The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and its predecessor, the US Bureau of Mines (USBM), have significantly contributed to enhancing the safety of miners and to applying new technologies to the mining industry. Mining fundamentally depends upon pushing technological boundaries and adapting to new and uncertain ground conditions. The USBM/NIOSH, partnering with industry, have contributed significant rock mechanics research that has resulted in increased productivity and reduced hazards, particularly in the underground coal mining industry but in the metal/nonmetal sector as well. As an association focused on rock mechanics, the American Rock Mechanics Association (ARMA) applauds the work conducted by the USBM/NIOSH and encourages its continuation.
On 6 December 1907, the Monongah Coal Mine explosion claimed the lives of 364 miners. It was a devasting event during a decade of devasting events. Over the following years, new records of the most terrible kind were set. An all-time high 20 coal mine disasters with five or more fatalities occurred in 1909. The next year set a record for total mine disasters with 25. In 1911 there were eight metal/nonmetal mine disasters, a record for that sector that still stands to this day.
Disasters had become commonplace. In a growing nation, dependent upon mining both at the community and national levels, Congress had to take action. In 1910, the US Bureau of Mines was born.
A century later, coal production had doubled to a peak in 2008 and mining, both coal and metal/nonmetal, had been totally revolutionized. Coal production per miner grew by a factor of ten. The fatality rate had steadily and dramatically declined, achieving a total reduction by a factor of twenty . There is often a misconception that safety and efficiency cannot be simultaneously achieved. Coal mining in the United States attaining a 200-fold reduction in the number of fatalities per ton of coal produced is perhaps the industrialized world’s single most striking success story showing that efficiency and safety go hand in hand.
Metal/nonmetal mine statistics tell a similar story. Here, the number of miners has remained relatively steady since the 1940s while the number of annual fatalities has been reduced by a factor of ten. Additionally, metal/nonmetal mine disasters, which peaked at nearly one per year during the period 1926–1950, have been nearly eliminated.
It Turns Out, Innovation Matters
During this phenomenal century of increasing efficiency and safety, NIOSH, and its predecessor USBM, have been drivers of innovation. Almost immediately, the new agency set about to demonstrate that fine coal dust significantly raised the intensity of methane-initiated explosions. This was not broadly accepted at that time and had to be proven with experimental data. That data was produced at the USBM/NIOSH Pittsburgh Mining Research Laboratory.
The realization that fine coal dust greatly magnified the destructive power of an isolated methane explosion led to the mandated practice of inert material dusting the inside surfaces of a coal mine along with guidelines for using explosives in gassy coal mines.
Other important engineering interventions in the 1970s, such as ignition suppression systems and explosion-proof bulkheads, led to even a more dramatic reduction in the threat of coal mine explosions.