Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few days into the new year, on Jan. 3, the industry suffered its first fatality, this one at Borger Pit in Hutchinson, Texas. MSHA classified the incident as “Falling, Rolling or Sliding Rock or Material of Any Kind.”
In 2024, MSHA reported 28 fatalities, 18 of those at non-metallic materials sites, but only 12 at aggregates operations. That mining industry total of 28 is down from 31 in 2023, but up from the 19 the industry suffered in 2022. The historic low is 13 in 2017.
To put this in perspective, when I first started covering the aggregates industry in 1987, there were 67 fatalities, and that was not so many years removed from 1980, the last year there were triple-digit deaths, with 103.
Even one death is too many, but the bottom line is, the mining industry has done a great job of protecting its workers.
Also, MSHA released the results of its second Pattern of Violations (POV) screening for 2024 and announced that for the first time since 2021, none of the nation’s mines met the POV criteria for the existence of a pattern of violations under section 104(e) of the Mine Act.
POV screenings enable MSHA to identify chronic violators and mine operators that show a disregard for miners’ health and safety. For the second year in a row, the agency conducted at least two POV screenings in a calendar year, setting new precedent and underscoring what the agency’s said are a concerted effort to reduce fatal and serious accidents and improve operator compliance.
Looking ahead, MSHA’s focus will be on the final rule issued in 2024 entitled “Lowering Miners’ Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica and Improving Respiratory Protection.” This final rule went into effect on June 17, 2024. Metal/nonmetal mine operators must come into compliance by April 8, 2026.
As Rock Products Law columnist Brian Hendrix has said, ”The final rule imposes tremendous, unnecessary burdens on mine operators and miners and will produce years of contentious enforcement disputes and litigation. Compliance with certain requirements of the rule for many operators will simply not be technologically or economically feasible. And, I am certain that MSHA is not prepared to enforce the rule.”
But there the rule is. You can get a jump on compliance by going to www.msha.gov/silica-final-rule-30-cfr-part-60-resources.
Continue to work safe in 2025.
Mark S. Kuhar, editor
[email protected]
(330) 722‐4081
X: @editormarkkuhar