State Safety

By Alpha Natural Resources

ABINGDON, Va., Oct. 25, 2011 — /PRNewswire/ — Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR), one of the nation’s leading coal suppliers, is pleased to announce that one of its affiliates, Enterprise Mining Company (Enterprise), was recently presented with an underground safety award.  The award recognizes a mining operation with the best safety record in the Hazard, Kentucky district. The Kentucky office of Mine Safety and the Kentucky Coal Association sponsored the award. The award was presented at the Kentucky Coal Association’s annual meeting in Lexington, … Continue Reading

CHARLESTON, W. Va. (AP) — West Virginia mine safety officials have ordered emergency inspections of up to 500 rescue shelters in the state’s underground coal mines.

The Charleston Gazette (http://bit.ly/qjnxQ7 ) reported the Office of Miners Health, Safety and Training issued the order Friday.

West Virginia mines are required to contain rescue shelters that could help miners survive the toxic environment inside a mine after an underground explosion.

The agency cited concerns that cracked valves and fittings might make the units inoperable.

The order requires inspections by shelter manufacturers of all inflatable, tent design mine rescue chambers by Oct. 31.

From: The Salt Lake Tribune

Carbon County’s Dugout Canyon coal mine has gone two years — exceeding 1 million man-hours of work time — without a lost-time accident reportable to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, company officials said.

In addition, the mine’s Castle Valley Preparation Plant has been incident-free for five consecutive years, said Kim Link, a spokeswoman for St. Louis-based Arch Coal, whose Canyon Fuel Co. subsidiary operates Dugout Canyon and two other Utah coal mines, Skyline and Sufco.

Together, those three mines are Utah’s largest producers and employ 900 people.

From: Missouri University of Science and Technology

A team from Missouri University of Science and Technology recently finished second in a mine rescue competition that was held at S&T’s Experimental Mine.

The event featured 13 teams, most of which represented companies. In addition to the squad that finished second, another S&T team placed 12th against the industry professionals.

The second-place finish is quite an accomplishment, according to Jim Taylor, supervisor of the Experimental Mine. “I have been here 19 years and this is the best one of our teams has placed,” Taylor says.