The first story in this series of mine safety protection gone very wrong under Bush appointee Richard Stickler is here for Daily Kos and here for unbossed. That report describes flawed fatality inspections and no oversight to correct them. Plus a truculent response to the Inspector General's findings by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). This second IG report shows a failure to inspect mines.
crossposted from unbossed.
Not too many years ago, OSHA inspections and safety enforcement compared very poorly to that of MSHA. Now under Richard Stickler, MSHA makes OSHA look not so bad, even though the average workplace will only see an OSHA every 100 years or so.
By law mines must be inspected four times a year, and MSHA has the power to shut unsafe mines down.
The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Mine Act), as amended, requires the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to perform inspections of each underground coal mine in its entirety at least four times per year. MSHA’s primary means to comply with this statutory requirement is to conduct regular safety and health inspections.
But that is not how the Stickler MSHA operates.
According to his testimony about the Crandall Canyon mine collapse this past summer, Stickler said:
Under the Mine Safety and Health Act, MSHA is required to inspect all underground coal mines four times a year. Since the purchase of the Crandall Canyon mine by Murray Energy, MSHA has performed 5 regularly scheduled inspections, two spot inspections, responded to a complaint from a whistleblower, and performed a roof control technical inspection. One of the regularly scheduled inspections was occurring when Murray Energy Corp. purchased the mine. A total of 73 citations were issued during these inspections with proposed penalties of $19,662.
But what did the IG report find? It says critical inspections were not done.
Due to the fatalities at the Crandall Canyon Mine in August 2007, we added it to our audit sample. We determined that all seven required inspections were completed at the mine during FYs 2006 and 2007. However, consistent with our original audit work, we found that 16 percent of the 68 selected critical inspection activities tested for the seven inspections were not documented as actually having been performed.
Three of the Crandall Canyon Mine inspections we reviewed had significant inspection and supervisory deficiencies.
* The FY 2006, Quarter 1 inspections records contained written feedback to the inspector from the Field Office supervisor that the inspection was incomplete and unsatisfactory, and
* The FY 2006, Quarter 4 inspection records did not contain documentation for six critical inspection activities that CMS&H policy required to be documented.
* Some records from the inspection completed before the August fatalities (FY 2007, Quarter 3) were dated by the inspector about four months prior to the start of the inspection. One of these was a requirement for the inspector to evaluate the Roof Control Plan. The inspector could not explain why the forms were dated before the inspection period.
* Because the inspection deficiencies identified in our audit were caused by weaknesses in policies and procedures, it is likely that similar documentation problems existed in all 11 CMS&H districts.
* In fact, MSHA found similar inspection and supervisory oversight problems during internal reviews of three fatal underground mining accidents at the Sago, Aracoma, and Darby mines.
Missed or incomplete inspections place miners at risk because hazardous conditions in the mines may not be identified and corrected.
The report summary finds it was common for mine inspections to be poorly done, and a significant number were not done at all.
Our audit disclosed that MSHA did not complete one or more statutorily-required inspections at 107 (15%) of the Nation’s 731 underground coal mines during FY 2006.
One hundred and forty-seven (147) total required inspections were not completed at the 107 mines.
MSHA also misstated the number of completed inspections and required inspections used in calculating the completion rate published in management reports and on MSHA’s public website.
The inspections were not completed and the number of completed and required inspections were misstated because
(1) decreasing inspection resources during a period of increasing mining activity made it more difficult to complete the required inspections, and
(2) management did not place adequate emphasis on ensuring the inspections were completed and the reported completion rate was accurate.
Specifically, the number of inspectors assigned to the 11 CMS&H districts was not commensurate with the mine activity at the districts, and management’s monitoring of inspection completions was not effective.
Furthermore, MSHA could not provide adequate assurance that critical inspection activities required by its policy were performed during the inspections completed in FY 2006.
Our review of 21 inspections of active mines disclosed that for the 68 selected inspection activities we tested, 15% were not documented as having been performed because management did not require inspectors to document all critical inspection activities performed.
MSHA's response to these very serious findings was to stonewall and place the blame on the IG's methodology.
In response to the draft report, DOL’s Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health disagreed with the accuracy and presentation of some of the audit results and questioned the audit methodology for assessing the thoroughness of inspections.
He stated that limited enforcement time should be placed primarily on identifying and abating hazards rather than documentation and paperwork.
He explained that MSHA has hired and is training additional mine inspectors and is rotating inspectors into understaffed districts to assist in completing all mandatory inspections.
He did agree to make various revisions to MSHA’s policies and guidance in response to several of our recommendations.
The Assistant Secretary did not agree to document when a critical inspection activity was not applicable at a mine. As an alternative, he suggested adding a disclaimer statement to ITS reports.
His response did not directly address our recommendation to require Field Office supervisors to certify inspections are thorough before being counted as complete.
That's how mine safety is enforced in the US these days. It's not only a crying shame, it's just a downright crime to have let this important agency fall into this sort of condition.
Labor Department's Office of Inspector General, Underground Coal Mine Inspection Mandate Not Fulfilled Due to Resource Limitations and Lack of Management Emphasis, Report No. 05-08-001-06-001