W. Va. orders emergency mine inspections
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.
The order also requires mine operators to replace all brass valves and fittings associated with the units’ compressed-oxygen cylinders within the next two years.
“The demonstrated unpredictable service life of the brass valves and fittings is troublesome,” the state said in Friday’s order. “The current situation left unchecked represents a safety hazard.”
Plans for this required retrofitting must be submitted to the state by Oct. 31, but the deadline for actual replacement of valves and fittings is not until Dec. 31, 2013.
“We have to make sure they are going to operate the way they are designed to operate,” said state mine safety director C.A. Phillips.
West Virginia lawmakers mandated the equipment after the Sago Mine disaster and the Aracoma Mine fire, in which workers died before rescuers could reach them in smoke-filled underground tunnels.
The newspaper reported that the order comes after a lengthy state and federal investigation following an incident at an unidentified underground mine in January.
State officials now describe the incident, involving an A.L. Lee Corp. shelter, as a “catastrophic failure” that pressured the interior of the steel structure.
“The initial determination is that the pressure build-up inside the container forced open both the tent deployment door and the air-lock access door, ejecting a supply container and three five-gallon water containers from the access door area onto a nearby (mine wall),” according to a U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration report on the event.
A.L. Lee reported in February that it found similar problems with two other units that had been returned to its shop, according to MSHA records.
