Mine Safety Technology Task Force Members Named

By The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Mar. 10–A former head of the state Office of Miner’s Health, Safety and Training was named Thursday to a task force to help implement an emergency rule on protective equipment for the state’s underground miners. James Dean, acting director of the state’s mining safety office, identified Stephen Webber, formerly of Westover, as one of the six members of the Mine Safety Technology Task Force. Webber, now retired, spent much of his career in Monongalia County mines and working out of the UMWA District 31 office, where he was an international officer. He left this area to become head of OMHST. He also served as MSHA’s director fo the Office of Assessment. The others are Dale Birchfield, Theodore B. Hapney, Terry Hudson, Todd Moore and Gary Trout. They have until June to complete their report. Haney, Trout and Webber are members of the United Mine Workers of America, the union representing many of the state’s coal miners. Birchfield, Hudson and Moore were named by the West Virginia Coal Association, the coal operators’ group.

The team will study devices to protect miners. These include self-contained self-rescuers, emergency shelters and chambers, wireless communications devices and wireless tracking devices required under the emergency rule. The task force will also study issues regarding implementing, complying with and enforcing the emergency rule’s safety requirements. The state mining office worked with the governor and coal industry to select a team with experience in both underground mining and mine safety issues, Dean said. The emergency rule implements a new law that Manchin persuaded legislators to pass after two miners were killed following a Jan. 19 fire at the Aracoma Coal Alma No. 1 mine in Logan County. That accident happened less than three weeks after the Jan. 2 explosion at the Sago Mine in Upshur County, killing 12 miners.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

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