QUEENSLAND’s Department of Mines and Energy has released a guidance note for safe work near drawpoints in underground metalliferous mines.

The guidance note will aim to help mine operators identify hazards and safety controls associated with working near drawpoint openings. It was developed after a Coronial Inquiry into the death of a mine worker who was struck by a rock deflecting out of a stope.

According to the guidance note, falling rocks are the main hazard near drawpoints, but other falling debris should also be considered as potential safety risks when operators are establishing safe working controls.

Mine workers typically need to be near drawpoints and stope brows during drilling, charging and blasting, mucking, filling, surveying, and when carrying out ventilation and geological work.

Although the guidance note recommends changing the design of mines and operations to eliminate the need for working near open brows or holes, it recognises this is not possible in all cases. In such circumstances, it recommends risk assessments to address the hazards of working near open brows of stopes and other holes.

Workers are not allowed to work directly inside a slope, under the brow of a drawpoint or close to a vertical overhead opening without effective safeguards. These cautions come after a worker was killed by rocks being ejected from open stopes. Operators must therefore enforce safe distances for mining workers from open excavations.

The guidance note details many other hazard minimisation procedures and equipment which can be undertaken in relation to this issue. It also cites the legislative obligations for mining operators to minimise risks to workers through hazard assessment.

Small mine operations – those that employ five or fewer miners – that received assistance from the Small Mines Office between 2003-2007 reported a 66 percent decrease in their fatality incidence rates. Prior to 2003, smaller mining operations typically experienced a higher rate of fatal accidents compared to their larger counterparts.

The Small Mines Office helps small mine operators develop written safety and health programs tailored to their specific operations.

Kevin Burns, manager of the Small Mines Office, indicated that the agency's "robust enforcement efforts coupled with a dose of assistance that increases their ability to comply with MSHA safety and health regulations” largely contributed to the decrease in fatal incidence rate at small mining operations.

According to MSHA, small mining operations represent about 50 percent of all U.S. mining operations. Since its inception, the Small Mines Office has assisted more than 6,500 small mine operator in the United States.

"MSHA's Small Mines Office has clearly played a major role in assisting small mine operators in reducing the workplace hazards that can cause deadly mining accidents," said MSHA Administrator Richard Stickler. "These efforts have demonstrated that good health and safety practices need not be expensive, time-consuming or complicated."

Closings could end about 1,000 jobs at the two mines -- American Energy Corp. Century Mine in Monroe County and Ohio Valley Coal Co. Powhatan No. 6 Mine about a mile away in Belmont County.

A plan the suburban Cleveland-based Murray Energy has for a new coal preparation refuse site puts at risk natural habitat for fish and a rare form of salamander, the Ohio EPA says.

The agency has proposed that a water quality certification be denied. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is joining the Ohio EPA in opposing the certification, which would allow Ohio Valley Coal to use Casey Run in the Captina Creek watershed.

Any final order can be appealed.

The Ohio EPA wants the privately owned Murray Energy to find another location for coal waste and refuse to replace a site nearing its capacity. Although Ohio Valley Coal made the application, the site is also vital to Century Mine, said Robert Edward Murray, Murray Energy vice president.

The two mines will be forced to permanently close if the Ohio EPA decision stands, Murray said Thursday in a news release.

The mines produce about half of the coal in Ohio, he said.

The suggested location is the best option for the company and water quality standards would be maintained, said Michael McKown, Murray Energy general counsel. He said Murray Energy expects the Ohio EPA to balance environmental issues with employment needs of coal miners.

The Ohio Air Quality Development Authority has estimated approximately 2,300 Ohioans work as coal miners.

In February, the Ohio EPA said slurry -- waste water from the washing of coal -- made its way into Captina Creek, which flows to the Ohio River. The state has been monitoring for any harm to fish or other wildlife. Captina Creek is home to the Eastern hellbender, an endangered salamander.

"We're concerned that even spills that have occurred from their existing impoundment can be having a negative effect," said Kelly Capuzzi, an Ohio EPA environmental specialist. "There have been seven slurry spills in Captina that we've documented since 1999."

Murray Energy, meanwhile, has other problems. The families of six men killed in a Utah mine cave-in sued Murray Energy and other mine owners, claiming that the collapse occurred because it was harvesting coal unsafely. The federal court lawsuit in April contends Murray Energy and its affiliates knowingly continued to perform risky retreat mining last summer.

The collapse trapped the six men in the Crandall Canyon mine on Aug. 6. Their bodies remain entombed there. Three other men were killed 10 days later trying to tunnel in to rescue the miners.

Murray Energy has called the lawsuit's allegation of negligence false.

Murray Energy purchased Crandall Canyon in August 2006 and shares ownership with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Intermountain Power Agency, a utility consortium comprised of about two dozen Utah municipalities.

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U. S. Mine Rescue Association
http://www.usmra.com

On May 2^nd, 1972 fire broke out in the Sunshine Mine, trapping 178 miners when the fire broke out.

Rescuers initially found 85 survivors as the nation watched. Some say by the grace of God that two more miners were found alive a week later.

In all, 91 fathers, brothers, sons and husbands never came home that day.

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The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in America's Richest Silver Mine
by Gregg Olsen

A mine fire that broke out in Columbia County in the early 1960s eventually destroyed the community ofCentralia.

Now a documentary about "The Town That Was" is being shown this weekend in Pottsville.

The film shows scenes from Centralia in happy times, when 3,000 people lived there, before an underground mine fire destroyed the community. 

"The Town That Was" is being shown this weekend at the Sovereign Majestic Theatre in downtown Pottsville. It was brought in by the Pottsville Area Development Corporation. Five dollars will buy you a seat.

"We thought it was the type of film, it really touches the heart of anyone who lives now or was raised in the coal mining region." said Amy Burkhart of P.A.T.C.O.

The film centers a lot around John Lokitis, one of 11 people remaining in Centralia.

"This was actually a park at one time. You can see evidence of the swings and all. It's just amazing looking at it now that it was all green and children played here and all. You would have never guessed looking at it now," Lokitis said of the town.

The fire started about 50 years ago in a rubbish pit and spread to the underground coal deposits. Engineers estimate there is enough coal to burn at least another 100 years.

There is a lot of curiosity about Centralia from tourists.

"We receive inquiries about Centralia throughout the year. People are always looking for Centralia. How do you get there, looking for maps on how to get there, what is there to see there," said Mark Major of the Schuylkill Visitor Bureau.

The documentary about Centralia will be shown at the Majestic Theatre throughout the weekend.

KELLOGG, Idaho — The 91 men who perished when they were trapped by fire in the Sunshine Mine 36 years ago were remembered by this mining community with songs, speeches and prayers.

On May 2, 1972, the mine up Big Creek Canyon was the site of one of the nation's worst mining disasters. Smoke began pouring out of the mine, trapping 93 miners, and carbon monoxide killed 91 men. Two men found an air pocket, where they remained a week before being rescued.

The disaster is memorialized by a sculpture near the mine along Interstate 90, about eight miles southeast of Kellogg, where Friday's event took place, the Coeur d'Alene press reports.

"This is an important anniversary for many of us in the Silver Valley to pull together and remember the many courageous men that were lost that day," Sunshine Memorial committee chairman Bill Delbridge said.

Guest speaker and Mullan School District Superintendent Robin Stanley said the fire has affected his life and the people of the Silver Valley.

"I am proud to say that I too was once a miner, and what an honor this is now for me to pay tribute to the men and women who work day and night underground, in the most honorable line of work there is," Stanley said.

After Stanley's message, 91 family members, friends, and students from Kellogg, Wallace and Mullan stepped forward to individually read the names of the 91 victims, subsequently turning off the head lamp on their hard hat before walking off stage.

A 92nd hard hat placed at center stage symbolized the miners and mine rescue workers who have died doing their jobs since the tragedy.

Stanley compared the Sunshine disaster to milestone incidents throughout history such as the JFK assassination in November 1963 and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state in 1980. Everyone in the valley remembers where they were and what they were doing when the fire broke out, he said.

Stanley said he had not lost loved ones in the fire, but knew people who did.

"Everybody you talked to at the time knew someone who had not made it out," Stanley said. "An uncle, a brother, a son, a friend; 91 men, not just names on a plaque, all gathered at God's side that day."

The Sunshine Mine produced more than 350 million ounces of silver, starting in 1884 with the discovery of the Yankee Lode. Low silver prices led to its closure in 2001. Sterling Mining Co. acquired the rights to the dormant mine in 2003 and resumed production last December.

Stanley asked the audience to imagine a world without precious metals.

"A house with no electricity, no utensils, no communication whatsoever, not even a flashlight. The house begins to fall apart, there are no freeways or overpasses to drive on, but vehicles do not exist either," Stanley said.

"It's called the Stone Age, and that's what life would be like without the miners who have courageously gone underground to strip Mother Nature of her precious bounty for hundreds of years," he said. "But she will not give it up without a struggle, and in certain instances Mother Nature wins as happened on that infamous day."

An explosion ripped through a coal mine in southern Brazil on Monday, leaving two workers missing, a fire department official said. Another 25 men inside the mine were rescued with minor injuries.

The explosion occurred early Monday roughly 4 miles in from the entrance of a mine owned by Carbonifera Catarinense in the state of Santa Catarina.

"We have been unable to detect any sign of life coming from the area where the two are believed to be trapped by a lack of oxygen and a heavy accumulation of gas, smoke and soot -- the same reasons for our slow progress in reaching them," said Fire Captain Marcos Aurelio Barcellos.

"Some ruptured oxygen pipelines have been repaired and hopefully we will be able to find them alive in a few hours," he added.

Barcellos said the cause of the explosion was under investigation, but company spokeswoman Joyce Quadros said it could have been sparked by "malfunctioning welding equipment" the two missing miners were using at the time of the accident.