An H&S Response to Industry Decline – the Underground Coal Mining Safety Research Collaboration

“Safety must be number one in mining,” said Vern Baker of Barrick, a panelist at the Mine Managers’ Forum, the opening session at CIM’s annual conference in Toronto in April. In his experience, “improving safety improves everything else at a mining operation.” His goal is now a zero accident frequency for their mines in Canada. These sentiments are well recognized in the Canadian coal sector too. The annual John T. Ryan Safety Awards for Select Mines, for example, was awarded in 2004 to the Paint Earth mine in Alberta, a surface coal mine, and in 2003 to the Quinsam mine in British Columbia, an underground coal mine.

Baker also acknowledged that achievement of such lofty goals does not come easy, with many obstacles to overcome. Some of these are not obvious. In 2003, Quinsam had been the only underground coal mine in Canada producing less than half a million tonnes per year (Mtpa), representing an industry in severe decline! A few years earlier Canadian underground coal output had been over 4 Mtpa. Now, in early 2005, as Grand Cache Coal’s new mine comes on stream, there are two underground coal mines, with a real possibility of two more soon, one in British Columbia and one in Nova Scotia. Such a tiny number of mines across such a vast country, however, does pose a real challenge to both operators and regulators. For example, how do you maintain adequate resources and up-to-date knowledge, and particularly appropriate research, to support safety management and regulation in an industry with its own unique safety hazards? The apparently frequent occurrences of coal mine gas and coal dust explosions elsewhere (mainly in China) serve as a continual reminder of the reality of the unique hazards of the underground mining of coal, which itself is a fuel. The challenge is compounded by the significant difference in U.S. equipment requirements from Canadian ones and the varying personnel requirements across jurisdictions. Factors such as these add frustrating complications and additional costs to small operations.

Natural Resources Canada’s Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) has been conducting safetyrelated mining research for decades. It was particularly active in the coal sector, and especially underground coal, in the 1980s and 1990s. The demise of Devco in the late 1990s, however, illustrated the all too common impact of industry decline on such research, and CANMET’s Cape Breton Coal Research Laboratory closed in 1998. CANMET however, did not want to abandon the underground coal sector and looked for an appropriate model to pursue research opportunities. Unlike Japan’s JCOAE model, Canada had no manufacturing or industrial support base; therefore, CANMET consulted stakeholders for a more appropriate model. Subsequently, the Underground Coal Mining Safety Research Collaboration (UCMSRC) was born, starting in September 1998. It has two main goals, first to provide a forum for exchange of news, views, and experiences between stakeholders, and the other to conduct specific research projects on topics of mutual interest.

UCMSRC is a collaboration between stakeholders, formalized by a Memorandum or Eetter of Understanding, renewed on an annual basis. Participants include operators, labour representatives, regulators, inspectors, and university researchers from across four jurisdictions (Nova Scotia, Alberta, British Columbia, and federal). It has a simple structure of an Executive Committee comprising one representative of each participant group, with decisions reached on a majority vote, and supported by a small secretariat provided by CANMET. Project teams are established on an as-needed basis comprising appropriate participant representation, each reporting to the Executive Committee. There is also a specialist technical advisor to advise, assist, and generally facilitate the smooth running of UCMSRC. Funding is mainly by inkind contributions by participants, with CANMET providing up to two full-time equivalents. A small annual cash budget of up to $25,000 per year had been contributed by CANMET and, more recently, from provincial regulators. UCMSRC is currently exploring means to become financially self-sufficient.

The principal outcomes of UCMSRC to date have been encouraging. The technical forum is well into its seventh year and many projects have been completed. The forum facilitates frank discussion not only on technical issues but also on more generic aspects, such as the philosophy and approach to occupational safety and health (OSH) legislation. It also allows mutual encouragement through sharing of experience, information, and contacts. A key niche has been provision of regulatory support material, drawn from both historic and current sources across the western world, to provide a better- informed decision base for regulators as they conduct their periodic tripartite regulatory reviews.

The limited funding unfortunately restricts project scope, hence a typical project is small scale, involving compilation and review of historic and recent papers, articles, and texts on the subject, followed by review, assessment/discussion, and concluding with appropriate recommendations. Projects completed to date include: methane cut-off limits and related warnings; hazardous zoning; use of non-flameproof diesel vehicles and risk assessment; light alloys; fire resistant fluids; explosion prevention and combustible content; explosion barriers; refuge stations; and geotechnical assessment of the four mines operating in 1999. Our current project is proving to be an interesting challenge as we conduct a comparative review of underground coal mining OSH legislation in the four Canadian jurisdictions. By identifying commonalities and variances, regulators will have a better-informed basis for their tripartite reviews to update their code and regulations. This hopefully will lead to the identification of common core programs of mutual benefit.

One of the key benefits of the UCM-SRC work has been to provide a comprehensive summary of historic scientific research, often conducted in Europe in the f950s to 1970s in areas such as explosion prevention, explosion barriers, and use of light alloys. As the European coal industry has also significantly downsized, this information is increasingly difficult to obtain, but is now readily available to participants on our secure website. It is always an ongoing challenge to maintain relevance of the work to all of the participants all of the time but it has been gratifying to be a part of this unique Canadian initiative and to see it develop and continue. We trust it forms a useful model for consideration in other sectors of our industry that may also experience downsizing but nevertheless wish to remain at the forefront of safety and health initiatives.

by Dave J. Forrester, principal consultant, DJF Consulting Limited

Copyright Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy & Petroleum Jun/ Jul 2005