Mine Safety
MSHA Devotes Substantial Effort to Ensuring the Safety and Health of Coal Miners, but Its Programs Could Be Strengthened
Gao ID: GAO-03-945 September 5, 2003
Despite a drop in injury and fatality rates since the formation of the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), mining is still a dangerous industry. Focusing on underground coal mines, GAO assessed how well MSHA oversees its process for reviewing and approving critical types of mine plans and the extent to which MSHA's inspections and accident investigations processes help ensure the safety and health of underground coal miners.
To help ensure the safety and health of underground coal miners, MSHA staff review and approve mine plans, conduct inspections, and investigate serious accidents. In these three areas, GAO found that MSHA has extensive procedures and qualified staff. However, MSHA can improve its oversight, guidance, and human capital planning efforts. MSHA is not effectively monitoring a few key areas. MSHA headquarters does not ensure that 6-month technical inspections of ventilation and roof support plans are being completed in a timely fashion. This may lead to mines operating without up-to-date plans or mine operators not following all requirements of the plans. Additionally, MSHA officials do not always ensure that hazards found during inspections are corrected promptly. Gaps were found in the information that MSHA uses to monitor fatal and nonfatal injuries, limiting trend analysis and agency oversight. Specifically, the agency does not collect information on hours worked by independent contractor staff needed to compute fatality and nonfatal injury rates for specific mines, and it is difficult to link information on accidents at underground coal mines with MSHA's investigations. Guidance provided by MSHA management to agency employees could be strengthened. Some inspection procedures are unclear and are contained in many sources, leading to differing interpretations by mine inspectors. The guidance on coordinating inspections conducted by specialists and regular inspectors is also unclear, resulting in some duplication of effort. Finally, although about 44 percent of MSHA's underground coal mine inspectors will be eligible to retire in the next 5 years, the agency has no plan for replacing them or using other human capital flexibilities available to the agency to retain its highly qualified and trained inspectors. The potential shortage of inspectors may limit MSHA's ability to ensure the safety and health of underground coal miners.
Recommendations
Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
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GAO-03-945, Mine Safety: MSHA Devotes Substantial Effort to Ensuring the Safety and Health of Coal Miners, but Its Programs Could Be Strengthened
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Safety and Health of Coal Miners, but Its Programs Could Be
Strengthened' which was released on October 06, 2003.
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
September 2003:
Mine Safety:
MSHA Devotes Substantial Effort to Ensuring the Safety and Health of
Coal Miners, but Its Programs Could Be Strengthened:
Mine Safety:
GAO-03-945:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-945, a report to congressional requesters
Why GAO Did This Study:
Despite a drop in injury and fatality rates since the formation of the
Department of Labor‘s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA),
mining is still a dangerous industry.
Focusing on underground coal mines, GAO assessed how well MSHA
oversees its process for reviewing and approving critical types of
mine plans and the extent to which MSHA‘s inspections and accident
investigations processes help ensure the safety and health of
underground coal miners.
What GAO Found:
To help ensure the safety and health of underground coal miners, MSHA
staff review and approve mine plans, conduct inspections, and
investigate serious accidents. In these three areas, GAO found that
MSHA has extensive procedures and qualified staff. However, MSHA can
improve its oversight, guidance, and human capital planning efforts.
MSHA is not effectively monitoring a few key areas. MSHA headquarters
does not ensure that 6-month technical inspections of ventilation and
roof support plans are being completed in a timely fashion. This may
lead to mines operating without up-to-date plans or mine operators not
following all requirements of the plans. Additionally, MSHA officials
do not always ensure that hazards found during inspections are
corrected promptly. Gaps were found in the information that MSHA uses
to monitor fatal and nonfatal injuries, limiting trend analysis and
agency oversight. Specifically, the agency does not collect
information on hours worked by independent contractor staff needed to
compute fatality and nonfatal injury rates for specific mines, and it
is difficult to link information on accidents at underground coal
mines with MSHA‘s investigations.
Guidance provided by MSHA management to agency employees could be
strengthened. Some inspection procedures are unclear and are contained
in many sources, leading to differing interpretations by mine
inspectors. The guidance on coordinating inspections conducted by
specialists and regular inspectors is also unclear, resulting in some
duplication of effort.
Finally, although about 44 percent of MSHA‘s underground coal mine
inspectors will be eligible to retire in the next 5 years, the agency
has no plan for replacing them or using other human capital
flexibilities available to the agency to retain its highly qualified
and trained inspectors. The potential shortage of inspectors may limit
MSHA‘s ability to ensure the safety and health of underground coal
miners.
What GAO Recommends:
In order to provide better oversight over its operations, GAO
recommends that the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health
* monitor the timeliness of technical inspections conducted as part of
the 6-month review of certain mine plans,
* ensure that mine operators are correcting hazards identified during
inspections in a timely manner,
* develop a plan for addressing anticipated shortages in the number of
qualified inspectors due to upcoming retirements, and
* revise the systems used to collect information on accidents and
investigations.
In its comments on the report, MSHA did not comment on our
recommendations but disagreed with many of the findings on which the
recommendations are based.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-945.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click
on the link above. For more information, contact Bob Robertson at
(202) 512-9889, robertsonr@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
MSHA Devotes Substantial Effort to Approving Mine Plans, but Does Not
Provide Adequate Oversight of the Approval Process:
MSHA Has Extensive Procedures, Highly Qualified Staff, and Conducts
Most Quarterly Inspections as Required, but Its Inspection Process
Could Be Improved:
MSHA Has a Comprehensive Process for Conducting Accident
Investigations, but Does Not Fully Utilize It to Prevent Future
Accidents:
Conclusions:
Recommendations:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: MSHA's Approval Process for Ventilation and Roof Support
Plans:
Appendix II: MSHA's Approval Process for Impoundment Plans:
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Labor:
GAO Comments:
Appendix IVGAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Number of Staff Assigned to Each District Office, May 31,
2003:
Table 2: Quarterly Inspections of Underground Coal Mines, Fiscal Years
1993 to 2002:
Table 3: Number of Underground Coal Mine Inspectors Assigned to Each
District Office, Percentage Eligible to Retire in the Next 5 Years, and
Number of Inspector Trainees in Each District, July 2003:
Figures:
Figure 1: Number of Coal Mines and Mine Workers, 1993 to 2002:
Figure 2: Fatality Rates for Underground and Surface Coal Mines, 1993
to 2002:
Figure 3: Nonfatal Injury Rates for Underground and Surface Coal Mines,
1993 to 2002:
Figure 4: Miners Working in "Low Coal" (a Mine No More Than 40" High):
Figure 5: Percentage of All Citations Issued from 1993 to 2002 for
Which Inspectors Did Not Follow Up by the Specified Deadlines:
Figure 6: Contractor Staff as a Percentage of All Workers in
Underground Coal Mines:
United States General Accounting Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
September 5, 2003:
The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
United States Senate:
The Honorable Arlen Specter
Chairman
The Honorable Tom Harkin
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate:
Last year at the Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania, a group of nine coal
miners accidentally broke through to an abandoned mine not shown on
their map and were trapped underground for 3 days. Although they were
eventually rescued, this event and other more tragic mining accidents,
including the explosion in 2001 at a mine in Alabama in which 13 miners
were killed, serve as a reminder that the safety and health of the
thousands of men and women who mine the coal in over 2,000 mines that
is used to produce over half of the country's electricity must be
protected. In passing the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977
(the "Mine Act"), Congress gave much of the responsibility for ensuring
the safety and health of mine workers to the Department of Labor's Mine
Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Since that time, the nation's
mines have become safer--in the past 25 years, both the number and the
rate of deaths and nonfatal injuries have declined. However, despite
these trends, mining remains a dangerous industry. Data collected by
MSHA on serious injuries (those involving days away from work) indicate
that mining, particularly underground coal mining, is one of the most
dangerous industries in the United States.
Under the stringent requirements of the Mine Act, MSHA protects the
health and safety of miners by inspecting each underground coal mine at
least four times a year, citing mine operators for violations of the
act or regulations, ensuring that hazards are quickly corrected,
restricting operations or closing mines for serious violations, and
investigating serious mine accidents. In addition, MSHA must approve
the initial plans that mine operators prepare for essential systems
that protect mine workers--such as ventilation and roof support
systems--and revisions to the plans. As part of its review of these
plans, MSHA conducts technical inspections of the mines every 6 months
to determine whether mine operators are following the plans and whether
the plans have been updated. These technical inspections are conducted
in addition to the comprehensive quarterly inspections[Footnote 1] of
each mine. MSHA's headquarters office is responsible for managing the
operations of the agency and monitoring the activities of the 11
district offices responsible for protecting safety and health at coal
mines nationwide. The district offices have day-to-day responsibility
for reviewing and approving mine plans, conducting inspections, and
investigating mine accidents. To carry out all of these
responsibilities, MSHA received an appropriation for fiscal year 2003
of almost $273 million. This included funding for the approximately 350
inspectors who are responsible for inspecting underground and surface
coal mines and investigating mine accidents and the 210 specialists who
are responsible for reviewing and approving mine plans, conducting
technical inspections of mine plans, and participating in
investigations of mine accidents.
You asked us to provide you with information on MSHA's efforts by
assessing (1) how well MSHA oversees its process for reviewing and
approving three critical types of mine plans, (2) the extent to which
MSHA's inspection process helps ensure the safety and health of mine
workers, and (3) the extent to which MSHA uses its accident
investigations process to improve the future safety and health of mine
workers.
We reviewed MSHA's policies and procedures, interviewed agency
officials, and analyzed data obtained from computer files and documents
at the agency's headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.[Footnote 2] We
also reviewed documents and interviewed officials at the National Mine
Health and Safety Academy in Beckley, West Virginia (Mine Academy); the
Pittsburgh Safety and Health Technology Center in Bruceton,
Pennsylvania (Technology Center); and 5 of MSHA's 11 district offices.
In order to include a review of the districts' accident investigations,
we selected districts in which serious accidents had occurred in the
past 5 years. We visited several underground coal mines and interviewed
mine operators and workers at these mines. In addition, we obtained
documents from and interviewed officials with industry associations,
including the United Mine Workers of America and the National Mining
Association. We conducted our work between November 2002 and July 2003
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
Although MSHA devotes substantial effort to reviewing and approving
mine plans, it does not provide adequate oversight of the plan approval
process. MSHA has extensive procedures for approving mine plans and,
for two of the three types of plans we reviewed--ventilation and roof
support[Footnote 3] plans--has assigned highly qualified staff to the
review and approval process and approves plans submitted by mine
operators on a timely basis. However, MSHA headquarters does not
monitor completion of the 6-month technical inspections that district
offices conduct in order to verify that mine operators are updating the
plans as required and following all of the plans' requirements. As a
result, some mines may be operating without adequate ventilation or
roof support systems, which could directly affect the safety and health
of mine workers. For example, data submitted by the district offices to
MSHA headquarters indicate that 5 of the 11 districts had not completed
technical inspections of the mines' ventilation plans during most
quarters of the most recent 5-year period, including several quarters
in which they had not completed over 50 percent of the inspections.
MSHA headquarters also has not provided adequate oversight of district
office operations by providing clear guidance on how to coordinate
technical inspections with its quarterly inspections of mines. For
example, in one of the district offices we visited, both the
specialists who conduct technical inspections and regular inspectors
spent several days inspecting ventilation systems in the district's
mines during separate inspections. If they had coordinated these
inspections, many hours of duplicate work could have been avoided.
Finally, many of the plans for containing debris produced by mines are
not approved on a timely basis because MSHA lacks qualified staff for
reviewing and approving these complex plans. However, MSHA has
recognized this problem and has developed a plan for hiring additional
staff in order to eliminate delays.
MSHA has extensive procedures for conducting inspections of mines,
highly trained and experienced staff, and conducts most annual mine
inspections as required, but the extent to which the inspection process
helps ensure the safety and health of mine workers is limited by
several factors. First, although MSHA's procedures for inspecting
underground coal mines are quite comprehensive, some of the procedures
are unclear, resulting in inconsistent interpretations of the
procedures by inspectors, and the procedures are dispersed throughout
so many different sources that they are sometimes hard to find. For
example, the definition of what constitutes a more serious safety and
health violation--those classified as "significant and substantial"--
is not clear, and inspectors often differ on which violations to
categorize in this manner. Second, although MSHA conducts most
quarterly inspections as required, MSHA headquarters does not provide
adequate oversight to ensure that the district offices follow through
on unsafe conditions identified during inspections, making sure that
mine operators correct the conditions by the deadlines set by the
inspectors. Using MSHA's inspections data, we found that, over the past
10 years, almost half of the violations for which MSHA inspectors
issued citations, including almost half of the more serious violations,
were not corrected by the required deadlines. Third, although MSHA has
many well trained and experienced staff, it has no plan for addressing
the fact that about 44 percent of its inspectors will be eligible to
retire in the next 5 years. This is especially important because it
takes at least 18 months of classroom and on-the-job training for new
inspectors to meet the minimum requirements of the job. Finally, MSHA
does not collect all of the information it needs to compute fatal and
nonfatal injury rates in order to assess the effectiveness of its
enforcement activities because the data it collects do not include
information on contractor staff who work at each mine. Although the
regulations require independent contractors to report injuries and the
number of hours worked by their staff at specific mines, MSHA issued
guidance in 1981 stating that the employment reporting requirement for
certain independent contractors would be limited so that they need only
report information in the aggregate for all mines. Since that time, the
percentage of contractor staff has increased from about 5 percent of
all underground coal mine workers to about 18 percent, and the
percentage of mine workers represented by contractor staff who incurred
nonfatal injuries in underground coal mines increased steadily over the
most recent 10-year period, 1993 to 2002.
MSHA has a comprehensive process for conducting investigations of mine
accidents, but it does not use the process to the fullest extent
possible to improve the future safety and health of mine workers. MSHA
has extensive procedures for conducting investigations, uses
experienced and specially trained staff to conduct them, and monitors
the quality of the investigations and resulting reports. However,
weaknesses in the databases MSHA uses to track mine accidents and
accident investigations limit its ability to monitor trends in mine
hazards and ensure that all serious accidents are investigated.
Specifically, it is difficult to associate injuries with specific
accidents or investigations of these accidents, monitor trends in the
types of hazards that cause injuries, or determine the extent to which
districts are investigating accidents. For example, although MSHA can
identify the total number of individuals who were injured by roof falls
during a specific period, it cannot easily determine how many accidents
were caused by roof falls during the period or how many of these roof
falls were investigated, information that could help the agency in its
efforts to prevent future accidents.
We are making recommendations to the Secretary of Labor to improve
MSHA's ability to protect the safety and health of miners. These
recommendations should help MSHA provide better oversight over its
operations and use its resources more effectively by improving its mine
plan review and approval, inspections, and accident investigation
processes. In commenting on a draft of this report, MSHA officials did
not comment on our recommendations but disagreed with the findings on
which several of our recommendations are predicated. For example, MSHA
disagreed with our findings regarding district offices' timely
completion of technical inspections related to mine plans, the agency's
lack of a plan for addressing the large number of inspectors eligible
to retire in the next 5 years, and weaknesses in the databases used to
track mine accidents and accident investigations. MSHA also provided a
few technical comments and clarifications, which we incorporated in the
report as appropriate. Our summary evaluation of the agency's comments
is shown on pages 32 and 33. MSHA's comments and our detailed responses
are provided in full in appendix III.
Background:
As of the end of calendar year 2002, the United States had
approximately 2,050 coal mines--about 700 underground coal mines and
1,350 surface mines. Over the past 10 years, the number of underground
and surface coal mines in the United States has declined: from
approximately 1,300 underground mines in 1993 to just over 700 mines in
2002, and from over 2,100 surface mines in 1993 to about 1,300 in 2002.
Over that same period, the number of mine workers also decreased; from
over 62,500 underground coal mine workers in 1993 to about 45,500 in
2002 and from over 74,000 surface coal miners in 1993 to about 62,000
in 2002. As shown in figure 1, the number of coal mines and mine
workers declined from 1993 to 2002.
Figure 1: Number of Coal Mines and Mine Workers, 1993 to 2002:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
These mines produced over 1 billion tons of coal in 2002, about one-
third by underground mines. Despite the decrease in the number of mines
and miners from 1993 to 2002, production has remained constant because
of the increased use of mechanized mining equipment and more efficient
mining techniques. In addition, over the past several decades, coal
production has shifted from primarily underground mines to large
surface mines, including mines in Wyoming and other areas west of the
Mississippi that produce millions of tons of coal annually. The 20
largest coal companies account for 70 percent of all coal that is
produced in the United States.
Some underground mines do not actively produce coal all year. Some
mines are only operated seasonally because of local weather conditions,
and mine operators often suspend operations at smaller, less cost-
effective mines when the price of coal drops below a certain level.
MSHA is required to inspect inactive mines as long as some miners are
still working at the mine; however, these inspections generally take
substantially less time than inspections of active mines.
Both the fatality rates and the nonfatal injury rates--the number of
fatalities and injuries for every 200,000 hours worked--are higher for
underground coal mines than surface mines. As shown in figure 2, our
analysis of MSHA's data on fatalities for the 10-year period from 1993
to 2002 indicated that the fatality rates for underground coal mines
were much higher than those for surface mines for this period.
Figure 2: Fatality Rates for Underground and Surface Coal Mines, 1993
to 2002:
[See PDF for image]
[A] Number of fatalities for every 200,000 hours worked.
[End of figure]
For 1993 to 2002, nonfatal injury rates for underground coal mines were
higher than those for surface mines, as shown in figure 3.
Figure 3: Nonfatal Injury Rates for Underground and Surface Coal Mines,
1993 to 2002:
[See PDF for image]
[A] Number of nonfatal injuries for every 200,000 hours worked.
[End of figure]
A variety of factors contribute to underground coal mines being more
dangerous than surface mines. One factor is that many underground coal
mines are less than 40 inches high, requiring miners to kneel, crawl,
or crouch in the mine throughout their work shifts. In some cases, the
workspace is so small that the large machinery used to mine the coal
takes up most of the space in the passageway, as shown in figure 4.
Figure 4: Miners Working in "Low Coal" (a Mine No More Than 40" High):
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Another critical factor that contributes to the hazardous working
conditions is methane gas, which is highly explosive. It is often
produced in large quantities when coal is extracted from underground
mines. Additional factors are the geological conditions in many areas
of the country that make the roofs of mines unstable, the danger posed
by fire in an underground mine, coal and silica dust that can cause
silicosis and pneumoconiosis (black lung disease), and the close
proximity of unknown areas of abandoned mines, which can lead to
flooding of the mine, as it did at the Quecreek mine last year.
MSHA's Coal Administration's headquarters is located in Arlington,
Virginia, and 8 of its 11 district offices are located in the eastern
United States near coal seams located in or near the Appalachian
Mountains. As shown in table 1, as of May 2003, MSHA's 11 districts had
a total of 1,017 staff who were responsible for protecting the safety
and health of mine workers nationwide, including 283 inspectors and 200
specialists assigned specifically to underground coal mines. In
addition to the district office staff, MSHA had 38 headquarters staff
members assigned to coal mine safety and health, for a total of 1,055
staff.
Table 1: Number of Staff Assigned to Each District Office, May 31,
2003:
Managers; District office: One: 7; District office: Two: 16; District
office: Three: 16; District office: Four: 24; District office: Five:
18; District office: Six: 18; District office: Seven: 17; District
office: Eight: 11; District office: Nine: 14; District office: Ten: 12;
District office: Eleven: 7; District office: Total: 160.
Underground inspectors; District office: One: 5; District office: Two:
30; District office: Three: 22; District office: Four: 61; District
office: Five: 23; District office: Six: 44; District office: Seven: 30;
District office: Eight: 20; District office: Nine: 27; District office:
Ten: 14; District office: Eleven: 7; District office: Total: 283.
Underground specialists; District office: One: 8; District office: Two:
21; District office: Three: 19; District office: Four: 31; District
office: Five: 21; District office: Six: 14; District office: Seven: 33;
District office: Eight: 14; District office: Nine: 15; District office:
Ten: 11; District office: Eleven: 13; District office: Total: 200.
Surface inspectors; District office: One: 7; District office: Two: 10;
District office: Three: 6; District office: Four: 9; District office:
Five: 7; District office: Six: 11; District office: Seven: 10; District
office: Eight: 2; District office: Nine: 5; District office: Ten: 2;
District office: Eleven: 2; District office: Total: 71.
Surface specialists; District office: One: 0; District office: Two: 0;
District office: Three: 2; District office: Four: 4; District office:
Five: 0; District office: Six: 2; District office: Seven: 1; District
office: Eight: 0; District office: Nine: 0; District office: Ten: 1;
District office: Eleven: 0; District office: Total: 10.
Trainees; District office: One: 0; District office: Two: 0; District
office: Three: 8; District office: Four: 5; District office: Five: 11;
District office: Six: 7; District office: Seven: 5; District office:
Eight: 2; District office: Nine: 1; District office: Ten: 0; District
office: Eleven: 5; District office: Total: 44.
Subtotal-enforcement staff; District office: One: 20; District office:
Two: 61; District office: Three: 57; District office: Four: 110;
District office: Five: 62; District office: Six: 78; District office:
Seven: 79; District office: Eight: 38; District office: Nine: 48;
District office: Ten: 28; District office: Eleven: 27; District office:
Total: 608.
Technical staff; District office: One: 1; District office: Two: 0;
District office: Three: 2; District office: Four: 6; District office:
Five: 5; District office: Six: 4; District office: Seven: 6; District
office: Eight: 1; District office: Nine: 2; District office: Ten: 2;
District office: Eleven: 2; District office: Total: 31.
Enforcement support; District office: One: 1; District office: Two: 2;
District office: Three: 3; District office: Four: 9; District office:
Five: 2; District office: Six: 3; District office: Seven: 2; District
office: Eight: 2; District office: Nine: 1; District office: Ten: 0;
District office: Eleven: 0; District office: Total: 25.
Office support; District office: One: 4; District office: Two: 15;
District office: Three: 13; District office: Four: 24; District office:
Five: 14; District office: Six: 16; District office: Seven: 17;
District office: Eight: 10; District office: Nine: 3; District office:
Ten: 6; District office: Eleven: 3; District office: Total: 125.
Administrative support; District office: One: 3; District office: Two:
5; District office: Three: 3; District office: Four: 5; District
office: Five: 5; District office: Six: 6; District office: Seven: 5;
District office: Eight: 5; District office: Nine: 14; District office:
Ten: 3; District office: Eleven: 4; District office: Total: 58.
Subtotal-non-enforcement; District office: One: 9; District office:
Two: 22; District office: Three: 21; District office: Four: 44;
District office: Five: 26; District office: Six: 29; District office:
Seven: 30; District office: Eight: 18; District office: Nine: 20;
District office: Ten: 11; District office: Eleven: 9; District office:
Total: 239.
Other[A]; District office: One: 0; District office: Two: 0; District
office: Three: 2; District office: Four: 0; District office: Five: 2;
District office: Six: 3; District office: Seven: 1; District office:
Eight: 1; District office: Nine: 0; District office: Ten: 1; District
office: Eleven: 0; District office: Total: 10.
Total; District office: One: 36; District office: Two: 99; District
office: Three: 96; District office: Four: 178; District office: Five:
108; District office: Six: 128; District office: Seven: 127; District
office: Eight: 68; District office: Nine: 82; District office: Ten: 52;
District office: Eleven: 43; District office: Total: 1,017.
Source: Monthly staffing report dated May 31, 2003, obtained from MSHA
headquarters officials.
[A] "Other" includes students and part-time employees.
[End of table]
MSHA Devotes Substantial Effort to Approving Mine Plans, but Does Not
Provide Adequate Oversight of the Approval Process:
MSHA has extensive procedures and highly qualified staff for approving
two of the three types of plans we reviewed--ventilation and roof
support plans--and most of these plans are reviewed and approved on a
timely basis. However, MSHA headquarters does not adequately monitor
completion of 6-month technical inspections conducted as part of the
districts' review of ventilation and roof support plans; data
maintained by the district offices indicate that some districts are not
completing these inspections in a timely manner. In addition, MSHA
headquarters has not provided clear guidance to the districts on
coordinating technical inspections related to mine plans with quarterly
inspections of underground coal mines in order to avoid duplication of
effort by district staff. Finally, staffing shortages have prevented
MSHA from reviewing and approving plans for containing debris produced
by the mines on a timely basis.
MSHA Has Extensive Procedures and Highly Qualified Staff for Approving
Ventilation and Roof Support Plans:
MSHA has extensive procedures for approving ventilation and roof
support plans. The Mine Act and its implementing regulations contain
many of the requirements for approving ventilation and roof support
plans. Additional procedures are contained in MSHA's Program Policy
Manual, ventilation and roof support plan approval procedures
handbooks, and the standard operating procedures for each district
office. These procedures provide specific steps for approving the
ventilation and roof support plans submitted by mine operators to MSHA
for approval. Mine operators are required to submit their initial
ventilation and roof support plans to the MSHA district in which the
mine is located for approval prior to operating a mine and are required
to submit revised plans to the district whenever significant changes
are made to the plans. The district managers are ultimately responsible
for approving ventilation and roof support plans submitted to their
districts. Generally, districts are required to approve ventilation and
roof support plans within 45 days of receipt unless problems are found
that must be resolved. In some of the districts we visited, state mine
agencies were also required to approve the mine plans. See appendix I
for additional information on MSHA's approval process for ventilation
and roof support plans.
Specialists assigned to each district office to review and approve mine
plans are generally highly trained and experienced. MSHA currently has
200 underground specialists assigned to its 11 district offices who
review ventilation, roof support, and other types of mine plans. A
majority of the specialists assigned to underground mines have at least
5 years of experience in mining and were former inspectors of
underground coal mines. As such, they receive 25 weeks of underground
coal mine inspector training at the Mine Academy as well as on-the-job
training, which qualifies them to conduct inspections and write
citations for safety and health violations. In addition, most
specialists have several years of experience as inspectors before
applying for specialist positions. Each specialist is also required to
take a minimum of 2 weeks of training in mine safety and health, such
as specialized training on ventilation or roof support systems, every 2
years.
Most district offices approve ventilation and roof support plans within
the required 45-day period. District offices track the review and
approval of ventilation and roof support plans, noting the date mine
operators submit the plans to the district, the dates plans are
assigned to specialists for review, and the dates the plans are
approved. We reviewed this information for the most recent 5-year
period, 1998 to 2002, and found that most districts approve these plans
on a timely basis.
MSHA Does Not Ensure Districts Are Completing Technical Inspections of
Mine Plans:
MSHA headquarters does not adequately monitor completion of 6-month
technical inspections of ventilation and roof support plans by the
district offices. Districts conduct technical inspections of the
ventilation and roof support plans at least once every 6 months in
order to ensure that mine operators are updating the plans to reflect
changes in the ventilation and roof support systems and following the
requirements of the plans. The specialists who review the mine plans
during the approval process also conduct many of these technical
inspections.
Our analysis of the information submitted by the district offices to
MSHA headquarters on the timeliness of 6-month technical inspections of
mines' ventilation and roof support plans for the most recent 5-year
period, 1998 to 2002, indicated that several districts had not
completed the inspections as required by agency procedures.[Footnote 4]
The data showed that, although 6 of MSHA's 11 district offices
completed the 6-month technical inspections of ventilation plans for
most quarters of the 5-year period, 5 districts did not, and 2
districts did not complete these inspections during any quarter of the
5-year period.[Footnote 5] In addition, our analysis of the data
submitted by the district offices to MSHA headquarters on technical
inspections related to roof support plans for the same period showed
that 3 of the 11 districts had not completed these inspections during
most quarters of the 5-year period.
As a result of districts not completing these 6-month technical
inspections in a timely manner, some mines may be operating without
adequate ventilation or roof support systems. Technical inspections of
the mines' ventilation and roof support plans are essential in ensuring
adequate airflow and controlling the accumulation of dust particles in
underground coal mines and that the roofs are adequately supported.
Inadequate ventilation systems or roof support systems can directly
affect the safety and health of mine workers. For example, our review
of MSHA's data on fatalities at underground coal mines from 1998 to
2002 showed that problems related to ventilation and roof support
systems accounted for high proportions of fatalities in underground
coal mines. For this 5-year period, ignitions or explosions from
excessive gas or coal dust accounted for the third largest percentage
of all fatalities, 14 percent, and roof falls accounted for the largest
percentage, 34 percent.
Officials at MSHA headquarters initially were not aware that these
inspections had not all been completed in a timely manner and contacted
the district offices to find out why. We also contacted several
districts and, according to district officials, all technical
inspections related to the mines' ventilation and roof support plans
had been conducted, but not all of the inspections were completed
within the 6-month time frame. In addition, officials in the 5
districts in which the data indicated that technical inspections had
not been completed in almost every quarter of the 5-year period we
reviewed--districts 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10--told us that information in
their databases was not accurate and that most inspections had been
completed within the 6-month time frame. However, they were not able to
explain why they had not corrected the information in their databases
on completion of the 6-month technical inspections.
Headquarters officials told us that ensuring the timely completion of
technical inspections would be included in one of the agency's new
initiatives. As part of this initiative, which was started in June
2003, individuals from MSHA's Safety Division have been assigned to
each one of the 11 district offices and given responsibility for
monitoring the district's performance. These monitoring efforts include
ensuring that the district is conducting all inspections, tracking
trends in the number and rates of injuries and fatalities at the
district's mines, and reviewing the number and types of safety and
health violations cited. In addition, the Administrator for Coal Mine
Safety and Health told us that MSHA plans to incorporate the databases
the districts use to track the completion of 6-month technical
inspections of ventilation and roof control plans into MSHA's overall
data systems as part of its agencywide upgrade of MSHA's databases.
This part of the upgrade is currently planned for 2006.
MSHA Has Not Provided Clear Guidance to Districts on Coordinating
Inspections:
MSHA headquarters has not provided clear guidance to its district
offices on coordinating technical inspections of mine plans with
quarterly inspections of underground coal mines in order to avoid
duplication of effort by district staff. Specialists who conduct on-
site technical inspections of underground coal mines related to mine
plans often spend several days inspecting the mines' ventilation and
roof support systems. For example, a ventilation specialist might spend
several days walking through the 30 to 50 miles of airways at large
mines to test whether an adequate amount of air is passing through the
ventilation system and ensure that the passageways are not blocked.
Inspectors are required to walk through these same airways during each
quarterly inspection of the mine. They may, however, rely on the work
of specialists who conduct the technical inspections, if the
specialists coordinate their inspections with the inspectors and charge
their time to the quarterly inspections. However, in 2 of the 5
districts we visited, we found that, in some instances, specialists and
inspectors were duplicating each other's work, resulting in an
inefficient use of MSHA's resources. In one of these districts, because
district management prohibited specialists from charging their time to
quarterly inspections, inspectors could not count the time spent by
specialists examining certain areas of the mines that inspectors are
required to examine as part of their quarterly inspections, such as
ventilation systems. Therefore, in this district, inspectors were
required to examine the same areas of the mines even when a specialist
had recently examined them. If the district had allowed the specialists
to coordinate with the inspectors and charge the time they spent
examining these systems to the quarterly inspections as in other
districts, the inspectors would not have been required to examine these
same systems again during the quarterly inspection. District officials
told us it was their understanding that MSHA's procedures prohibited
them from charging specialists' time to quarterly inspections, although
MSHA headquarters officials told us there was no such prohibition.
MSHA headquarters officials told us they have no procedures that
require specialists to coordinate technical inspections with quarterly
inspections in order to avoid duplication. They agreed that the
policies and procedures governing whether specialists may charge their
time to quarterly inspections are unclear and told us they plan to
clarify the procedures soon. In the interim, MSHA headquarters issued a
memorandum to the district offices in June 2003 encouraging them to
better coordinate inspections by specialists and inspectors.
MSHA Does Not Approve Plans for Containing Mine Debris on a Timely
Basis:
MSHA is responsible for approving plans for containing mine debris,
called impoundment plans.[Footnote 6] Many of these plans are extremely
complex and require highly qualified engineers who are familiar with
technical areas such as dam building techniques, hydrology, and soil
conditions. Failure of an impoundment can be devastating to nearby
communities, which may be flooded with water and sludge, and to the
environment, affecting streams and water supplies for years afterwards.
Because of the potential for failure, such as the impoundment dam
failure in 1972 in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, in which 125 people
were killed and 500 homes were destroyed,[Footnote 7] MSHA is extremely
careful about approving impoundment plans. MSHA has responsibility for
approximately 600 coal impoundments.
All but one of MSHA's district offices send most of their mines'
impoundment plans to the Mine Waste and Geotechnical Engineering
Division of MSHA's Safety and Health Technology Center, which the
agency established in 1973 to provide district offices with the
technical expertise needed to review impoundment plans. District staff
review and approve only plans that are less complex or contain only
minor modifications of existing impoundments. The one district that
reviews its own impoundment plans has a professional engineer with the
qualifications and experience needed to review such plans. See appendix
II for additional information on the process for reviewing and
approving impoundment plans.
Many impoundment plans sent to the Technology Center are not approved
on a timely basis because MSHA does not have an adequate number of
technical staff needed to review these complex plans. The Technology
Center has historically faced staffing shortages that affect its
ability to approve impoundment plans on a timely basis. As a result,
the backlog of impoundment plans has grown--it now takes MSHA 2 to 3
years to approve most plans and has taken as long as 5 years to approve
some plans.[Footnote 8] In an effort to address the growing backlog,
MSHA developed an expedited process for reviewing and approving
impoundment plans in order to avoid disruption of the mines'
operations. This system, however, added time to the approval process
for plans that were not part of the expedited process. In addition,
because so many plans were expedited, a backlog of expedited plans
developed. For example, the number of regular (not expedited)
impoundment plans pending review almost doubled during the 3-year
period from 1998 to 2001, from 124 plans to 245. In 2000, when the
expedited system was implemented, there were 69 expedited plans pending
review. By the following year, there were 148 expedited plans waiting
to be reviewed. During this period, engineers who left the Technology
Center were not always replaced because, according to MSHA officials,
the agency has had difficulty attracting civil engineers and certified
professional engineers at the salary levels offered.
MSHA conducted two reviews of its procedures for approving impoundment
plans and has begun to take steps for improving the process. The most
recent review identified several weaknesses in the procedures,
including the need for the agency to develop guidance for determining
which impoundment plans should receive expedited review as well as
evaluating the staffing levels needed to ensure timely and complete
review of the plans.[Footnote 9] MSHA officials acknowledged that the
delays in the review and approval of impoundment plans have been a
problem for a number of years. However, the officials told us that they
have recently taken a number of steps to alleviate these delays. First,
they are in the process of hiring additional engineers for the
Technology Center to review impoundment plans and provide assistance to
staff in district offices. Second, to reduce the backlog of plans, the
Administrator for Coal Mine Safety and Health sent a memorandum to all
district managers in January 2003 encouraging them to hire specialists
with experience in civil engineering and have them review less complex
impoundment plans instead of sending them to the Technology Center for
review. Finally, MSHA has formed a committee to rewrite the Impoundment
Inspection Handbook, which the agency plans to issue in March 2004.
According to MSHA headquarters officials, these new procedures will
bring more uniformity to the review and inspection process and will
eliminate a number of outdated and confusing procedures and policies.
The committee is also tasked with developing a system for rating the
complexity of impoundment plans. This rating system will establish
criteria for districts to use in deciding which impoundment plans to
review in the district and which ones to send to the Technology Center
for review. Agency officials said they expect to have this rating
system in place no later than March 2004.
MSHA Has Extensive Procedures, Highly Qualified Staff, and Conducts
Most Quarterly Inspections as Required, but Its Inspection Process
Could Be Improved:
Although MSHA's procedures for conducting inspections of underground
coal mines are comprehensive, its inspectors are highly qualified, and
it conducts almost all quarterly inspections as required by MSHA
policy, the inspection process could be improved in a number of ways.
Although MSHA has extensive inspection procedures, some of them are
unclear, while others are difficult to locate because they are
contained in so many different sources. In addition, although MSHA
conducted over 96 percent of required quarterly inspections each year
over the past 10 years, MSHA headquarters does not provide adequate
oversight to ensure that its district offices follow through to make
sure that unsafe conditions identified during inspections are
corrected. And, although MSHA has highly qualified inspectors, it has
no plan for addressing the fact that 44 percent of them will be
eligible to retire in the next 5 years. Finally, MSHA does not collect
all of the information it needs to assess the effectiveness of its
enforcement efforts because it does not collect data on independent
contractor staff who work at each mine.
MSHA Has Extensive Procedures for Inspecting Mines, but Some Procedures
Are Unclear:
MSHA has extensive procedures for inspecting mines. The two major
sources of inspection procedures are the policy manual and the
inspection handbook. In addition, MSHA issues many ad hoc procedures in
formats such as bulletins and memorandums. MSHA's procedures require
inspectors to follow many different steps in conducting quarterly
inspections of mines. These steps include, among many others, (1)
walking all of the air passages in the mine which, in a large mine, can
total over 50 miles in length; (2) taking samples of the mine
environment, including air, dust, and noise levels; (3) observing
miners' work habits; and (4) reviewing the mine operators' records of
their own daily inspections of the mine. Inspectors are also required
to issue citations for any violations of the law, health or safety
standards, rules, orders, or regulations they identify during
inspections.
Although MSHA has extensive inspection procedures, some of them are
unclear and they are located in so many different sources that they can
be difficult to find. Some procedures do not clearly specify the
criteria inspectors should use in citing violations. For example,
several district officials in two of the districts we visited told us
that the lack of specific criteria for floating coal dust[Footnote 10]
makes it difficult to determine what is an allowable level. As a
result, mine inspectors must rely on their own experience and personal
opinion to determine if the accumulation of floating coal dust is a
safety hazard that constitutes a violation. According to some of the
inspectors we interviewed, this has led, in some cases, to
inconsistencies in inspectors' interpretations of the procedures--some
inspectors have cited violations for levels of floating coal dust that
have not brought citations from other inspectors. In addition, the
inspection procedures are located in so many different handbooks,
manuals, policy bulletins, policy letters, and memorandums that it can
be difficult for inspectors to make sure that they are using the most
recent guidance and procedures.
MSHA headquarters officials told us that they are working to clarify
the agency's procedures and consolidate the number of sources in which
they are located. For example, MSHA established a committee in February
2003 to clarify and consolidate its inspection procedures, including
developing a checklist for inspections that will be available, along
with the procedures, to inspectors on their portable computers. These
online procedures will provide a single source of guidance for all
types of coal mine inspections. MSHA plans to have these new online
inspection procedures completed by late 2003.
MSHA Conducts Most Quarterly Inspections as Required, but Does Not
Always Follow Through to Ensure Unsafe Conditions Identified During
Inspections are Corrected:
MSHA's data on its quarterly inspection completion rates indicates
that, of the over 2,000 quarterly inspections district offices are
required to conduct each year, they completed over 96 percent each year
from fiscal year 1993 to 2002, as shown in table 2.
Table 2: Quarterly Inspections of Underground Coal Mines, Fiscal Years
1993 to 2002:
Number of quarterly inspections required; 1993: 4,216; 1994: 3,927;
1995: 3,549; 1996: 3,195; 1997: 3,102; 1998: 2,957; 1999: 2,513; 2000:
2,641; 2001: 2,714; 2002: 2,519.
Number of quarterly inspections completed; 1993: 4,211; 1994: 3,780;
1995: 3,420; 1996: 3,148; 1997: 3,066; 1998: 2,928; 1999: 2,485; 2000:
2,613; 2001: 2,638; 2002: 2,495.
Percent completed; 1993: 99.9%; 1994: 96.3%; 1995: 96.4%; 1996: 98.5%;
1997: 98.8%; 1998: 99.0%; 1999: 98.9%; 2000: 98.9%; 2001: 97.2%; 2002:
99.0%.
Source: MSHA.
[A] Note: We were not able to independently verify MSHA's completion
rates.
[End of table]
Although MSHA conducts almost all of the quarterly inspections as
required, MSHA headquarters does not monitor district office
performance to ensure that inspectors are following up with mine
operators to determine that unsafe conditions identified during
inspections have been corrected. During inspections of mines, MSHA's
inspectors set deadlines for the mine operators to correct the safety
and health hazards violations identified. The deadlines vary based on a
number of factors--including the degree of danger to miners affected by
the violation--and range from 15 minutes from the time the inspector
writes the citation to 27 days afterwards. Deadlines can be a short as
15 minutes because some of the hazards have the potential to quickly
lead to serious injuries. MSHA's procedures require inspectors to
follow up with mine operators within the deadline they set or to extend
the deadline. Inspectors may extend the deadlines under certain
circumstances, such as when a mine has temporarily shut down its
operations or when a mine operator is unable to obtain a part needed to
correct a violation cited for a piece of equipment. MSHA tracks all
citations, deadlines for correction, and extensions of deadlines in its
Coal Management Information System.
Our analysis of MSHA's data for the most recent 10-year period, 1993 to
2002, indicated that, for almost half--48 percent--of the 536,966
citations for which a deadline was established, inspectors did not
follow up in a timely manner to make sure mine operators had corrected
the hazards.[Footnote 11] However, as shown in figure 5, of the 48
percent of the citations for which the inspectors did not follow up in
a timely manner, they followed up on many citations within 4 days of
the deadline and, for all but 11 percent of the citations, they
followed up in less than two weeks to verify that the mine operators
had corrected the hazards identified during inspections.
Figure 5: Percentage of All Citations Issued from 1993 to 2002 for
Which Inspectors Did Not Follow Up by the Specified Deadlines:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Moreover, the more serious type of violations--"significant and
substantial" (S&S) violations--accounted for a significant proportion
of the citations for which inspectors did not follow up by the
deadlines. For the over 235,447 citations written for S&S violations
from 1993 to 2002 for which a deadline was specified, inspectors did
not follow up on more than 48 percent of the citations by the deadline.
However, inspectors followed up on all but about 10 percent of the
citations for S&S violations within less than 14 days of the deadline.
MSHA headquarters and district officials told us that there are many
different reasons why inspectors may not follow up by the deadlines
specified in their citations. One of these, according to several
district officials, is scheduling conflicts that prevent inspectors
from visiting the mine within the specified deadline. In addition,
there are circumstances in which inspectors are not able to follow up,
such as when a mine operator suspends a mine's operations. However, in
these instances, the inspector should update the information in the
database to extend the deadline.
District officials we interviewed said that they are tracking the
number of citations for which inspectors have not followed up by the
deadlines and are taking steps to reduce this number. For example,
officials in District 6 told us that they are revising the process of
scheduling mine visits to improve the timeliness of follow up. In
addition, MSHA headquarters officials said that tracking the number of
citations on which inspectors have not followed up in a timely manner
in each district office is part of their new initiative to better
monitor district office performance that began in June 2003.
We did not review the quality of MSHA's quarterly inspections. Some
inspectors and mine operators we interviewed at 2 of the 5 district
offices we visited, as well as officials from the United Mine Workers
of America headquarters, told us that staffing shortages sometimes
cause MSHA to rush its inspections at the end of the quarter. For
example, inspectors and a mine operator in one district told us that,
last year, some of the quarterly inspections were not completed until
the end of the quarter and that, in some cases, MSHA sent a large
number of inspectors to a few of the district's mines at the end of the
quarter in order to complete the inspections as required. MSHA
headquarters officials said they were in the process of balancing the
workloads of the district offices in order to address some of these
staffing shortages. They also have begun hiring additional inspectors
for some districts.
MSHA Has Highly Trained and Experienced Staff, but Lacks a Plan for
Replacing the Large Number of Inspectors Who May Soon Retire:
MSHA's mine inspectors are highly trained and experienced. Under the
Mine Act, inspectors are required to have, whenever possible, 5 years
of practical mining experience before being hired. Newly hired
inspectors receive a minimum of 18 months of classroom and on-the-job
training before qualifying to conduct inspections on their own.
Classroom training for new mine inspectors includes 25 weeks of
instruction at MSHA's Mine Academy provided in 3-and 4-week segments.
The classroom training covers a wide range of topics, from inspecting
mine equipment to conducting tests of air quality. In between attending
classes at the Mine Academy, new inspectors accompany experienced
inspectors on mine inspections. Once they have completed their training
and are certified by the district office to which they are assigned--a
process that takes, on average, 18 to 24 months according to MSHA
officials--inspectors receive their Authorized Representative
credentials indicating that they are certified underground Coal Mine
Inspectors and are allowed to write citations. In addition to their
initial training, inspectors are required to take at least 2 weeks of
refresher training every 2 years. Finally, MSHA's current underground
coal mine inspectors have been with the agency, on average, for over 18
years and most had a number of years of mining experience prior to
joining MSHA. For example, each of the four inspectors we interviewed
in one of the districts we visited had at least 10 years of mining
experience prior to joining MSHA and had from 3 to 16 years' experience
inspecting mines.
Although many of MSHA's highly trained and experienced underground coal
mine inspectors will be eligible to retire within the next 5 years, and
the agency's historic attrition rates indicate that many of them will
actually retire, the agency has not developed a plan for replacing
these inspectors. As shown in table 3, about 44 percent of MSHA's
inspectors will be eligible to retire in the next 5 years and, in 2
districts, a much larger proportion will be eligible to retire. The
table also shows that districts have fewer inspector trainees on board
than vacancies that will need to be filled when inspectors retire.
MSHA's historic attrition data show that half of the individuals who
are eligible for retirement actually retire within 1 year of the date
they are eligible and 85 percent retire within 4 years.
Table 3: Number of Underground Coal Mine Inspectors Assigned to Each
District Office, Percentage Eligible to Retire in the Next 5 Years, and
Number of Inspector Trainees in Each District, July 2003:
Number of underground coal mine inspectors; District office: One: 5;
District office: Two: 30; District office: Three: 22; District office:
Four: 61; District office: Five: 23; District office: Six: 43; District
office: Seven: 30; District office: Eight: 20; District office: Nine:
27; District office: Ten: 14; District office: Eleven: 7; District
office: Total: 282.
Number of inspectors eligible to retire in the next 5 years; District
office: One: 1; District office: Two: 23; District office: Three: 19;
District office: Four: 18; District office: Five: 11; District office:
Six: 14; District office: Seven: 13; District office: Eight: 6;
District office: Nine: 9; District office: Ten: 7; District office:
Eleven: 2; District office: Total: 123.
Percent eligible to retire within 5 years; District office: One: 20%;
District office: Two: 77%; District office: Three: 86%; District
office: Four: 30%; District office: Five: 48%; District office: Six:
33%; District office: Seven: 43%; District office: Eight: 30%; District
office: Nine: 33%; District office: Ten: 50%; District office: Eleven:
29%; District office: Total: 44%.
Number of underground inspector trainees; District office: One: 0;
District office: Two: 0; District office: Three: 6; District office:
Four: 3; District office: Five: 7; District office: Six: 5; District
office: Seven: 5; District office: Eight: 0; District office: Nine: 0;
District office: Ten: 0; District office: Eleven: 3; District office:
Total: 29.
Source: MSHA.
[End of table]
MSHA headquarters officials also told us that it will be difficult for
them to quickly hire and train replacements for the inspectors who
retire. In addition to the fact that it takes at least 18 months to
train each new inspector, it takes the agency several months from the
date an individual retires to advertise and fill each vacant position.
As a result of losing these inspectors, MSHA may find it difficult to
maintain its current level of enforcement activity, including
completing all quarterly inspections of underground coal mines.
MSHA headquarters and district officials told us that they do not have
a plan that addresses the potential staffing shortages among its
inspection staff because, although they recognize that the shortages
may affect their ability to complete all required inspections, they
cannot fill vacancies until individuals actually retire, so their
options are limited.
However, MSHA is not making full use of available human capital
flexibilities to streamline its hiring procedures or retain the
services of inspectors.[Footnote 12] For example, it is not using the
direct-hire authority available to federal agencies that would allow
the agency to choose applicants directly for inspector
positions.[Footnote 13] Furthermore, use of a category-based rating and
selection procedure could help MSHA increase the number of qualified
applicants for its inspector positions. In addition, MSHA is not using
retention allowances to keep employees with specialized skills,
including inspectors, who are critical to accomplishing the agency's
mission. Finally, MSHA has not formally reviewed its hiring process,
including identifying internal deficiencies, such as problems with its
process for assessing the quality of applicants that causes delays in
hiring new inspectors. MSHA headquarters officials told us, however,
that they are considering conducting a review of their hiring system.
MSHA Does Not Collect Data on Independent Contractor Staff Needed to
Assess the Effectiveness of Its Enforcement Activities:
MSHA does not collect all of the information on staff employed by
independent contractors[Footnote 14] who work in underground coal mines
needed to assess the effectiveness of its enforcement activities. The
regulations implementing the Mine Act require mine operators, including
independent contractors, to report the number of hours worked by staff
at specific mines as well as injuries received during the performance
of that work. However, MSHA issued a memorandum in 1981 that limited
the reporting requirements for independent contractors who performed
all but nine types of services in "high hazard activities," including
mining coal, and exempted other independent contractors
completely.[Footnote 15] As a result, MSHA only collects aggregate
information from independent contractors that engage in these hazardous
activities. It collects data on the number of hours worked by their
staff at all mines, but does not collect this information for
contractor staff at specific mines. MSHA headquarters officials told us
the agency exempted independent contractors from these reporting
requirements in order to reduce the regulatory burden on them and
because, at the time the memorandum was issued, independent contractor
staff represented a relatively small proportion of all coal miners.
However, because MSHA does not collect information on the hours worked
by contractor staff who mine coal in each underground coal mine, it
cannot calculate accurate fatality or nonfatal injury rates for mines
that use contractor staff to mine coal--rates used to evaluate the
effectiveness of its enforcement efforts.[Footnote 16] Although MSHA
can determine whether it is meeting these goals for all underground
coal mines as a whole, it cannot determine whether it is meeting its
goals for specific mines. In addition, MSHA cannot track trends in
fatal or nonfatal injury rates at mines that use contractor staff to
mine coal. The fact that MSHA is not tracking the number of independent
contractor staff who work in each mine has become more important in
recent years, because the proportion of miners who work for independent
contractors has grown significantly since 1981, when they represented
only 5 percent of all mine workers. Our analysis of MSHA's data on
workers in underground coal mines shows that the percentage of
underground coal miners who work for independent contractors increased
from 13 percent in 1993 to 18 percent in 2002, as shown in figure 6,
and the percentage who incurred nonfatal injuries also increased over
this period.
Figure 6: Contractor Staff as a Percentage of All Workers in
Underground Coal Mines:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
To address these concerns, MSHA established a task group that was
directed to work with the members of the mining community[Footnote 17]
to (l) determine how to best identify and collect data on independent
contractor staff and (2) develop an enforcement policy for independent
contractors. MSHA headquarters officials said the task group is in the
process of drafting an action plan but is having difficulty identifying
independent contractors because the agency has issued a number of
duplicate identification numbers to these contractors. In addition,
MSHA headquarters officials told us that obtaining information on the
hours worked by contractor staff at specific mines will be difficult
because these workers often work at more than one mine.
MSHA Has a Comprehensive Process for Conducting Accident
Investigations, but Does Not Fully Utilize It to Prevent Future
Accidents:
MSHA's process for conducting accident investigations is comprehensive,
but the agency does not use its investigations to the fullest extent to
improve the future safety of mine workers. MSHA has detailed policies
and rigorous requirements for how investigations must be conducted and
reported and uses a number of mechanisms to monitor the quality of its
accident investigations process. However, weaknesses in its databases
make it difficult for MSHA to track key data on mine hazards and
potentially useful indicators of its own performance.
MSHA's Polices and Procedures for Conducting Accident Investigations
Are Extensive:
MSHA has extensive policies and procedures for conducting accident
investigations. These policies and procedures are contained in the Mine
Act and its implementing regulations, the Accident Investigations
Handbook, policy documents, and a training manual. They provide
guidance for determining when to conduct investigations, who should
conduct them, how they should be conducted, and how to report the
results. MSHA is required to investigate all accidents involving
fatalities and may also investigate nonfatal accidents. While the
decisions regarding whether to conduct investigations of most accidents
are made at the district level, investigations of high-profile
accidents, such as those involving more than two fatalities and mine
emergencies, are handled by MSHA's headquarters office.[Footnote 18]
The primary objective of an accident investigation, as stated in the
investigation handbook, is "to determine the root cause(s) of the mine
accident and to utilize and share this information with the mining
community and others for the purpose of preventing similar
occurrences." Other purposes of investigations are to determine whether
any violations of the Mine Act or its implementing regulations
contributed to the accident and to help formulate and assess MSHA's
health and safety standards.
MSHA's accident investigations are conducted by experienced teams of
inspectors and specialists, usually consisting of staff from the
district in which the accident occurred. Additional staff from MSHA
headquarters and the Technology Center, and, in the case of fatal
accidents, attorneys from the Department of Labor's Solicitor's Office,
may also provide assistance. In order to become qualified to conduct
investigations of mine accidents, inspectors and specialists are
required to take special training on accident investigations, in
addition to that received by all inspectors and specialists during
their initial training. The special accident investigation training
covers such topics as data and evidence collection, accident
reconstruction, interviewing techniques, and preparation of
investigative reports. MSHA investigators are also required to take an
accident investigation retraining seminar every other year.
Investigators are required to follow specific steps in conducting and
documenting each accident, including trying to determine the
underlying, or "root," cause of the accident. Investigators must
conduct an on-site examination of the accident scene, interview
witnesses, and analyze relevant mining equipment and material.
Investigators must also follow detailed reporting requirements,
including completing standardized forms and, in the case of serious
accidents such as those involving a fatality, preparing formal written
reports that cover specific topics. In addition to determining the
direct causes of an accident, MSHA's investigators must determine the
underlying causes. For example, for one mine in which frequent
ignitions were occurring, investigators determined that the direct
cause of the ignitions was sparks from the metal bit of a cutting
machine striking rock. These sparks in turn ignited the methane
released as the coal was cut out of the seam. The investigation team
also went further and identified the underlying cause as a problem with
ventilation at the mine. As a result, the mine operator made changes to
the mine's ventilation plan and, according to MSHA officials, there had
been no further ignitions in that section of the mine.
MSHA uses several means to monitor the quality of accident
investigations. The accident investigation program manager in MSHA's
headquarters office and the accident investigation coordinator at each
district office monitor the progress of each investigation and provide
guidance and recommendations to investigators on resources, collection
of evidence, and conducting interviews. A number of individuals at the
district and headquarters level review draft investigation reports,
which the accident investigation program manager then approves. The
district manager, the Office of the Solicitor, and the accident
investigation program manager each review proposed citations and orders
to be issued as a result of accident investigations.
Although we did not conduct a comprehensive review of MSHA's accident
investigations, we reviewed eight investigations in great depth at
several of the district offices we visited. For these selected cases,
we reviewed MSHA files and reports, interviewed investigators, and
interviewed miners and mine operators at some of the mines involved. We
found that, for these cases, the MSHA investigators had followed the
required procedures for conducting accident investigations.
MSHA's Databases Used to Track Accidents and Investigations Have
Weaknesses:
Because of weaknesses in the databases that MSHA uses to collect data
on accidents and its investigations, MSHA cannot properly monitor its
accident investigations activity, including determining whether
accidents were investigated, or track trends in mine hazards that cause
accidents.
MSHA cannot use the data it collects on accidents, injuries, and
investigations to readily determine whether accidents were investigated
or monitor district performance in regard to their accident
investigation activity. MSHA has one database that contains information
on all accidents and injuries reported to MSHA by mine operators and
contractors.[Footnote 19] It has another database that tracks MSHA's
accident investigations activity, including time spent by inspectors
and specialists on each investigation. However, it is very difficult to
link the information on accidents and investigations contained in these
two databases. As a result, MSHA headquarters cannot easily use the
data to monitor whether districts have investigated all fatal accidents
as required or determine which serious nonfatal accidents have been
investigated. For example, we analyzed information from both databases
in an attempt to determine whether MSHA investigated all fatal
accidents in underground coal mines from 1993 to 2002. Although we were
able to manually match each fatality to a fatal accident investigation
using the mine identification number and the date of the investigation,
and we found that MSHA had investigated all fatalities as required, it
was a difficult, time-consuming process.
In addition, it is difficult for MSHA to track trends in the most
frequent causes of mine accidents or to readily determine which types
of accidents result in multiple injuries or the percentage of accidents
that result in injuries. This occurs because MSHA does not assign an
identifier to each accident but rather tracks only the information
reported by mine operators on individuals injured in
accidents.[Footnote 20] For example, MSHA cannot easily determine the
number of roof falls that occurred each year, or the percentage of all
roof falls that were investigated. It can only show the number of
individuals who were injured or killed as the result of roof falls and
the number of noninjury roof falls that occurred.
A few years ago, MSHA established a third database on accident
investigations in order to record and disseminate information on
accident investigations, including the results of investigations. The
database contains detailed information on some accidents as well as
MSHA's investigations activity. However, because the information in the
database is not complete (it does not contain information on all
accidents), it cannot be used to monitor trends in the types of
accidents or to determine the percentage of accidents investigated.
Further, MSHA headquarters officials told us that few field or
headquarters staff use the database to obtain or analyze information on
accident investigations because the system is not user friendly.
Conclusions:
MSHA plays an important role in protecting the safety and health of
coal miners. MSHA has extensive policies and procedures and has
assigned highly qualified staff to its processes for reviewing and
approving mine plans, conducting inspections of underground coal mines,
and investigating accidents. However, it is important for MSHA
headquarters to ensure that the district offices to which it has
delegated much of the responsibility for protecting the safety and
health of mine workers have appropriate oversight, guidance, and
staffing and to collect all of the data needed to evaluate their
performance.
MSHA headquarters has not always provided the oversight of district
office operations needed to ensure timely completion of 6-month
technical inspections in some districts, nor has it ensured that
hazards identified during inspections are being corrected by mine
operators on a timely basis. As a result, some mines may be operating
without accurate or complete ventilation or roof control systems or
with uncorrected hazards, which may adversely affect the safety and
health of mine workers.
Headquarters also has not provided inspectors with the guidance they
need to carry out their work. Some procedures and guidance it has
provided to district offices for inspections are unclear and, in some
cases, difficult to locate. In the absence of such guidance, inspectors
may not be consistently applying the law and regulations designed to
protect the safety and health of mine workers. Moreover, the lack of
guidance with regard to coordinating inspections has led to duplication
of effort, diminishing MSHA's ability to use its staff resources most
efficiently.
In addition, MSHA is not preparing for a likely shortage of inspectors
in the future. MSHA officials have said the fact that they are unable
to hire until someone retires justifies their lack of planning.
However, this discounts the possibility that they might be able to
better use their existing resources or plan ways to lessen disruptions
during the transitions. If MSHA does not develop a plan for addressing
the large number of retirements of inspectors over the next 5 years, it
may not be able to continue to ensure the safety and health of
underground coal miners.
Finally, MSHA is not collecting all of the data needed to evaluate its
performance and prevent future accidents. It does not collect data on
the hours worked by staff employed by independent contractors at
specific mines. MSHA also does not track information on accidents
needed to identify trends in mining accidents or link accidents and
injuries to investigations. Given the latitude that district managers
have in deciding whether to investigate serious accidents, it is
important for MSHA headquarters to be able to link information on
accidents and investigations in order to monitor district office
performance. As a result, MSHA is not able to assess the adequacy of
its enforcement efforts at mines that employ independent contractor
staff to mine coal, properly target its efforts to improve mine safety
at mines with relatively high injury rates, or maximize the likelihood
of preventing future accidents.
Recommendations:
In order to provide better oversight over its operations, including
collecting all of the data needed to provide this oversight, we
recommend that the Secretary of Labor direct the Assistant Secretary
for Mine Safety and Health to:
* monitor the timeliness of 6-month technical inspections conducted as
part of MSHA's review of ventilation and roof control plans to ensure
that all inspections are completed by the district offices;
* monitor follow-up actions taken by its district offices to ensure
that mine operators are correcting hazards identified during
inspections on a timely basis;
* update and consolidate guidance provided to its district offices on
plan approval and inspections to eliminate inconsistencies and outdated
instructions, including clarifying guidance on coordinating technical
inspections with regular quarterly inspections of mines;
* develop a plan for addressing anticipated shortages in the number of
qualified inspectors due to upcoming retirements, including considering
options such as streamlining the agency's hiring process and offering
retention allowances;
* amend the guidance provided to independent contractors engaged in
high-hazard activities requiring them to report information on the
number of hours worked by their staff at specific mines so that MSHA
can use this information to compute the injury and fatality rates used
to measure the effectiveness of its enforcement efforts; and:
* revise the systems it uses to collect information on accidents and
investigations to provide better data on accidents and make it easier
to link injuries, accidents, and investigations.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided a draft of this report to MSHA for comment. MSHA did not
comment on our recommendations but expressed concern about many of our
findings and disagreed with three of the findings on which our
recommendations are based. In addition, MSHA provided a few technical
comments and clarifications, which we incorporated as appropriate.
MSHA's full comments and our responses are contained in appendix III.
MSHA disagreed with our finding that the agency does not ensure the
completion of 6-month technical inspections related to mine plans
conducted by its district offices. While MSHA acknowledged that the
information provided by the district offices to MSHA headquarters on
technical inspections is not accurate or complete, the agency said that
the inspections are actually being conducted by the district offices
but not recorded by the districts in the database, as evidenced by
reports on file in the district offices. MSHA also noted that the
database is being upgraded, which will enhance the agency's ability to
track and monitor the status of technical inspections. In our view,
MSHA's current system places all oversight responsibility on the
district offices because MSHA headquarters does not have the data
needed to ensure that districts are completing technical inspections as
required by agency procedures. We maintain that MSHA cannot properly
monitor the completion of technical inspections by its district offices
when the information provided by the districts to MSHA headquarters for
this purpose is inaccurate.
MSHA expressed concern that it would be difficult to develop guidance
for all district offices on coordinating different types of inspections
in order to avoid duplication of effort because of the dynamic nature
of the mining industry. MSHA said that District Managers should be
responsible for developing standard operating procedures in this area.
We continue to believe that, while developing such guidance may be
difficult, it is needed to ensure that MSHA's resources are used most
effectively. In addition, several district officials told us that more
coordination of effort in this area by MSHA could lead to better use of
the agency's resources and eliminate potential duplication of effort.
MSHA took issue with portions of our finding related to the procedures
provided to inspectors for inspecting underground coal mines, noting
that the agency provides extensive training to inspectors on the
procedures and that inspectors must rely on their experience and
knowledge in determining what constitutes a violation. MSHA also noted
that it is in the process of providing additional training to its
inspectors and improving the ease of use of its manuals and other
procedures. While we commended MSHA on its efforts to provide
additional training to inspectors and consolidate its procedures, we
noted that over reliance on inspectors' experience can lead to
inconsistencies in their interpretations of the procedures.
On following through on its inspections to make sure that unsafe
conditions are corrected in a timely manner, MSHA agreed that this is
an important issue and said that it has already taken several actions
to address inconsistencies in this area. The agency detailed its
efforts to provide better guidance and additional training, establish a
new accountability program to ensure the consistency of its enforcement
actions, and stress the importance of timely follow up by inspectors to
ensure that hazards are corrected.
MSHA disagreed with our finding that it does not have a plan for
replacing the large number of inspectors who will be eligible to retire
in the next 5 years, saying that it does have such a plan. After
receiving MSHA's comments on our draft report, we asked MSHA officials
for a copy of the plan referred to in their comments. They told us they
did not have one plan but, instead, had recently developed plans for
each of the 11 district offices and provided us with a copy of a plan
for one district. This plan, however, does not contain all of the
elements of a high quality human capital plan, such as linking the
accomplishment of the agency's strategic goals to its future human
capital needs. We maintain that MSHA needs to develop a comprehensive
plan that addresses the agency's human capital needs related to
protecting the safety and health of coal miners.
Finally, MSHA disagreed with our finding that the databases it uses to
track mine accidents and investigations of these accidents have
weaknesses that limit its ability to monitor trends in mine hazards and
determine whether districts are investigating accidents. MSHA said that
the information it collects on accidents in its databases can be used
for these purposes. Our finding is accurate. The Accident Investigation
Database to which MSHA refers in its comments does not track all
accidents, it only tracks those that were investigated; therefore, the
database cannot be used to monitor trends in all mine accidents. In
addition, as noted in our report, the information in the database is
incomplete, and the database is not widely used throughout the agency
because it is not user friendly.
As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days
from the issue date. At that time, we will send copies of this report
to the Secretary of Labor, the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and
Health, and other interested parties. Copies will be made available to
others upon request. This report is also available at no charge on
GAO's web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you have any questions concerning this report, please contact me at
(202) 512-7215 or Revae Moran at (202) 512-3863. Other major
contributors are listed in appendix IV.
Sincerely yours,
Robert E. Robertson
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues:
Signed by Robert E. Robertson:
[End of section]
Appendix I: MSHA's Approval Process for Ventilation and Roof Support
Plans:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
[End of section]
Appendix II MSHA's Approval Process for Impoundment Plans:
[See PDF for image]
[A] Modifications to the plan can be made at any point throughout the
review and approval process.
[B] If the plan is disapproved, MSHA forwards the review comments and
requests for additional technical information to the mine operator via
the same process indicated for plan approval.
[End of figure]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Labor:
Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the
end of this appendix.
U.S. Department of Labor
Mine Safety and Health Administration
1100 Wilson Boulevard:
Arlington, Virginia 22209-3939:
August 19, 2003:
Robert E. Robertson Director:
Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues General Accounting
Office 441 G Street, NW. Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Robertson:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your draft report titled
"Mine Safety: MSHA Devotes Substantial Efforts to Ensuring the Safety
and Health of Coal Miners, but Its Programs Could be Strengthened (GAO-
03-945)." We also appreciate the very positive comments about MSHA and
its operations during the briefing led by your staff on August 5, 2003.
While we agree with certain findings and recommendations in your draft
report, we also believe that the draft report requires the corrections,
clarifications, and modifications described below. We also believe that
the overall tone of the report can be improved to more fully convey to
the reader what was articulated in the briefing that GAO did not find
serious deficiencies during its review, and that MSHA is an agency with
considerable strengths and accomplishments.
Report Title:
We feel the proposed title of the draft report does not accurately
define the current and on-going programs and initiatives the Agency has
and will implement to continue to focus resources on improvements. We
would suggest the following modification to the proposed title: "MSHA
Devotes Substantial Effort to Ensuring the Safety and Health of Coal
Miners, and Continues to Focus Resources on Improvements. ":
GAO Finding: "MSHA Does Not Ensure Districts Are Completing Technical
Inspections of Mine Plans":
This finding is incorrect. Although we acknowledge that the data
provided by district personnel for the MPA database would give the
reader the impression that the 6-month plan reviews were not being
conducted by some districts as required - this data does not accurately
capture the number of plan reviews that were actually conducted by
inspection personnel.
Specifically, our MPA database is outdated and will only accept entry
of the two required 6-month reviews. However, in all cases, whether a
new plan is submitted or a current plan remains unaltered, MSHA
conducts timely reviews. Inspectors conduct complete AAA inspections of
underground mines four times per year. As a part of each AAA
inspection, the inspector reviews and assesses the adequacy of the plan
and satisfies the requirements of the 6-month plan reviews. The AAA
inspection completion rates (98+ %) verify that inspections are
regularly completed on a quarterly basis. Consequently, the associated
plan reviews are also completed as required. Procedurally, the
inspector documents the results on MSHA Form 2000-204. The original
form is filed with the completed AAA inspection report while a copy is
maintained by the Technical Division of each District. Additionally,
each inspector is debriefed by his/her supervisor and the supervisor
reviews the contents of the inspection report to ensure that all phases
of the AAA inspection were conducted. As part of this activity, the
supervisor is required to sign the 2000-204 form, certifying that the
6-month plan review had been completed. As supporting evidence, we
provided the GAO team with the completed and certified 2000-204 forms
from CMS&H District 10 for the time period in question to verify that
the actual reviews were conducted, documented, and certified even
though the data did not appear in the MPA database (District 10 was one
of the CMS&H Districts identified by GAO as having a deficiency in
conducting the required plan reviews).
Also note that the use of the term "technical inspections" is an
inaccurate definition of what is correctly termed a `plan review'. A
Safety and Health Technical Inspection is conducted by a specialist
considered to be a subject matter expert in the respective mine
disciplines, such as ventilation, roof control, electrical, health,
etc. The technical inspection is more comprehensive in that it focuses
on specific areas of the mine or specific problems that have been
identified by the inspector and/or operator. In contrast, the required
6-month plan review consists of a more general evaluation to assure
that the mine plans are suitable to current conditions at the mine. The
Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Mine Act), in sections
302(a) and 303(o), requires a review of the plans at least every six
months. In addition, 30 CFR 75.370(g) requires the ventilation plan for
each mine be reviewed every 6 months by an authorized representative of
the Secretary to assure that it is suitable to current conditions at
the mine. Furthermore, guidance is provided in Chapters 5 and 6 of Coal
Mine Safety and Health's (CMS&H) Mine Ventilation Plan Approval
Procedures Handbook (PH92-V-6), stating the review should include a
physical inspection of the mine ventilation system by either a
ventilation specialist or regular inspector.
Again, we agree there is room for improvement in CMS&H's MPA database
for reporting the plan reviews. We currently have a team of Information
Technology specialists who are rewriting the program for the MPA
database. We plan on having the upgrade completed in 2004. This will
provide both Headquarters staff and district personnel an enhanced
capability to track and monitor the status of required plan reviews.
Finally, please note that the following statement made on page 12 of
the report is not accurate: "Mine operators ......... are required to
submit revised plans to the district for approval at least every 6
months." It is not necessary to routinely require a complete plan
submittal to satisfy the 6 month review. MSHA conducts reviews of
current plans at the required intervals - not simply for newly
submitted plans. Historically, the number of citations/orders issued to
mine operators for operating a mine with deficient mine plans has been
extremely small. More often, the mine operator is cited for not
following an
approved plan. In those instances, where the physical conditions of the
mine change and a plan revision is required, the mine operator submits
the necessary information to the respective district manager for review
and approval.
GAO Finding: "MSHA Has Not Provided Clear Guidance to Districts on
Coordinating Inspections":
It is true that there is no formal guidance from Headquarters as to the
scheduling and coordination of inspection activities between the
regular inspectors and the district specialists. This is a function of
district management, relying on their knowledge and familiarity with
each mine. In addition, there are frequent conversations at formal
meetings between the district managers and the Administrator concerning
the scheduling and coordination issue. Headquarters has determined that
due to the dynamics of the mining industry, it would be difficult to
develop a formal standard operating procedure that details the manner
in which scheduling and coordination of inspector/specialist would
apply to each district. Therefore, to ensure the most efficient and
effective coordination/scheduling of the districts' resources, the
respective District Manager should be responsible for developing a
standard operating procedure that best suits the needs of the district.
For example, the regular inspector may find conditions during his/her
normal inspection activities that would necessitate a follow-up visit
to that area by a specialist to provide a more in depth technical
evaluation of the environment. Additionally, an operator or a
representative of the miners may request that the district send a
specialist to an area of the mine that has previously been inspected by
the regular inspector. Even though these examples would result in
duplicate visits to the same area of the mine, this is not a misuse of
inspection resources.
GAO Finding: MSHA Does Not Approve Plans for Containing Mine Debris on
a Timely Basis.
MSHA recognizes the fact that, at the present time, the agency does not
have the sufficient number of qualified technical personnel both at its
Pittsburgh Technology Center and in its District offices to review and
approve impoundment plans in a more timely fashion. MSHA, as noted in
the Report, is taking the necessary steps to remedy this shortfall of
requisite personnel. We are currently implementing a hiring strategy to
staff each district with one or more engineers, dependent on the
workload, having experience in impoundment construction and inspection.
We also plan to hire additional engineers for the Pittsburgh Technology
Center, specializing in the highly technical reviews of impoundment
plans. The District engineers will be responsible for reviewing
increasingly more complex impoundment construction plans, thus sharing
a significant amount of the workload. It is important to note that many
of the impoundment plans are extremely complex and consist of many
construction phases. The current review process addresses these phases
in sequential order to avoid unnecessary plan review delays which could
affect the safe and efficient operations at the mine site. When onsite
problems do occur, the plan is elevated to an expedited review status
to ensure timeliness in the
approval process. This allows the mining operations to continue the
safe disposal and handling of refuse without compromising the safety of
miners.
GAO Finding: "MSHA Has Extensive Procedures for Inspecting Mines, but
Some Procedures are Unclear":
As to the discussion in your report on pages 4, 18, and 19, MSHA makes
it is a very high priority to have its inspectorate trained in proper
application of the current legal criteria for taking various
enforcement actions. Coal and M/NM headquarters staff worked with the
staff of the Division of Mine Safety (Office of the Solicitor) to
revise the MSHA Policy Manual text to state the correct and current
legal criteria for determining if a given violation "could
significantly and substantially contribute to the cause and effect of a
safety or health hazard" (known as an S & S violation). That policy
guidance was issued over a year ago. There was a "roll-out" with this
Manual revision which included new training materials and other
documents such as the Citation and Order Manual which have been
similarly revised. In response to the Jim Walter Internal Review MSHA
arranged to have all inspectors receive additional training on the
proper application of the S & S test. Thus, MSHA takes issue with the
implication in the report that MSHA and the Office of the Solicitor
have not been attentive to making sure the inspectorate receives
accurate and timely training on the legal tests needed to be applied
for various enforcement decisions including what criteria to be
reviewed in making an S & S determination.
While MSHA makes it is a very high priority to have its inspectorate
trained in proper application of the current legal criteria for taking
various enforcement actions, we agree that improving the ease of use of
our manuals and policy letters should be a high priority. We also note
that no matter how thorough the training including the review of
"frequent scenarios", these determinations must always be made based on
the specific on-site facts evaluated by our inspectors. Thus, there may
always be situations which look superficially the same, but were in
fact evaluated differently based on all of the factors present at the
time of the inspection.
Your report refers specifically to several inspectors who expressed
differences of opinion as to what constitutes an accumulation of float
coal dust. That is an issue related to whether a condition poses a
violation. The presence of float coal dust is a condition that must be
evaluated on a case-by-case basis. There is no `shopping list' or
clear-cut formula to indicate when and to what degree the presence of
float coal dust poses a distinct hazard to the miners. When determining
whether the condition constitutes a violation, the inspector must rely
on his/her experience and knowledge. One pertinent issue in this
decision is the understanding that a minute amount of float coal dust
poses an explosion hazard to miners. As a rule the decision to cite
float coal dust accumulations is made on the discoloration of the area,
not a measurable accumulation. To put this in perspective, the lower
limit of coal dust flammability is approximately 3.0 ounces of coal
dust per linear foot of an entry with a cross sectional area of 60
square feet. This would equate to a layer of float dust the thickness
of a piece of paper. The Agency continually provides training and
support for the inspector to enhance his/her ability to make
effective and accurate judgments. Most recently, during Calendar Year
2003, a technical expert from Technical Support's Ventilation Division
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania traveled to each of the 11 CMS&H Districts
and conducted hazard recognition training for all enforcement personnel
relative to coal dust and float coal dust accumulations.
GAO Finding: "MSHA Conducts Most Quarterly Inspections as Required, but
Does Not Always Follow Through to Ensure Unsafe Conditions Identified
During Inspections are Corrected":
Your report indicated that the inspectors do not always follow through
to ensure timely abatement of violations. This finding was derived as a
result of the GAO review of violations issued from 1993 to 2002. In
2002, the Agency also realized some inconsistencies relative to
inspection procedures and the enforcement of mandatory safety
standards. In response to the Agency's findings, a joint Consistency
Plan between Coal and Metal/Nonmetal was developed and implemented on
April 2, 2002. The Consistency Plan was updated and its importance was
reemphasized by the Administrator for CMS&H on March 31, 2003. In
addition, the Administrators for Coal and Metal/Nonmetal jointly issued
a revised Citation and Order Writing Handbook in June 2002 (Handbook
Number PH02-I-7). The Handbook sets forth procedures to be followed in
writing and issuing citations and orders in Coal or Metal/Nonmetal
mines. The Handbook provides guidance for all enforcement personnel in
issuing, extending, modifying, vacating, and terminating citations and
orders. The Handbook was recently updated in August 2003, to provide
improved guidance and specific examples of proper enforcement
evaluations.
During Calendar Year 2003, a professional instructor from the Mine
Health and Safety Academy in Beckley, West Virginia traveled to each of
the 11 CMS&H Districts and conducted training relative to citation and
order writing.
On January 6, 2003, the Administrator for CMS&H selected a committee to
develop a Peer Review Accountability Program to replace our existing
Accountability Program (Handbook Number AH95-III-1). The new program
will focus on enforcement consistency throughout the nation. In August
2003, the committee circulated the draft handbook for comment prior to
final release and implementation.
Furthermore, the Agency conducts periodic reviews of resource
allocation to ensure optimum deployment of these resources. This
strategy ensures that the Agency fulfills its mandated Congressional
responsibilities in the most effective and efficient manner. This will
also result in the consistent application of the Agency's rules,
regulations, policies, and procedures relative to the issuance of
citations and the establishment of appropriate abatement times.
The Agency has taken the aforementioned measures to improve the
inspectors' understanding of reasonable citation abatement times and
the importance of timely follow-up. This has been done, even though we
recognize that it will not always be possible for an inspector to be in
the area at the designated time of abatement. As stated
in the CMS&H General Inspection Procedures Handbook, the inspector
should make every effort to re-inspect the area as soon as the fixed
abatement time has expired The most important factors relative to the
abatement process are the initial consideration of the hazard posed to
the miners and the 1977 Act's requirement for allowance of "reasonable
time" for the operator to correct the condition. One only has to look at
an example where a tail pulley is cited for lack of a guard at 3:00 pm
on Friday. The inspector must set the abatement time to protect the
miners and to allow ample time for correction. The abatement time is
established as 9:00 pm on the same day. Monday is a holiday and the
inspector knows he/she will not be back until Wednesday. The citation
will not be timely abated according to your report, but it is cited and
abated according to our guidelines and provides the maximum protection
for the miners. The degree of danger to the miners is and must remain
the first consideration in determining a
reasonable time for abatement. However, due to the inspector's schedule
and unforeseen assignments, such as 103(8) investigations, Code-A-Phone
investigations, accident investigations, training assignments, etc.,
the inspector may not be able to re-inspect the area before the
abatement time has expired. The fact that the inspector does not return
to the area to evaluate the action taken toward abatement of the
violation does not relieve the operator of his obligation to correct
the cited condition.
Footnote to Table 2: Quarterly Inspections of Underground Coal Mines,
states that MSHA does not keep track of the past status of each mine.
This is incorrect. The Coal MIS contains a historical record of all
status changes back to October 1981. GAO did not specifically request
information relative to historical mine status.
GAO Finding: "MSHA Has Highly Trained and Experienced Staff, but Lacks
a Plan for Replacing the Large Number of Inspectors Who May Soon
Retire":
This finding is incorrect. MSHA does have a plan in place to address
the potential for significant employee attrition in the near future,
and to the extent possible, will implement this plan. We completed
analyses of our 11 districts and have allocated human capital, within
authorized ceilings, to those districts that will experience employee
retirements. It must be noted that we cannot hire Full Time Equivalents
(FTE) in excess of what has been authorized by Congress. We can only
backfill vacancies as retirements occur. This does place us at a
disadvantage in that it usually requires 1 %2 to 2 years of formal and
on-the-job training before an inspector can conduct mine inspections.
Without the authority to double-encumber positions by increasing the
number of authorized FTEs, the Agency will continue to see its on-board
inspector levels lower than its authorized hiring levels.
Your report also states that MSHA is not using retention allowances to
keep inspectors who are critical to the agency's mission. As the report
indicates, MSHA's coal inspectors have been with the agency for an
average of 18 years. The majority leave the agency for retirement
purposes. A retention bonus is an incentive for unusually high or
uniquely qualified employees who might otherwise leave Federal service.
The payment of a retention allowance to eligible retirees would not be
cost effective to MSHA, as these employees will still likely retire
after the fulfillment of their service commitment.
GAO Finding: "MSHA Does Not Collect Data on Independent Contractor
Staff Needed to Assess the Effectiveness of Its Enforcement
Activities":
GAO recommends that MSHA amend guidance provided to independent
contractors requiring them to report work hours by specific mine. This
may require a regulatory change, not a guidance change. MSHA's intra-
agency coordination committee is in the process of reviewing
recommendations from the independent contractor task group. MSHA's goal
is to find the best method for obtaining the necessary contractor
information.
GAO Finding: MSHA's Databases Used to Track Accidents and
Investigations Have Weaknesses.
GAO is incorrect when they say we cannot link certain type accidents to
the actual accident investigations. Although the Part 50 database and
the Accident Investigation database are separate, stand-alone systems,
they are linked using the document control number generated by the Part
50 database. Each database can be independently queried for relative
infonnation needed to develop and track accident/injury trends and
incidence rates. MSHA agrees with the GAO that this method is
cumbersome and MSHA intends to do remedy this situation as the systems
are re-written and combined between FY 2004 and FY 2005.
The GAO report states that "MSHA does not assign an identifier to each
accident." MSHA does assign an identifier to each accident, called the
Document Number, which is assigned to each 7000-1 Form and becomes a
part of the database (this field was not requested by GAO as part of
the data sharing). The Document Number is directly linked to individual
inspection/investigation events in the accident investigation
database.
The Report also says that "MSHA cannot easily determine the number of
roof falls that occurred each year..." Operators are required to
complete a 7000-1 for accidents as defined in 30 CFR 50.2(h), which
includes non injury accidents such as unintentional roof falls. These
are entered into our system and can be identified by using the non
injury degree code 00. The accidents were included in the data provided
to GAO. Attached is the number of roof falls reported to MSHA each year
since 1983.
Additional comments:
Footnote 7 on page 16 mentions that MSHA's predecessor, the Mining
Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA) had responsibility for
overseeing impoundments at the time of the Buffalo Creek disaster. MESA
was not created until July of 1973 and Buffalo:
Creek Disaster occurred in 1972. Mine safety responsibilities were with
the Bureau of Mines at that time.
We would welcome the chance to meet and further explain our concerns
and reasons for the recommended changes. If you have questions on any
comments that MSHA has provided, please contact Kenneth Bullock on
(202) 693-9778 or Kenneth Murray on (202) 693-9505.
Sincerely,
Dave D. Laurlski:
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health:
Signed for Dave D. Laurlski:
Enclosure: Roof falls 1983-2002:
[See PDF for image]
[End of table]
GAO Comments:
1. The briefing to which MSHA refers is the exit conference held on
August 5, 2003, in which we described the findings, conclusions, and
recommendations contained in this report to MSHA in detail. At this
conference, as well as briefings held with top MSHA officials in June,
MSHA generally concurred with our findings, conclusions, and
recommendations. The information presented at the exit conference and
the other briefings is consistent with the information contained in
this report.
2. We believe the title of the report presents a fair, balanced, and
accurate representation of the information in our report. Moreover,
MSHA's own suggested title acknowledges a need for improvement.
3. Our finding that MSHA does not provide adequate oversight of the
districts' completion of 6-month technical inspections is accurate. As
MSHA acknowledges in its comments, the information reported by the
district offices to MSHA headquarters on technical inspections is not
accurate or complete. Therefore, MSHA headquarters cannot use this
information to monitor the completion of inspections by the districts.
Our draft report noted problems with the accuracy of the data reported
by district offices to MSHA headquarters on technical inspections.
However, because of the concerns MSHA expressed in its comments about
the accuracy of the data, we clarified the discussion of this issue in
the report and deleted detailed information included in an appendix to
the draft derived from the data. We commend MSHA on its efforts to
improve the accuracy of the data collected by its district offices,
thereby enhancing the agency's ability to monitor the status of these
inspections.
4. We used the term "technical inspection" in our report in order to
provide a reader friendly method of referring to the on-site
inspections conducted by MSHA related to mine plans. The term "plan
review" used by MSHA does not distinguish the reviews specialists
conduct at the district offices in order to determine whether written
plans submitted by mine operators comply with the law, regulations, and
MSHA's procedures from the on-site inspections conducted at the mines
in order to compare the plans to actual conditions at the mines.
5. We clarified the language in the report to more accurately reflect
agency procedures.
6. While MSHA believes the "dynamics" of the mining industry preclude a
formal plan for coordinating inspections, several district officials we
interviewed said that more coordination of effort in this area by MSHA
could lead to better use of agency resources and eliminate potential
duplication of effort. Furthermore, MSHA headquarters officials issued
a memorandum in June 2003 encouraging districts to better coordinate
inspections conducted by specialists and inspectors, suggesting that
coordination could be important in avoiding duplication.
7. We commend MSHA on its efforts to address this problem. Both of the
initiatives MSHA mentions are included in our report, and we encourage
the agency to move forward with these hiring and staffing initiatives.
8. We commend MSHA on its efforts to provide additional training to
inspectors and to consolidate its procedures. However, our interviews
with inspectors indicate that they interpret guidance they receive
differently and are sometimes uncertain as to what constitutes a
violation. While we acknowledge that an inspector's experience is an
important component of the decision-making process, an over reliance on
experience can lead to inconsistencies in inspectors' interpretations
of the procedures. We also note that MSHA's comment that our report
implies that MSHA and the Office of the Solicitor have been inattentive
in ensuring that inspectors receive accurate and timely training on the
legal tests needed to be applied for various enforcement decisions is
not accurate. Our report makes no such statement; it refers only to the
written procedures provided by MSHA to inspectors.
9. We commend MSHA's efforts in this area and again stress the
importance of using the data it collects in its Coal Management
Information System to monitor the timeliness of inspectors' actions to
ensure that mine operators are correcting all mine hazards as required.
MSHA's own guidance states that a violation cannot be abated until an
inspector re-inspects the area. As noted in our report, MSHA officials
told us that they have begun tracking the numbers of citations for
which inspectors have not followed up in a timely manner as part of a
new initiative to better monitor district office performance.
10. We made this correction to the report. However, we note that we
did, in fact, request information from MSHA officials on the historical
status of each mine but chose not to use the information because the
officials expressed doubts about its accuracy.
11. In several conversations with senior level MSHA officials,
including the Assistant Director for Human Resources, they told us
that, although they were in the process of developing a plan for
addressing the large number of retirements the agency is facing over
the next 5 years, they had not yet developed such a plan. After
receiving MSHA's comments on our draft report, we asked MSHA officials
for a copy of the plan referred to in the agency's comments. They told
us they did not have one plan but, instead, had recently developed
plans for each of the 11 district offices and provided us with a copy
of a plan for one district dated March 2003. When we visited this
district office in March 2003, we discussed the issue of how the
district will address the large number of inspectors who will retire in
the next 5 years. At that time, the district officials told us they
were in the process of developing a plan for how to replace these
inspectors but had not completed the plan. They did not mention having
such a plan in place, and we were not provided with a copy of the plan
at that time.
Based on our review of the district plan provided to us by MSHA, we
commend the agency for beginning to take appropriate actions necessary
to address anticipated staffing shortages. The plan, however, does not
integrate accomplishment of MSHA's mission to protect the safety and
health of coal miners with its human capital approaches, including
identifying the total number of inspectors needed to accomplishment its
mission, or address how these numbers will be maintained through hiring
and training of new inspectors as retirements occur. The plan also does
not link the accomplishment of MSHA's strategic goals using outcome
data--such as trends in the incidence rate (fatalities and nonfatal
injuries) at underground coal mines--to its future human capital needs.
As noted in our recommendation, MSHA needs to develop a comprehensive
plan that addresses the human capital needs of the agency as they
pertain to protecting the safety and health of coal miners rather than
just developing plans for each of its district offices.
12. We suggested the use of retention allowances as one type of human
capital flexibility that can benefit an agency facing a potential loss
of employees in a particular skill area. The use of retention
allowances, however, is only one of the human capital flexibilities we
mentioned in the report. In including a list of human capital
flexibilities, our intent was that MSHA would select those that are
cost-effective and beneficial to the agency.
13. While we commend MSHA in its continuing efforts to address the
issue of reporting by independent contractors, our recommendation to
amend guidance so that all independent contractors are required to
report the number of hours worked by their staffs at specific mines
would not require a regulatory change. However, if MSHA believes that a
regulatory change is necessary, it should take appropriate action. In
either case, we believe that obtaining input from the mining community
prior to making such a change and notifying them of the change would be
beneficial to the entire mining community.
14. Our report does not state that information on certain types of
accidents and investigations cannot be linked but rather that doing so
is a difficult process and, in its comments, MSHA agreed that the
process is cumbersome. The report, however, refers to linking data in
the Part 50 Database in which injuries resulting from accidents are
tracked with data in the Coal Management Information System on accident
investigations. In its comments, MSHA refers to linking data from the
Part 50 Database to information in the Accident Investigation Database.
MSHA is correct in stating that injuries and noninjury accidents
recorded in the Part 50 Database can be linked to accident
investigations in the Accident Investigation Database. However, the
Accident Investigations Database only contains information on accidents
that were investigated, not all mine accidents. In addition, as noted
in our report, the database is incomplete and is not widely used
throughout the agency because it is not user friendly.
15. Our finding that MSHA does not assign an identifier to each mine
accident is accurate. The document number on the Form 7000-1 to which
MSHA refers in its comments is assigned to each injury, not each
accident, except for accidents in which no injuries occur. Therefore,
it is difficult to determine how many accidents of each type occurred
or to track trends in the types of accidents that account for the most
injuries.
16. The detailed list MSHA provided to us as an appendix to its
comments shows the total number of injuries, by degree, that resulted
from roof falls and the total number of noninjury accidents that
occurred as a result of roof falls for the past 20 years. The data do
not, as MSHA implies, show the total number of roof falls that occurred
during this period. As noted in our report, this makes it difficult for
MSHA to track trends in the most frequent causes of mine accidents or
readily determine the percentage of accidents that result in injuries.
17. We made this correction to the report.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Revae E. Moran, (202) 512-3863:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Other major contributors to this report are Patrick J. Dibattista,
Julian P. Klazkin, Stanley J. Kostyla, Anne Inserra, Lori Rectanus,
Leslie C. Ross, Jerome T. Sandau, Linda W. Stokes, and Kris Trueblood.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Although the Mine Act does not require MSHA to conduct these
comprehensive inspections each quarter--it only requires four annual
inspections--MSHA policy is to inspect each underground coal mine once
each quarter, and many MSHA staff refer to them as quarterly
inspections. MSHA also refers to these comprehensive inspections as
"AAA" inspections because this is the code to which time spent on these
inspections is charged.
[2] Much of the data we analyzed was provided in a database assembled
by MSHA at our request. MSHA provided information from several of its
databases on the types of mines, the number of employees and hours
worked, the number and types of accidents and injuries, and on the
number and types of inspections, violations, and fines. Through
interviews and electronic testing, we concluded that the database
provided by MSHA was reliable for our work.
[3] MSHA refers to these plans as "roof control" plans.
[4] We analyzed the timeliness of these inspections by reviewing
reports prepared by the district offices from information in the
databases they use to track the timeliness of the plan approval process
and related technical inspections (the Mine Plan Approval System).
Follow up telephone conversations with district officials indicated
that, while some of the data showing districts had not completed their
6-month technical inspections were accurate, other data were not. The
officials told us that, in some cases, the data in their systems were
not current and that the technical inspections had been completed.
Therefore, while we can confidently state that not every district is
completing its 6-month technical inspections in a timely manner, the
reports--and the underlying data on which they are based--do not enable
us to give an exact statement of the degree to which they did not
complete the inspections as required.
[5] Although district offices conduct technical inspections of the
ventilation and roof support systems every 6 months, they conduct
inspections throughout the year and collect and report data on the
completion of these inspections for each quarter of the year.
[6] MSHA refers to the large embankment dams built to contain debris
produced by the mines (debris that consists mainly of water, rock, and
coal) as "impoundments."
[7] The Bureau of Mines had responsibility for overseeing impoundments
at the time of the Buffalo Creek disaster.
[8] These delays do not, for the most part, affect mines' operations
because most plans submitted to MSHA for approval are for modifications
to existing impoundments at mines that already have an impoundment in
place.
[9] In October 2000, the floor of an impoundment for a mine in Martin
County, Kentucky, broke through sealed underground areas of the mine,
causing a major coal waste spill in the surrounding community. Although
the impoundment dam did not fail, this event prompted MSHA to review
its processes for approving all impoundment plans.
[10] MSHA refers to this as "float" coal dust. It is extremely
combustible and can cause explosions in underground coal mines.
[11] MSHA does not set a deadline for correction of every type of
violation. For example, inspectors are not required to set a deadline
for an order in which the mine is closed due to "imminent danger."
[12] Human capital flexibilities represent the policies and practices
that an agency has the authority to implement, in managing its
workforce, to accomplish its mission and goals. We recently reported on
the key practices agencies should use when implementing human capital
flexibilities. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital:
Effective Use of Flexibilities Can Assist Agencies in Managing Their
Workforces, GAO-03-2 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 6, 2002).
[13] Direct hire authority, which was authorized in the Homeland
Security Act of 2002, provides agencies with the authority to appoint
candidates directly to jobs for which the Office of Personnel
Management has determined that there is a severe shortage of candidates
or a critical hiring need.
[14] The Mine Act defines a mine operator to include independent
contractors that perform services or construction at a mine.
[15] MSHA's memorandum exempted all independent contractors from some
of the reporting requirements of the Mine Act except those whose staff
provide services in one of the following nine high hazard activities:
(1) mine development, including shaft and slope sinking; (2)
construction or reconstruction of mine facilities; (3) demolition of
mine facilities; (4) construction of dams; (5) excavation or
earthmoving activities involving mobile equipment; (6) equipment
installation, such as crushers and mills; (7) equipment service or
repair of equipment on mine property for a period exceeding 5
consecutive days at a particular mine; (8) material handling within
mine property, including haulage of coal, ore, and refuse, unless for
the sole purpose of direct removal from or delivery to mine property;
and (9) drilling and blasting. Procedures later issued by MSHA
clarifying these requirements stated that mining coal was included in
activity (8).
[16] Two of MSHA's key performance goals are to reduce the fatal injury
rate and the rate of all injuries in coal mines.
[17] The mining community is a commonly used term for referring to the
various types of entities and individuals involved in mining. It can
include MSHA enforcement personnel, state mining agency personnel, mine
operators, miners and labor organizations, special interest groups, and
mining equipment manufacturers.
[18] Although the investigation handbook states that MSHA headquarters
is responsible for investigations of mine emergencies, it does not
define what constitutes a mine emergency.
[19] Mine operators and independent contractors are required to file
detailed reports with MSHA on injuries that result from a mine
accident. These reports include information on the name of the injured
person, the seriousness of the injury and the body part(s) affected,
and the number of days of missed work or restricted activity, if any,
that resulted from the injury.
[20] MSHA does, however, assign an identifier to accidents in which no
one was injured.
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