In the April 1998 issue of Rock Products, Bob Drake predicted a record-setting year for the industry due to an early start to the construction season, surface transportation legislation and other factors. Increased activity will mean increased employment and work hours. This challenges us to increase our vigilance against accidents.

A serious impediment to responding to this challenge is a restriction on the budget of the Mine Safety and Health Administration in the form of an appropriations rider that prohibits MSHA from using its funds to carry out training requirements in certain mineral industries including sand, gravel and surface stone operations. This rider has been in place since FY1980.

The sections of the law affected by the prohibition are those that require all new miners to be provided with specific safety and health training, as well as requiring refresher training annually for experienced miners. Since FY1980, more than 600 miners have been killed in occupational-related accidents at mines where MSHA is prohibited from evaluating compliance with these training requirements. Most of these fatal accidents were clearly preventable.

About two-thirds of the hours worked in surface metal and nonmetal mines are at operations where MSHA cannot determine compliance with safety and health training requirements. Yet, in the past two years, 90% of the fatalities occurred at these operations. Unless there is some improvement in the rate at which fatalities occurred through May 20, 1998, fatalities this year at operations covered by the rider will exceed the 1997 total.

In enacting the mine safety law, Congress recognized that more than federal inspection alone is necessary to assure miners' safety. Among other things, the law requires that miners be provided with safety and health training so they can recognize hazards and use safe procedures to avoid accidents.

When the rider was first introduced nearly 20 years ago, it is understandable that it would have seemed reasonable to many. The training provision was just one element in a new law that created many changes to which the metal and nonmetal mining industry-and MSHA-had to adjust. At the same time, coal mining fatalities, and fatalities at underground mines generally, remained at the center of public attention. Training for miners at stone, sand and gravel operations may not have appeared a top priority.

Experience has shown the importance of that training. Some mine operators have developed and maintained highly effective training programs, and have outstanding accident records to prove it. Miners at other operations, however, receive inadequate training, and all too many recent accidents demonstrate the results.

Today, moreover, safety in the stone, sand and gravel industry has become a more prominent concern. Last year, the number of fatalities in industries covered by the training rider was 45, compared with 30 fatalities last year in all of the nation's coal mines.

With the new transportation bill, there will be all the more need for adequate miner training in these industries. We can expect to see more new and inexperienced miners, as well as greater demands on miners already working.

New miners are particularly vulnerable to injury, and too many have come into harm's way because they have not been given the knowledge to protect themselves and their fellow workers. Experience also has shown that experienced miners benefit from regular refresher training to maintain safe work practices.

The training rider has outlived its usefulness and it is time for a change. Holding all mine operators to minimum safety and health training requirements would create a more level playing field and, most important, help prevent needless deaths, injuries, and occupational illnesses in the coming years. Instead of continued increases in fatalities, we could expect to see improvements in the overall safety record of these industries once again.