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 22, 1993 TAG: 9305220189
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORTON LENGTH: Medium
The task force - set up following the Dec. 7 blast that killed eight men at the Wise County mine - on Friday began formulating its recommendations to the state Division of Mines and a General Assembly committee that will rewrite the state's mine-safety law.
Many of the suggestions offered by task-force members for changes in state law and policy focused on tightening up inspection, improving the education of miners and establishing better communication between the Division of Mines and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
But Max Kennedy, a safety official with the United Mine Workers of America, said his main recommendation would be that the Division of Mines be made to comply with the task force's suggestions.
The state failed to adopt some of the key recommendations of another task force that investigated the 1983 explosion of the Pittston's McClure No. 1 mine in Dickenson County that killed seven miners, Kennedy said.
One of the 1983 recommendations that the state failed to pursue aggressively evoked some of the top concerns of the Southmountain task force.
Kennedy recalled that the 1983 group recommended that the Division of Mines set up a computer system to track the mines with the worst safety records and target them for special inspection efforts. It also urged better sharing of information between the state and federal safety agencies.
But Kennedy said the state didn't begin an effort to target unsafe mines until last year, too late to help the victims of Southmountain Mine No. 3, which had one of the state's worst safety records.
Although a formal system was never set up to share information between the state and federal agencies, his conversations with federal officials indicate they are very willing to cooperate, Kennedy said.
The investigation of December's explosion revealed that federal inspectors were aware of high levels of methane at Southmountain, a mine the state considered nongassy.
A proposal from task-force member Bruce Robinette that the Division of Mines should get out of the mine inspection business and concentrate on the training and certification of miners instead drew a sharp reaction from union members of the panel.
Robinette, former executive of the First Planning District Commission, said education might be more useful than new laws. His proposal would leave the federal MSHA as the sole source of safety inspections in the state.
But Kennedy said state law provides miners some protection that federal law doesn't. The union would renew its organized opposition to any effort to kill the state inspection program, he said.
It's uncertain, however, that Kennedy can muster enough votes on the task force to kill the proposal there. The union has only three of 10 slots on the panel.
Task Force Chairman Jim Robinson, a former state legislator from Pound, said the panel will meet one more time to vote on its recommendations before forwarding them to Gov. Douglas Wilder and the joint General Assembly committee headed by Del. Alson Smith, D-Winchester.
Most of the task force's fourth meeting Friday was spent questioning officials from the Division of Mines about their report on the explosion.
Other proposed recommendations of the task force include:
Requiring that critical safety information such as methane levels be posted where a miner checks in for work.
Requiring continuing education for persons who hold state mining certificates.
Making more spot inspections for such potentially dangerous areas of a mine as the ventilation and roof-control systems.
Making it against the law for company officials to sit in on interviews of witnesses to a mine disaster. That practice during the Southmountain investigation drew much criticism.
by CNB