The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration is concerned about issues with patterns of mine safety violations. Chris Williamson, the head of MSHA for the Biden Administration, recently talked about those worries in a conference call with stakeholders.
“Last year the agency issued a ‘pattern of violations’ notice to a mine for the first time in eight years and we recently ran a screening and a second mine has been placed on a ‘pattern of violations’ notice,” said Williamson.
Williamson vowed the agency will use all of the tools at its disposal to make changes aimed at keeping coal miners safe on the job. He said the inspections were critical to detecting the problems, but also noted mine operators needed to be more proactive.
“There’s really no reason any mine should be issued a ‘pattern of violations’ notice. The screening criteria is out there and everybody knows what it is. MSHA runs these screenings every year and it’s the responsibility of the mine operator to monitor compliance,” he said.
Williamson further suggested operators who realize they are nearing the threshold for a pattern of violations would be best served to seek out assistance from their district MSHA office for a corrective action plan. Even if the plan doesn’t immediately reverse the problems with inspection failures, having the plan in place can be a mitigating factor against more harsh penalties for pattern of violations notifications.
The agency is also conducting Impact Inspections, which recently have shown some troubling trends to Williamson.
“The results of these impact inspections continue to identify hazards during that are the same root causes we’re finding in some of our fatality investigations and reports,” he said.
Williamson said the Impact Inspections are a key tool to find and identify hazards and to get them addressed and eliminated.
