U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
                             
          MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
         
         
         MEETING FOR PUBLIC COMMENT  )
         
                                     )
         
         30 CFR PART 46              )
         
         TRAINING AND RETRAINING OF  )
         
         MINERS ENGAGED IN SHELL     )
         
         DREDGING OR EMPLOYED AT     )
         
         SAND, GRAVEL, SURFACE STONE,)
         
         SURFACE CLAY, COLLOIDAL     )
         
         PHOSPHATE, OR SURFACE       )
         
         LIMESTONE MINES             )
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
                            
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         Pages:  1 through 143
         
         Place:  Denver, Colorado
         
         Date:   December 9, 1998          BEFORE THE 
          
          U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
          
          MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
          
                                      )
          MEETING FOR PUBLIC COMMENT  )
                                      )
          30 CFR PART 46              )
          TRAINING AND RETRAINING OF  )
          MINERS ENGAGED IN SHELL     )
          DREDGING OR EMPLOYED AT     )
          SAND, GRAVEL, SURFACE STONE,)
          SURFACE CLAY, COLLOIDAL     )
          PHOSPHATE, OR SURFACE       )
          LIMESTONE MINES             )
          
                              Valencia Room
                              Embassy Suites Hotel
                              4444 N. Havana Street
                              Denver, Colorado
          
                              Wednesday,
                              December 9, 1998
          
              The above-entitled matter came on for hearing,
          
          pursuant to notice, at 8:00 a.m.
          
              PANEL MEMBERS:
          
              KATHY ALEJANDRO
                   Metal and Nonmetal Mine Safety and Health
                   Arlington, Virginia
              KEVIN BURNS
                   Metal and Nonmetal Mine Safety and Health
                   Arlington, Virginia
              ROSLYN FONTAINE
                   Office of Standards Regulations and
                     Variances
              ROD BRELAND
                   Western Operations Manager
                   Educational Field Services                                   I N D E X
          
          SPEAKER                                                  PAGE
          
          Chairperson Alejandro                                      3
          
          Rod Stewart                               8
          Colorado Rock Products Association   
          
          Harry Tuggle                             20                      
          United Steel Workers of America         
          Bill York-Feirn                          42
          Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology
          Mine Safety and Training Program                                 
          
          Kelly Schafer                            59
          Fisher Sand & Gravel 
          
          Mike Fisher                              79
          Fisher Sand & Gravel                 
          
          Tino Manzanares                          85
          County Technical Services
          
          Richard Brown                            92
          Wyoben, Inc.
          
          James Ellison                           113
          
          Rod Cody                                                 118
          Wyoming MSHA State Grants Program
          
          Greg Oster                                               134
          Camas, Minnesota
          
          Chris Hunke                             139
          Paulsen, Inc.
          
          Al Quist                                                 140
          Camas, Colorado
                                        P R O C E E D I N G S
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Good morning.  My name is
          Kathy Alejandro.  And I am with the Mine Safety and Health
          Administration, specifically with Metal and Nonmetal Mine
          Safety and Health in Arlington, Virginia.
              And on behalf of MSHA, I would like to welcome
          you to the second of seven public meetings on regulations
          for miner safety and health training.
              These meetings are intended to give individuals
          and organizations, including miners and their
          representatives and mine operators, both large and small, an
          opportunity to present their views on the types of
          requirements that will result in the most effective miner
          safety and health training.
              These regulations would apply at those nonmetal
          surface mines where MSHA is currently prohibited from
          enforcing existing training requirements.
              I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce
          the other members of the MSHA panel who are here with me
          this morning.
              To my far right is Rod Breland, with the Mine
          Safety and Health Administration, who is Western Operations
          Manager of the newly formed Educational Field Services
          within MSHA.
              Kevin Burns is to my immediate right.  He is also
          with Metal and Nonmetal Mine Safety and Health.
              And Roslyn Fontaine, to my left, is with the
          Office of Standards Regulations and Variances.
              Since 1979, MSHA has been guided by a rider to
          its appropriations.
              The restriction currently states, "None of the
          funds appropriated shall be obligated or expended to carry
          out Section 115 of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of
          1977, or to carry out that portion of Section 104(g)(1) of
          such act relating to the enforcement of any training
          requirements with respect to shell dredging or with respect
          to any sand, gravel, surface stone, surface clay, colloidal
          phosphate, or surface limestone mining."
              In the omnibus budget passed by Congress on
          October 21, 1998, MSHA was directed to work with the
          affected industries, mine operators, workers, labor
          organizations, and other affected and interested parties to
          promulgate final training regulations for the affected
          industries by September 30, 1999.
              It is understood that these regulations are to be
          based on a draft submitted to MSHA, by the Coalition for
          Effective Miner Training, no later than February 1, 1999.  
              MSHA expects to publish a proposed regulation in
          the Federal Register sometime in the early spring of 1999.
              The regulations that MSHA will be developing must
          include the minimum requirements in Section 115 of the
          Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977.
              To summarize those requirements, Section 115
          provides that every mine operator shall have a health and
          safety training program that is approved by the Secretary of
          Labor and that complies with certain minimum requirements.
              Section 115 specifies that surface miners are to
          receive no less than 24 hours of new miner training, no less
          than eight hours of refresher training annually, and task
          training for new work assignments.
              Section 115 also requires that the training cover
          specific training areas; provides the training is to be
          conducted during normal work hours, at normal pay; requires
          that miners be reimbursed for additional costs they incur
          incidental to this training; and provides that mine
          operators must maintain miners' training certificates and
          furnish such records to the miner.
              In addition to these requirements, MSHA is
          looking for suggestions and comments as to how best to
          achieve effective miner safety and health training
          consistent with the Mine Act, including any additional
          requirements that should be included in the proposed rule,
          and most importantly, why.
              A public meeting has already been held in
          Northbrook, Illinois.  That was earlier this week.  Other
          public meetings like this one today have been scheduled at
          five other locations in the coming weeks, including Albany,
          New York; Portland, Oregon; Ontario, California; Dallas; and
          Atlanta.
              This is designed to give as many individuals and
          organizations as possible an opportunity to present their
          views on this important subject.
              We intend to conduct this meeting in an informal
          manner.  And a court reporter is making a verbatim
          transcript of the proceedings.
              I would ask that anyone who has signed up in
          advance to speak who wishes to speak at this meeting, do
          sign up on the speakers list, which is, you know, currently
          right here, but I will make it available to people as the
          meeting proceeds.
              As I said earlier, we also ask that everyone who
          is here sign up, whether or not you wish to speak, sign up
          on the attendance list, which is, right now, in the back of
          the room.
              You may also send us written comments after this
          meeting is over, if you wish.  We haven't established a
          formal deadline for submission of written comments to MSHA,
          but I would encourage you to submit anything that you wish
          before -- on or before February 1, 1999.  And this will
          ensure that your suggestions and input is fully considered.
              Although we are most interested in what you have
          to say to us, we will attempt to answer any questions that
          you may have as the meeting progresses.
              And we're specifically interested in comments
          addressing certain areas, although you certainly are
          strongly encouraged to comment on any issue related to miner
          safety and health training at currently exempt mines.
              The issues we're particularly interested in were
          outlined in the November 3 Federal Register notice that
          announced this schedule of these public meetings.  And I
          will give you a short summary of those issues.
              Should certain terms, including new miner and
          experienced miner, be defined?
              Which subjects should be taught before a new
          miner is assigned work, even if the work is done under close
          supervision?
              Should training for inexperienced miners be given
          all at once, or over a period of time, such as several weeks
          or months?
              Should supervisors be subject to the same
          training requirements as miners?
              Should task training be required whenever a miner
          receives a work assignment that involves new and unfamiliar
          tasks?
              Should specific subject areas be covered during
          annual refresher training?  If so, what subject areas should
          be included?
              Can the eight hours of annual refresher training
          required by the Mine Act be completed in segments of
          training lasting less than 30 minutes?
              Should the records of training be kept by the
          mine operator at the mine site, or can they be kept at other
          locations?
              Should there be minimum qualifications for
          persons who conduct miner training?  If so, what type of
          qualifications are appropriate?
              I would now like to introduce the first speaker
          this morning.  We ask that all speakers who come up to speak
          state and spell their names for the court reporter before
          beginning their presentation.  Thank you very much.
              The first speaker that we have on the list is Ken
          Pike, from Montana Limestone.  Mr. Pike?
              Okay.  Yes.  We'll come back to him.
              Rod Stewart, from Colorado Rock Products
          Association.
              Actually, could you come up, and why don't you
          sit at this table?  I think that will work the best.  I
          don't think that mic is hooked up, actually.
              MR. STEWART:  Thank you.  My name is Rod Stewart. 
          I'm the Executive Director of the Colorado Rock Products
          Association.  And that name is spelled S-T-E-W-A-R-T.
              In its November 3, 1998 notice in the Federal
          Register, announcing seven public hearings around the
          country, MSHA raises several questions it says it would like
          to have answered before it begins developing a proposed
          training rule for exempt industries.
              I would like to try to address some of those
          issues this morning, if I may.
              Under the section of definitions, should certain
          terms, including new miner and experienced miner, be
          defined?  Yes.  Our answer would be, yes.
              If so, how should these terms be defined?  I'll
          use the term CRPA for brevity, which is the -- which is my
          organization, Colorado Rock Products, if I may.
              CRPA offers the following draft definitional
          language.
              New miner:  A newly hired, inexperienced employee
          who has not received 24 hours of new miner training required
          in Section 115(a)(2) of the Mine Safety and Health Act of
          1977.
              For experienced miner:  An employee who has
          completed 24 hours of new miner training or who has had at
          least 12 months of mining experience.
              CRPA would also like to offer a definition of a
          competent person.  And that definition would be:  A
          competent person means a person designated by the operator,
          having abilities and experience that fully qualify him or
          her to perform the duty to which he or she was assigned.
              New miner training.  Section 115 of the Mine Act
          lists several subjects that must be covered by training for
          new, inexperienced miners at surface mines, including
          instruction in the rights of miners and their
          representatives, under the Mine Act; use of self-rescue
          devices, where appropriate and respiratory devices, where
          appropriate; hazard recognition; emergency procedures;
          electrical hazards; first aid; a walk-around training; the
          health and safety aspects of the tasks to which the miner
          will be assigned.
              The next question, Which of these subjects should
          be taught before a new miner is assigned work, even if the
          work is done under close supervision?
              A new miner should be taught all items listed in
          Section 115 of the Mine Act.  A possible exception is first
          aid, which requires a significant amount of instruction up
          front and for years thereafter for persons to maintain their
          first aid skills.  First aid might best be addressed in a
          separate forum.  The new first aid standard may be just that
          forum.
              Question:  Should training for inexperienced
          miners be given all at once, or over a period of time, such
          as several weeks or months?
              With the exception of a short block of
          instruction at the beginning of employment, training should
          be spread out over a period of months.
              When MSHA proposed Part 48, in 1979, operators
          complained that the high turn-over rate then characteristic
          to the industry meant that an operator might never recoup
          the substantial up-front investment represented by MSHA's
          proposed requirement for 24 hours of instructions before a
          miner began work.
              MSHA responded by requiring eight hours of
          training up front, with the remaining 16 to be completed
          within 60 days.
              During the senatorial debate on the rider,
          Senator Williams offered an amendment of his own that would
          cut initial training to six hours, with the remaining 18
          hours required over six months.  Senator Williams was
          responding to operator complaints that they needed even more
          flexibility that what MSHA had proposed.
              Senator Williams' amendment was defeated.  But
          it's important to be aware of operators' needs then and of
          attempts to accommodate them, for many of the circumstances
          present then remains the same today.
              CRPA expects MSHA to demonstrate as much
          flexibility in responding to operators' needs today as was
          demonstrated 20 years ago.
              Question:  Should this decision be left to the
          discretion of the mine operator?
              The mine operator should have maximum discretion
          to offer the training during periods within the opening
          months of an inexperienced miner's employment, when training
          will do the most good.
              The optimal time to train someone is immediately
          before he or she needs the instruction in order to do the
          job.  And the operator must have flexibility to assure that
          that's when the training occurs.
              Question:  What are the advantages and
          disadvantages of spreading training over an extended period
          of time?
              Two key advantages have already been mentioned: 
          One, to minimize an operator's loss if the employee leaves
          employment within the first few months of the hire; and two,
          to place as close together in time as possible, for maximum
          effectiveness, the need for knowledge and the application of
          that knowledge to the task at hand.
              The primary disadvantage is the possibility a new
          employee will undertake a task for which he has not yet been
          trained.  However, this possibility can be minimized by
          counseling the employee against the practice and by close
          supervision during the early months of employment.
              Question:  Should supervisors be subject to the
          same training requirements as miners?
              Supervisors should be taught what the miners are
          taught.  In addition, it might also be helpful for
          supervisors to know how to motivate employees to work
          safely, evaluate task positions, plan safe procedures, and
          conduct safety meetings.
              Task training.  Should training be required
          whenever a miner receives an assignment that involves new
          and unfamiliar tasks?  Yes.  To ensure the job is
          accomplished in a safe and efficient manner.
              Annual refresher training.  Should specific
          subject areas be covered during annual refresher training? 
          Yes.
              If so, what subject areas should be included? 
          The subjects covered in annual refresher training should be
          appropriate to the tasks performed at each individual mine
          site.
              Question:  Can the eight hours of annual
          refresher training required by the Mine Act be completed in
          segments of training lasting less than 30 minutes?
              Yes.  Training should incorporate new knowledge
          about adult education, including the average adult's
          attention span and ability to retain information.  Average
          adult attention span is less than 30 minutes, and this fact
          should be taken into account.  A good, effective training
          module may only last ten minutes, or it could last longer.
              Operators need the flexibility to design training
          to meet unique and constantly changing circumstances.  The
          worth of training is not in its length, but in its
          effectiveness to modify the behavior of the miner regarding
          health and safety.
              When Part 48 was proposed, in 1979, operators
          complained that a consecutive eight hours of annual
          refresher training would interrupt production.  MSHA
          responded by allowing training in as little as half-hour
          segments.  CRPA now asks the agency to show the same level
          of flexibility in not requiring a specific length at all.
              Training certificates.  Question:  Should the
          records of training be kept by mine operators at the mine
          site, or should the regulation allow records to be kept at
          other locations?
              CRPA believes that the regulation should allow
          the mine operator to maintain training records at locations
          other than the mine site.
              In many cases, mine operators operate multiple
          mine sites, and often, the smaller sites are not well suited
          for record maintenance, especially if records are
          computerized.  Furthermore, centralized record management is
          likely to be more reliable and more cost effective than
          disseminated record management for many operators.
              Operators should be allowed to maintain records
          in centralized locations, so long as the records can be made
          available for inspection by MSHA in a reasonable amount of
          time.
              Qualifications of instructors.  Question:  Should
          there be minimum qualifications for persons who conduct
          miner training and, if so, what kind of qualifications are
          appropriate?
              CRPA believes that operators should be given the
          widest possible flexibility in crafting effective training
          programs that meet the needs of their miners.
              CRPA believes that the regulations should
          establish the basic content and duration of training, as
          provided by the statute, but that the operators should be
          given the discretion to determine how appropriate training
          should be provided and by whom.
              CRPA believes that the regulations should allow
          an operator to conduct its own training program, to
          participate in training programs conducted by MSHA, or to
          participate in training programs conducted by State or other
          Federal agencies, associations of mine operators, miner
          representatives, other mine operators, or contractors,
          consultants, private associations, or educational
          institutions.
              CRPA believes that the regulations should allow
          for training to be provided through modern, technological
          means, including computerized training, multimedia, web-
          based learning, teleconferencing, and other such methods.
              CRPA believes that restricting all training to a
          traditional classroom instruction by a limited pool of
          certified instructors would deprive operators of the
          flexibility needed to develop training programs responsive
          to the unique circumstances of each mining operation.
              Accordingly, CRPA believes that the criterion for
          evaluating training should not be whether the instructor is
          certified, but whether adequate and appropriate training has
          been provided.  CRPA believes that a competent person, as
          previously defined, is fully capable of providing such
          training.
              And that concludes my comments.  Thank you very
          much.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Mr. Stewart, I just have
          a couple of questions, and -- I mean, I don't want to put
          you on the spot, but if you can, answer them, and if you
          can't, say so.
              You had indicated that you felt that definitions
          were appropriate.  And you, I believe, suggested a
          definition of an experienced miner as someone who had had
          either the 24 hours of initial training or had 12 months of
          mining experience.
              Assume that someone has had the requisite 12
          months of mining experience.  I guess that you're assuming
          they would have had the 24 hours of initial training, as a
          result of having worked on a mine site?
              Or if not, someone coming on to a mine site for
          the first time, it's unfamiliar to them, do you think it
          would be appropriate to require some kind of minimum
          orientation training or something like that, or just rely on
          the eight hours of annual refresher training?
              MR. STEWART:  This is a question that's probably
          one of the most difficult things that our group took under
          consideration.
              Take, for example, a vendor that may be servicing
          a soda pop machine.  This is a ludicrous example, but yet it
          does fall under that.
              I think the position of our group would be that,
          I think the responsibility for that kind of training should
          fall on the subcontractor that's involved.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. STEWART:  And perhaps additional limits need
          to be set up that delineate these kind of superfluous
          operations to those that are more directly involved in the
          mining process itself.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  And I just have
          one other question, as far as providing the annual training
          in intervals of less than 30 minutes.
              We've heard at our meeting earlier, in Illinois,
          that a lot of operators said that this was a good idea to
          give the operator this kind of flexibility.  However,
          records need to be kept of this training.  Does the record
          keeping burden present an obstacle to that?
              MR. STEWART:  In some situations, it might,
          although, I agree.  I do believe that records do need to be
          kept.  That's imperative, for both sides.
              I think the issue that we were raising is where
          those records will be housed.  I'm not raising an issue with
          the need to keep training records.
              I am raising the issue that in, for instance, out
          here in the West, in Colorado, for example, we may have one
          crew that works at multiple sites, and when they're not on
          that site, that site might be abandoned.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Right.
              MR. STEWART:  And that's why we're requesting a
          centralized location for those records to be kept, because
          frequently there are no structures at all in the other
          sites, when we're not there.
              These are sand and gravel operations,
          predominantly.  And due to environmental and regulatory
          constraints, there's usually nothing there when we're not
          there.
              So that crew might move around, and that's why we
          would like to see them housed at a central location, not to
          try to get around the need for keeping records of that
          training.  No.  We recognize that is very important.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Does anyone -- do
          you have any questions?
              MR. BRELAND:  Just to follow up on that a little
          bit.  You talked about the short time frames or the quality
          of the training for any refresher.  And I'd like to follow
          up on what Kathy asked about, the record keeping burden.
              If you had ten-minute segments one time or 20
          minutes another, would you have a method in mind that you
          would keep track of the total amount of time, to get the
          eight hours of annual refresher?
              MR. STEWART:  Well, I don't have a specific
          method in mind.  Every company that I represent goes about
          it in probably a different way.  I've never been really
          involved in the way they compile that.  Most of them have
          safety officers that are responsible for keeping that log.
              MR. BRELAND:  One other question.  You had talked
          about the initial six-hour training, and then spread out the
          other 18.  Did you have some time frame in mind to complete
          the 18 hours?
              MR. STEWART:  It wasn't covered in the meetings
          that we had.  I'd be happy to poll my members and get back
          to you on that issue, if that's appropriate.
              MR. BRELAND:  Well, that would be an issue.
              MR. STEWART:  I'd be happy to do that.  Is there
          a mechanism for me to do that?
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  You could actually
          submit something in writing.  If you've got a copy of the 
          November 3 Federal Register notice --
              MR. STEWART:  Yes.  I do.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:   -- there is the address
          of the Office of Standards Regulations and Variances, in
          Arlington.  If you'd just send your comments to that
          address, and just, you know, identify them in some fashion,
          that it's related to the Part 46 training initiative.
              MR. STEWART:  Okay.  Thank you.
              Any other questions?  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.
              Mr. Ken Pike?  Has Mr. Pike arrived?
              We have no other speakers who have signed up to
          speak.  Is there anyone who has not signed up who would like
          to speak at this time?  Mr. Tuggle?
              MR. TUGGLE:  Yes.  My name is Harry Tuggle.  And
          I'm with the United Steel Workers of America, its
          International Safety and Health Department, out of
          Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
              First off, we appreciate the opportunity to be
          here and make some comments on a long overdue set of rules
          here, we believe.
              I guess I'll approach this in the same manner in
          the previous commenter and speaker made, going through
          somewhat, answering some of the specific questions of MSHA's
          interest, and expanding on a little bit of some other
          matters.
              And the first question about, Should certain
          terms, including new miner and experienced miner, be
          defined?
              And I don't really have a problem with that, to
          be listed within the definitions.  A segment of the rule is
          somewhat already explained throughout the current
          regulations of Part 48 there, already.
              But you have a new miner; you have an experienced
          miner.  And we're also talking about a newly hired,
          experienced miner.  So you might be talking about three
          definitions.
              And how should those terms be defined?  And I
          really don't have a problem with the way that it was defined
          earlier or the way that, apparently, the similar way that
          National Stone Association and the coalition that they put
          together on approaching this proposed rule, I don't have a
          problem with the way, you know, the definitions are coming
          about.
              It talks about the new miners' training, and
          getting into the various subjects of instruction:  of
          miners' and their representatives' rights under the Act; the
          use of respiratory devices and so forth, where appropriate;
          hazard recognition; emergency procedures; electrical
          hazards; first aid; walk-around; and so forth.
              The question becomes, which of these subjects
          should be taught before new miner is assigned work?  And
          also, within Part 48, when it talks about eight hours
          initial training, and then the rest of it may be scattered
          over a period of 60 days, there's a segment of training
          there that most mines should be familiar with.  The
          inspectors are certainly familiar with that.
              And speaking on the subject of familiarity, I
          have a copy of the National Stone Association's proposal to
          work with MSHA on the regulations.
              And I appreciate also, there was a cover letter
          with that, inviting me to attend a meeting tomorrow, in
          D.C., with that coalition, to see what could be added to or
          deleted from or modified within their current proposal for
          improvement.
              And I gracefully bowed out of the meeting, on the
          basis that that particular proposal, right now, is really,
          in our opinion, very thin.  And its agenda, set by the
          industry, which is, to a degree, appropriate, but --
              The inspectors, in getting back to the issue of
          familiarity, they have a Part 48 that applies to underground
          mining, and it's laid out in a certain segment of things.
              And they have the surface regulations for the
          surface operations or surface operations of underground
          mines in that segment of training.  And it somewhat follows
          suit.
              And I think Part 46 should also follow suit,
          there, for some rhyme and reason.
              And you could take the Part 48 right now, and the
          segment that it's being drawn from, and begin to strike many
          items within the current regulation that would not apply to
          the sand, gravel, stone and the colloidal phosphate, and so
          forth.  Obviously, the initial scope would boil down to,
          you're talking about these given industries.
              You would have certain definitions of miner or
          experienced miner, and that is basically already laid out
          there.  To a degree, it may be a little bit expansive there. 
          That could be looked at to be whittled down.
              It talks about, this does not include shaft and
          slope people.  That could be stricken.  Under a new scope,
          it simply would not apply.
              So as you would move through the Part 48 regs,
          you simply begin to take those segments out that clearly do
          not apply to the sand, gravel, stone industries.
              But as you strike, and then make any additions,
          per the coalition or sand, gravel, stone industries,
          incorporating them within, again, a particular framework
          that has already been established.  You're not reinventing
          the wheel, here.
              With that said, back to the questions.  
              Should training of inexperienced miners be all at
          once or over a period of time?
              And I think, in the current regulations, that's
          already -- I don't see the burden, here, of an eight-hours
          initial training, a complete, or semi-complete walk-around,
          getting a miner familiar with the operation, pointing out
          the hazardous conditions, the means of operations.
              And the agenda, as far as what is to be looked
          at, is already laid out within the regulations.
              And should it be carried out over a period of
          time?  Yes.  I think it's already laid out, and I think 60
          days is appropriate.
              There should be moderation in all things.  I
          would agree that, yes, you can't dump 24 hours of training
          on an individual.  And a brand-new guy on a brand-new site,
          we're going to inundate you with information here that, you
          know, you're not even familiar with in the first place.  And
          there's going to be a ton of that escape him.
              And I think a third of that could be
          accomplished, the eight-hours initial familiarity with the
          mining process and the few other items that is already
          talked about.
              If you talk about scattering the rest of the 16
          hours over six months or a year or whatever, I think that
          you're leaving moderation go, at that point in time.  I
          think 60 days to come back full circle with this individual
          and give him, you know, his other 16 hours, would be quite
          appropriate.
              Should this decision be left to the discretion of
          the mine operator?
              And yes.  It should, to the extent that these
          time frames, you have eight hours and a balance of 16, and
          he could give them these 16, you know, whether it be once a
          week or a couple weeks from now, or however he wants, but
          it's got to be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time,
          not way off down the road to where it's almost forgotten
          about.
              And what are the advantages or disadvantages of
          spreading this over an extended period of time?
              And basically, as I previously mentioned, it's a
          matter of, you know, if all this timeliness is to the
          discretion of the mine operator, without a given, reasonable
          limit, at some point in time, and it becomes six months or a
          year, there's going to be training fall through the cracks,
          very little doubt about it.
              Task training.  Should training be required
          whenever a miner receives a work assignment that involves
          new or unfamiliar tasks?
              And I think that's almost a rhetorical question. 
          It's almost ignorance to give a guy a -- you know, there's a
          $150,000 loader.  I know you've never seen one before, but
          go get on it.  We need some gravel over there.
              It would be irresponsible, I think, for anyone to
          even have to wonder about that question.
              The annual refresher training.  Should specific
          subjects be covered during annual refresher training?
              And I believe, yes.  And I think they should
          follow suit, again, with what is already established in 
          Part 48.  It gives the issue, and it gives one brief
          statement thereafter, to give some guidance to what is to be
          discussed on that subject.
              So where it says, what subject areas should be
          included, I think they're already included.
              Can the eight hours be completed in segments of
          less than 30 minutes?
              And I guess, you know.  Yes, it could.  Is it
          efficient?  I don't believe so.  I think a minimum amount of
          30 minutes, applied to new miners' training, annual
          refresher training, or whatever the approach might be, is
          something you can get a handle on.
              If you have a situation where it's left solely to
          the discretion of the mine operator -- and, at times, that
          boils down to sole discretion of the supervisor on the
          floor, how he wants to handle this situation, and he says,
          You're going to get five minutes at our tail-gate meeting
          today and, at the end of the week, here, I'm going to be
          giving a ten-minute talk --
              My question would be to the industry -- and maybe
          they're prepared to answer it; I don't know -- but how do
          you show that this training was given, in these types of
          approaches and segments, other than just jotting down notes
          that, you know, I gave Joe, Bill, John, and so forth five
          minutes, and that's five minutes out of the eight hours, and
          I'll subtract it, and they get seven hours and 55 minutes?
              And industry continuously screams about record
          keeping.  How do they assure the agency, how do they assure
          miners' representatives out in those various operations
          where there is miners' representatives, that this training
          is, in fact, being applied, without having mounds of five-
          minute and ten-minute talks, and records about those five-
          minute and ten-minute talks?
              I think it's something that really is detrimental
          to the purpose.  And at least a minimum of 30 minutes is
          something that can be grasped, people can be gathered in
          groups on those issues, and go from there.
              So my answer to the question is, if it should
          read, Should the eight-hours annual refresher be completed
          in segments of less than 30 minutes, my answer would be, no,
          to that, that they should be a minimum of 30-minute
          segments.
              Training certificates.  And I would agree, in the
          sand, gravel, stone industries and the other additional
          industries that we're talking of here, that there is some
          multiple sites.  There is some problem about control of
          those records, in many cases.
              For immediate review by an inspector, I think
          it's appropriate that the last set of training certificates
          for any individual should be at least kept at the mine.
              If the other two years' worth or so forth, that
          the Part 48 refers to, they want to keep them somewhere
          else, but it would be handy, then, all of those certificates
          would be handy, then, within 24 hours notice or whatever, to
          be brought forward.
              And I think that would be -- 48 or whatever --
          but they would be accessible.
              Qualifications of instructors.  And I believe,
          yes.  They should be qualified.
              And do they have to be qualified and certified by
          MSHA, or a State university, or this that or the other? 
          That is something that we are -- steel workers are in review
          of, at this point in time, as to what minimum qualifications
          are we talking about here.
              Yes.  There has to be minimum qualifications. 
          And it would be -- if you just say, we've got a competent
          person out there that's, you know, he's run a loader, so
          he's doing some training on --
              Right now, the industry, for those that the
          training regulations do apply to, is, by and large,
          protected.
              If you have an accident, or a fatality, or an
          injury, or whatever, and it becomes a citation issue, and it
          becomes a contested citation issue, and then training
          records are brought forward about the qualifications of this
          individual that had done the training, and you say, the
          district manager certified him, this college certified him,
          it was accepted and so forth.
              If you don't have some sort of minimum
          requirements, someone to say, Yes, you are an instructor,
          and you have these attorneys that play ball here in hearing
          rooms and courtrooms will get in there and beat that
          industry man to death on the issue of, are you -- do you
          think you're -- show us your qualifications.
              Within the regs, no.  We don't ask for it.  But
          we just want to know.  Where did you get your
          qualifications?  Well, I've been on the job for a long time,
          Joe.
              I mean, there has to be some sort of minimum
          standards there.
              Over and above that somewhat, and to reiterate, I
          think the initial Part 48, where it runs from 48,21 through
          48,32, I believe it is -- yes -- should still be used as
          MSHA's own guidelines, and begin to initially strike those
          things, right within the segments of where their written,
          that does not apply to sand, gravel, stone, whatsoever.
              And there's many, many parts.  There's not so
          many, many now that reduces it down to what the National
          Stone Association and its coalition has put together,
          because if you boil this down to a 30 CFR page booklet in
          the type print that is in 30 CFR, it may make one page of
          training regulations for sand, gravel, stone miners.
              And by and large, I think that many operators
          would say, In that one page is my Bible.  This is what I
          train by, so, therefore, what else do I need?  You know.
              So I think there's many important things here
          that need to be retained.  MSHA already has its agenda.  It
          should continue to follow that agenda, for consistency, for
          its inspectors, for its agency, for those that already
          understand Part 48 regs, and adjust those to where they
          would fit Part 46, and so forth.
              One other area that we're studying, also, very
          significantly, is in regard to these training plans and
          whether they should be submitted for approval.
              Now, there has to be some -- to say a manager is
          going to -- you know, you have to file this plan, and it's
          got to be reviewed, and then it's got to go back, and if he
          doesn't like it, he's going to shuffle it around.   And you
          have to do this.  And then the district manager is law and
          gospel on whatever comes down, as to what that training plan
          might be.
              I don't know as it should continue in that vein,
          under Part 48,23, that we're drawing from right here.
              But there has to be some rhyme and reason,
          something that, when you come in and ask an operator for a
          plan, Well, here's my plan, and no matter how frivolous it
          is, that is his plan, and the inspector has to buy that and
          accept that and eat that, if there's no regulations on an
          approved plan of some sort.
              Just to drop back a moment, on the issue of
          definitions.  And on the definitions, it talks about normal
          working hours.  And initially, MSHA has even -- because of
          Part 115, it talks about normal working hours and that
          training can be given, if it's a practice, outside, on sixth
          and seventh day, or so forth.
              And then, on over into the issue of normal
          working hours, then it talks of the compensation for the
          training program.
              And either conveniently, or inconveniently, or
          whatever, the Coalition of Sand, Gravel, Stone left out the
          issue about the training program or any compensation for
          training program.
              And they can, you know, tell a guy, You've got to
          stay overtime here if you want -- we've got to do this, and
          you're going to stay overtime.  No.  You don't get paid for
          this.  You're not shoveling right now.  Yes.  You've got to
          come in on Saturday.  No.  It's not our practice.  No.
          You're not going to get time-and-a-half.
              So it's not addressed by the association.  I just
          want to bring to the agency's attention, this is the
          definition, and in the follow-up on this information, has to
          be retained in the standards.  And I had it here.
              And I had mentioned, also, about the various
          things you could go through and chop out of 48, and so
          forth.  And even though it goes without saying, it is a
          reminder, if you leave within there, you know, when MSHA
          begins to talk about -- finally has a proposed rule on it,
          and they're talking about records of training.
              And there's also a provision in there, just as a
          reminder, false certification that training was given shall
          be punishable under Section 110(f) of the Act.  And I think
          that reminder should remain within that.
              You know, you can't treat this in a manner
          that -- even though it's been reduced quite a bit --
          somewhat from underground miners', surface of underground
          miners, and so forth, even though you have quite a reduction
          of requirements here, falsifications can still put you in
          the back.
              With that, that, at this point in time, concludes
          my remarks.  I'd like to also reserve any time, if there's
          speakers later on, and if there's some positions taken that
          the steel workers might would take exception to, we might
          like to speak back on that issue, at the end of the day, or
          whatever.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  That would be fine.
              Mr. Tuggle, I've got a couple questions, both
          requests and questions.
              You indicated that you thought that, you know, a
          good guideline for the agency would be to take Part 48 and
          go through and pick out those things that would be
          appropriate for this particular training regulation.
              It would be a great help to us, actually, if you
          could provide us with what you think some of those things
          might be, I mean, at some later time, in writing, if you
          could.  I mean, it's not and -- obviously, you know, you
          don't have to if you don't want to.
              MR. TUGGLE:  In answer to your comment on that,
          or question on that, it is our intent to develop a Part 46,
          as we believe it should read, from Part 48.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  All right.
              MR. TUGGLE:  And we will be submitting that to
          you before your close on comments period.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Great.  That would
          be great.
              As far as the small increments, less than 30
          minutes of training, you indicated that you didn't think
          that that was a good idea.
              Now, if, in fact, operators were to keep records
          of those small bits of training, even five minutes or ten
          minutes, would you still have a problem with it, or do you
          think that training of short duration like that is not
          effective, or subject to abuse, or --
              MR. TUGGLE:  I don't know as it would be a matter
          of being abused.  It would be a matter that -- from a
          supervisor's perspective -- and I've never been a
          supervisor; I have worked in a mine for many years, but not
          as a supervisor.
              But to me, if the mine operator tells him, you
          know, You've got to keep these records and do this, you're
          going to drive this guy nuts about just maintaining five-
          and ten-minute records.
              And industry -- whether you're talking about Part
          48 or any other part of the 30 CFR, continuously, industry
          has screamed about record keeping.  It's a burden.  It's
          eating us alive.
              And I think if you reduce that down to these
          little increments and segments, I think the supervisors that
          have to implement would agree with that very issue, that
          it's going to eat them alive, to the extent that, after a
          while, Jesus Christ, you know, I'm not going to do this this
          time or that time.  Things are going to go through the
          cracks.
              If you put at least on a minimum of 30 minutes,
          you know, people are gathered on that issue.
              If you give a tail-gate meeting of five minutes
          here, and a tail-gate meeting of five minutes there, for
          various departments, various --
              As each supervisor does his thing, then you've
          got to collect all what the supervisors have done and
          explain to somebody -- hopefully the agency would be asking,
          Where's the records that this training was given, find me
          eight or eight refresher, or 24 and an eight refresher,
          whatever it may be.
              And all these things, notes, scribblings,
          everything else, has to be gathered and make some semblance
          of order or sense out of it.
              And I think it's detrimental.  Maybe the
          industry, you know, thinks, Well, we can get around it.  We
          have no problem with it.  I don't see it.  From a common
          sense perspective, I just don't see it.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  You also indicated
          that the steel workers were in the process of reviewing what
          appropriate minimum qualifications might be for people who
          provide instruction.  Is that also going to be included as
          part of your recommendations, sir?
              MR. TUGGLE:  Yes, it is.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  And also, you
          indicated that you weren't sure that the Part 48 scheme for
          MSHA approval was necessarily the approach that we might
          take here, but are you going to make some recommendations
          for how that might work?
              MR. TUGGLE:  Yes.  We studying that.  And again,
          conveniently, you know, out of the coalition's proposal, at
          this point in time, that whole segment is basically left
          out, other than maybe one sentence or so forth.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I think it says
          that if it complies with 115, then it would be considered to
          be approved.
              MR. TUGGLE.  Right.  So they're doing, basically,
          away with 2-1/2 pages of regulations on training plans and
          type of submission, filed information required, so forth. 
          And I would agree.  I think, in review of that, for this
          particular industry, that that approach is burdensome.
              At the same time, there has to be a handle on
          that.  And we are reviewing how might be the most receptive
          approach to maintaining a handle about some sort of plan
          being there, whether it's got to have to have the rubber
          stamping, of, you know, the President -- well, not the
          President of the United States -- Secretary of Labor; we'll
          let him stamp it --
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  We've have a big backlog
          if --
              MR. TUGGLE:  But, I don't know, you know. 
          There's got to be some method here.  We are reviewing a few
          of those, and I don't want to throw those few out to where
          we're grappling and may take one, and MSHA may hang its hat
          on another.
              So we're boiling some things down on that.  And
          we hope it would be, at some point in time, acceptable to
          the industry.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  That's all I have. 
          Does anyone else have any?
              MR. BRELAND:  Just a follow-up on --  You talked
          earlier about maybe the last record being made available at
          the mining site, for training.
              Did you mean just the annual refresher or the
          past training records, or -- I'm not sure I totally
          understood which records you were talking about.
              MR. TUGGLE:  Yes.  If you have a new miner and
          he's being given his 24-hours initial training, as we
          propose, and as is already established, within a 60-day
          period, his next record will be his annual refresher
          training.
              Once he has an annual refresher training, that
          main record can go back to the headquarters or wherever they
          retain them or whatever.  Once he has completed an eight-
          hour refresher training, and he then completes his second
          one, as long as that last one remains at the mine site, all
          the others become compiled.
              And then again, in some of the current
          regulations it says, at the point in time he leaves
          employment, he's privileged to a copy of all of his training
          records, so he could take it to another mine or whatever.
              MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  I thought that's what you
          meant, but I just wanted to make sure.
              And then, when you talked about the approval
          process for both the instructor and the training plans -- I
          think you answered it, when you talked to Kathy a minute
          ago -- that if there was some sort of plan or outline they
          followed, that might be acceptable, as long as that plan
          itself was.
              But the other was the approval for instructors. 
          Are you saying, if the definition was appropriate for what
          made a qualified person or competent person, that that might
          be an acceptable method of designating --
              MR. TUGGLE:  At face value, the competent person
          definition and the approach to a competent person seems
          realistic.
              But at the point in time, as I explained about,
          when there's situations -- and they will come about -- of
          the agency and a given company, and possibly a given Union
          in the middle of it, doing battle in hearings and contested
          citations, based on possible injuries or fatalities, in
          regard to safety and health training issues.
              And someone says, Well, he's my designated
          competent person.  He's, you know, run that loader for a
          long time.  Because someone has run a loader for a long
          time, doesn't make him a competent trainer.  They may be
          competent to get 11 yards in a 10-yard bucket and haul it
          for you, but can they train people sufficiently, in regard
          to safety and health on the job?
              And there has to be, I think, a little more than
          an explanation of a competent person.  And it may not
          necessarily -- this is one of the issues that's still under
          review -- this may not necessarily go to the extent of
          saying he has to be given the royal touch of the wand by the
          district manager to meet this certification.
              But there has to be -- we're sure there's
          something in between that -- and even industry might have
          some ideas on it, of expanding more than just the competent
          person approach, and not going to the extent of saying, you
          know, it has to be blessed by MSHA, district manager, some
          college professor, or whatever.
              Hopefully I answered your question.
              MR. BRELAND:  Yes.  You did.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Essentially what you're
          saying is you don't think that the Part 48 approach
          necessarily gets you to where you want to go.
              MR. TUGGLE:  Well, I think that, again, this is
          one of the items that could be, even though it would be left
          in its framework and context of the Part 48 that's already
          established, that part in regard to approval of a trainer
          and so forth could be narrowed down, not narrowed down yet,
          in our opinion, to the extent of the industry simply saying,
          We've got a competent person; he's our trainer.
              Because that very issue will eat him alive if
          somebody winds up dead.
              MR. BRELAND:  It could be that they somehow have
          the background to show competency, but also some
          demonstration that they're qualified to teach, is what
          you're saying.
              MR. TUGGLE:  Right.
              MR. BRELAND:  Somehow.  Some fashion.
              MR TUGGLE:  Some form or fashion.
              MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Thank you.
              MR. BURNS:  Yes.  On the new amount of training,
          is the eight hours that you talked about before that could
          work, is that -- do you see that to be a hard and fast
          number, or could that depend upon the mine and the new
          miner?
              Say, perhaps someone that's got a lot of
          experience in construction and comes to work at a small sand
          and gravel mine, would it be conceivable that that person
          may not require the eight hours before they could perform a
          task that they already know how to do?
              MR. TUGGLE:  If you're a construction worker --
          well, that might be all of them -- if you're an electrician,
          you can do electrical work, whether you're in a hinge
          factory or whether you're in a mine.  But it's going to take
          time to familiarize that individual with that mine.
              I think -- so you're not going -- if you hire an
          electrician, you're not going to come in and teach him
          electrical profession.
              You're teaching him everything around the issues
          of electrical profession, and they're already spelled out
          within 115; and when you talk about some task training, some
          hazard training, some speed controls around mines, the
          various equipment that's being run, what to watch out for
          here, the process, the conveyor systems from one process
          into another process, a walk-around tour of most mines.
              And that information being fed in and even
          reiterated, maybe two or three times, over the period of
          that day, of getting into this area and, basically, having
          to say some of the very same things that you've said over
          here.
              In short, on your question, I think eight hours
          is -- should be a hard and fast rule.
              MR. BURNS:  Okay.  That's really what I wanted to
          know.  Okay.
              MR. TUGGLE:  Eight hours minimum.  And then,
          again, like the regs read, the balance in a 60-day time
          frame, at the operator's discretion.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Does anybody else have
          any questions?  Okay.  Thank you very much, Mr. Tuggle.
              MR. TUGGLE:  Okay.  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Is Ken Pike from Montana
          Limestone here?
              All right.  Is there anyone else here who has not
          signed up who would like to speak?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Good morning.  My name is Bill
          York-Feirn; Y-O-R-K - F-E-I-R-N.  And I'm a program
          administrator with the Colorado Division of Minerals and
          Geology, Mine Safety and Training program.
              And I'm wearing a couple of hats today.  The
          first one is a comment I'd like to make on behalf of a group
          of small mine operators in southwest Colorado.
              We had some discussions, over the last few weeks. 
          And what they wanted to put forward was, a large number of
          small miners -- there are a large number across the country,
          at least 350 small mines in Colorado, and probably more,
          based on our permitting records, actually.  Those are MSHA
          figures.
              The work force at small operations is often very
          transient.  Miners working for weeks or months is very
          common.
              It is onerous for them to complete an eight or
          even 24 hours of training before they begin work on an
          assigned task.  They simply find themselves not doing it. 
          And that, in fact, is going to be more of a safety concern
          than maybe another alternative to the eight hours of initial
          training.
              This group of small miners requests that work can
          be assigned after either a smaller amount of training, as
          required, possibly site-specific hazard training and, of
          course, task training, before that particular miner can
          start work on the site.
              They request a provision that provides a variance
          or an exclusion of the eight-hour requirement for small mine
          operations, possibly based on the size of the operation or
          the number of miners employed at the operation.
              That's really all I had to say on that issue, for
          the small miner group.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  You're talking about the
          eight hours of initial training of the total 24 hours? 
          You're not talking about the annual refresher training?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  No.  I'm talking about the
          initial training, when they first come on to the mine site.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Do they -- is
          there any alternate suggestion?  You're saying eight hours
          is too much.  I mean, is there -- does the amount depend on
          the size of the operation, that would be appropriate or --
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Yes.  I think it depends on the
          size of the operation and how, you know, their work duties
          are, or where they'll be working on-site.
              You know, they could be working at a small load-
          out or stockpile area, away from all of the mining activity,
          or they could be within the mining area, too, of that
          operation.
              But I think the concern is that they have a much
          reduced amount of training required, so that they can get
          those people to work as soon as possible.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  You're talking, reduced
          amount, initially.  Does that mean they understand that the
          24 hours of new miner training is something that is required
          by the Mine Act, and it would not be possible, even if we
          were inclined to do so, to require less than that in
          whatever regulation we were to come up with?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  I think their dilemma is they do
          have people that are there for a week, two weeks.  And for
          them to plan for 24 hours training is a concern for them.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Do these people typically
          stay within the mining industry and move from location to
          location, or do they do other -- I guess what I'm getting at
          is, if, in fact, there was some mechanism to keep track of
          the training that they received and, at some point, they
          would get, you know, their 24 hours and have some kind of
          record of that.
              Is that the situation, or are these people moving
          in and out of the mining industry?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  You know, I think it's quite a
          variety.  I think, often, there are many that go from mine
          to mine.  I think it's also, from what they have told me, is
          there are a lot of people, you know, come and have to make a
          house payment or car payment, and they work for a few weeks,
          a month or something, and they're gone.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Right.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  So they kind of have this
          revolving door of employees.  And admittedly, it's not the
          best situation, but oftentimes, that's the work force that's
          available.
              So they're having a hard time spending that time
          for each one of those employees, doing that training.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Is it possible for you to
          give us some idea of what the average number of workers is
          at the mines that you're speaking on behalf of?  I mean, is
          it a handful of employees, or also, does it vary?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  You know, I'd have to guess
          maybe around 100 or so employees.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  At each operation?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Aggregate, altogether, for these
          particular mining companies.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  100 employees at
          350 operations?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Right.  Well, no.  No.
              I guess I didn't understand the question.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I guess what I was
          looking at -- I mean, you say that you're speaking on behalf
          of small mine operators.  And I was trying to get some sense
          of, you know, what the average number of people would be,
          working at a typical operation that you're talking about.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Oh, a typical --
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Statewide.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Or does it vary so
          much --
              MR. BURNS:  Or maybe even just a range.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
              MR. BURNS:  Is a range a better question?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  I think, within this group,
          let's say, I think it was probably anywhere from two to
          about 35.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Statewide, you know, we've kind
          of used the guidelines that MSHA has, you know, the one to
          49.  We kind of group into the small miner category.  So,
          yes.  Between one and 50, probably.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  And again, I don't
          want to put you on the spot, but are any of these operators
          currently providing Part 48, or -- I mean maybe not
          strictly --
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Many are.  Yes, they are. 
          They're trying, kind of desperately, to keep up with it.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Right.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  And most of them are doing
          pretty well.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  But when they get these one- and
          two-week kind of things, I think it slips through the
          cracks.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Do you have any
          questions?
              MR. BRELAND:  On the proposal for variances, as
          Kathy talked about, there was no exception in the Act, but
          were you talking about for annual refresher and new hire, or
          these repeat employees?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Well, I think they're primarily
          referring to new miner training, when they come on-site.
              MR. BRELAND:  And were they asking for the
          variance to mean they didn't have to train at all, or they
          wanted to be able to spread that out?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  They were leaving it open, you
          know.  Could it be reduced?  In other words, say if they're
          required to have the site-specific hazard training and the
          work task training, that maybe they could do in an hour or
          two hours, or something less, that would be manageable for
          them.
              And they didn't have a lot of specific
          suggestions on number of hours or exactly what they wanted. 
          They just wanted to have some kind of allowance for them, to
          help them meet those requirements of training, but also, you
          know, efficiently run their operation, too.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Did you say you
          had a question?
              MR. BURNS:  Yes.  I'm trying to find where the --
          I'll have to come back to it.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Okay.
              MR. BURNS:  Thank you.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  You bet.
              I'd also like to speak on behalf of the Colorado
          Division of Minerals and Geology Mine Safety and Training
          program.
              We would support the comments that the Colorado
          Rock Products Association presented, and would like to add
          to that a bit.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  One thing that we feel is very
          important is that any document, including a computer record,
          which, at a minimum, contains the same information as Form
          MSHA 5023, would be hereby approved.
              We feel that the paperwork burden of the 5023
          forms is really onerous and outdated.
              We'd like to see some easier way of making sure
          that everybody is accounted for and their training in
          documented in the proper way, consistent with MSHA's
          requirements, but some flexibility in, you know, doing that,
          in sort of a group way, so that we aren't trying to find
          pieces of paper and file them, and losing track.
              I would also like to add -- and I believe these
          are in the coalition's proposed training regulations -- but
          I would like to support their requirements for comprehensive
          training, their definition for comprehensive, 24-hour
          training, and also the entire section that talks about
          comprehensive training that is not required for the
          following groups.
              And is it appropriate for me to read all this
          off, or --
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I mean, you can
          make whatever comments you wish.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Okay.  I haven't seen the latest
          draft, but we do like the way this addresses the training of
          independent contractors, which has always been a tough thing
          for operators.
              And we see this as a perfect opportunity to try
          to clear that up, and also help in terms of the flexibility
          for people that are not involved in the extraction, mining,
          or milling process.
              So, with that, I'll go ahead and read that
          section.
              "Comprehensive training means the 24-hour
          training requirements for newly hired, inexperienced
          employees, training requirements for newly hired,
          experienced employees, and the eight-hours annual refresher
          training requirements.
              "This training shall be required for all
          employees who are engaged in the extraction or production
          process, as related to mining and milling, and for employees
          who are employed at and normally report to work at the mine
          site to perform maintenance or service work on extraction or
          production machinery.
              "Independent contractors who perform extraction,
          mining, or milling shall provide the comprehensive training
          and retraining that is required for their employees."
              And that is a switch, in that that responsibility
          is moved to the contractor rather than, necessarily, to the
          operator.
              "If an independent contractor operates all or
          part of a mine or milling equipment, and has employees who
          are employed at and normally report to work at the mine site
          on a regular basis to service or maintain that equipment,
          the independent contractor shall provide comprehensive
          training for those affected employees."
              And then it goes on to say, "Comprehensive
          training is not required for:  1) construction workers and
          shaft and slope workers.
              "These persons shall have site-specific hazard
          training when first assigned to work on the construction
          site involved in the construction of shaft or slope workers,
          and must provide training that addresses the safety and
          health hazards of the task assigned and all other required
          training."
              Number 2 is, "Independent" -- I can't read
          that -- "independent contractors for" -- well, shoot, I
          can't read that very well -- "personnel who enter the
          property to service, maintain, construct mine or extraction
          or production or machinery, these personnel shall have site-
          specific hazard training when first assigned work on mine
          property.
              "It is the responsibility of the independent
          contractors to provide training that addresses the safety
          and health hazards of the tasks assigned to these workers
          and all other required training."
              Number 3, "Any delivery office or scientific
          worker, customer truck driver, or transport driver, or staff
          or administrative personnel not engaged in extraction or
          production activities as related to mining or milling, these
          persons shall receive site-specific hazard training."
              Number 4, "Outside vendors, visitors, office
          personnel, or staff personnel from company offices who do
          not work at the mine site on a continuing basis or who are
          accompanied by someone familiar with hazards specific to the
          mine site."
              And D, "Hazard training means site-specific
          information or instructions that are provided to warn of
          mine hazards such as traffic patterns, restricted areas,
          warning and evacuation signals, emergency procedures, and
          other specific safety procedures the mine operator requires
          for visitors, customers, contractors, vendors, office or
          staff personnel.
              "Hazard training requirements shall be satisfied
          by issuance of written hazard warnings, verbal information,
          use of signs and posted warnings, walk-around training, or
          by being accompanied by someone familiar with hazards
          specific to the mine site."
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  And just one other comment, also
          on behalf of the Mine Safety and Training program, the
          definition of competent person -- and kind of piggy-back on
          the previous fellow's comments.
              If a competent person can conduct training, we
          would request that MSHA require some kind of condensed and
          structured training for the competent person performing
          safety training on-site.
              Often that person is presenting the training
          rather than developing the training.  This person may not
          have the broad knowledge of MSHA regulations and miners'
          rights necessary to teach, say, the eight-hour annual
          refresher training course.
              And therefore, we believe the definition of a
          competent person must be carefully thought out.  We do
          support, however, the flexibility to use instructors other
          than MSHA certified instructors.
              And that's all I have.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Do  you have any
          questions?
              MR. BURNS:  Yes.  I was just going back to your
          previous comments about the small mines and how much
          training should be required before someone does the work.
              Under the current Part 48,25(a), it states,
          Provided that no less than eight hours of training shall, in
          all cases, be given to new miners before they are assigned
          to work.
              And it states, The following courses shall be
          included in the eight hours of training:  introduction to
          work environment; hazard recognition; and health aspects of
          the tasks assigned to the new miner.
              Now, are you saying that, in some of the mines
          that you're talking about, it does not take eight hours to
          do that?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Well, yes.
              MR. BURNS:  Okay.  Versus that they just don't
          want to do eight hours?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  No.  It -- right.
              MR. BURNS:  I mean, there's a distinction there.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Yes.  There are two things.  I
          think one is that it doesn't take them eight hours to do
          that, for sure.
              But the other is that they feel like they could
          cover that in a much shorter amount of time and get them to
          work faster.
              MR. BURNS:  Could you ask some of the operators
          that you're talking about to try to put down on paper what
          they consider that to be, and how they would do that, just
          to give us a ballpark on how they come up with how much time
          it would take?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  I could do that.
              MR. BURNS:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  You know, request them and have
          them submit comments.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Are --
              MR. BURNS:  They can submit it through you, if
          you want.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Okay.  Sure.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  We can give you an
          address, if you don't already have it.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  My question was, are any
          of the operators that you're speaking for asking that they
          not be required to give any kind or any part of that initial
          training before the miners start to work?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Well, there was some opinion,
          you know, that, gee, it would be nice just to put them to
          work.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Right.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  But they do, you know,
          understand the need to have training, particularly the site-
          specific and the task training.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Right.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  And that's not a problem. 
          They're not contesting that.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  But as Kevin said, I
          mean, the situation is that you don't -- that may not
          require eight hours to get through that material, for that
          particular operation.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Right.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  They're usually very small,
          often very simple operations that, you know, you can do
          fairly quickly, really.
              MR. BURNS:  Yes.  But like I said, it would be
          very helpful if they could put that on paper, because right
          now, we're just talking in abstract.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Okay.
              MR. BURNS:  Thank you.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Do you have a question?
              MS. FONTAINE:  I have one question for you.  Do
          you ever help mine operators to develop training programs?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Yes, we do.
              MS. FONTAINE:  Could you give me a range of costs
          for a small business or a large mine?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Cost to --
              MS. FONTAINE:  Establish the program.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  The Colorado State program is --
          we cannot charge for our services, so we are supported by
          Federal and State monies.  And so our work that we do in
          helping the industry is for free.
              MS. FONTAINE:  Okay.
              MR. BURNS:  Yes.  I guess her question is part
          of -- you know, one of the legal requirements we have for
          rule making is to determine how much it costs an operator to
          comply with the standards.
              Would you have any sort of estimate?  I know
          you're funded separately, but have you guys ever come up
          with any kind of estimate as to what it would actually cost
          to do this service for a mine operator?
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  We could probably put something
          together.
              MR. BURNS:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  I can't say we have.
              MR. BURNS:  Okay.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  And are you interested in cost
          to assist all miners, or small miners, or --
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  A range, probably.
              MR. BURNS:  I guess, are you looking at a range
          of a size of a mine, what it would cost to set up a program
          for them.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  I mean, it would be
          whatever you would have, you know, specific knowledge of. 
          You know, every bit of information we can get is helpful.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Okay.  And you're essentially
          talking about a safety program, and not necessarily doing
          training for them?
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Well, we are specifically
          talking about the training program.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Okay.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  I mean, essentially, what
          we're looking for is, you know, assuming certain training
          program requirements, you know, how much is this -- how much
          are these requirements, these regulations, going to cost the
          mining industry to comply with?
              So if you could give us an idea of, you know, how
          much it would cost, you know, an operator of a certain size
          to develop and implement -- if you've got that
          information -- a training program for miners, I mean, that
          kind of information would be very helpful.
              MR. YORK-FEIRN:  Okay.  We can do that.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  All right.  Are there any
          other people who would like to speak?
              I would suggest -- I mean, it's about 9:30 --
          that we take a 15-minute break.  And then, when we get back,
          we can pick up with the additional speakers.
              (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Do we have anyone here
          who would like to speak?  Yes?
              MR. SCHAFER:  My name is Kelly Schafer, with
          Fisher Sand & Gravel.  Spelling, S-C-H-A-F-E-R.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  And what was the name of
          your organization?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Fisher Sand & Gravel.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Fisher Sand & Gravel.
              MR. SCHAFER:  I guess the first thing is, we
          agree with most of what CRPA had proposed earlier.  A few
          things that we'd like to address, I guess.
              The new miner training, as far as the 24 hours,
          the 16 hours of start-up is reasonable.
              The problem that I see, I guess, and I'm
          surprised that no other sand and gravel or smaller industry
          hasn't addressed yet, first of all, the place to provide it. 
          Most of these people are going to hire it out, and to send a
          person in to get this training.  Most places aren't going to
          want to train one person.
              And in the sand and gravel industry, when you
          hire that person, you pretty much need that person at that
          point.  You're not going to be able to wait three weeks
          until someone has got a class of ten or twelve to train
          them.
              As far as that goes, I think that's going to be
          one of the hardest problems for us to fit to, at least, you
          know, the 16- or 24-hour.
              And then, with that, I think there should be a
          chance of doing a six months to finish the training, within
          the 24 hours.
              I believe if you brought the person in and could
          train them with the 16 hours within, say, a 30-day period,
          and do an introduction to hazard and job site, and having a
          foreman or an experienced employee overseeing that person
          for that period of time until you can establish a class size
          to make it more affordable for the company, I think that
          would be definitely something to consider.
              Also, the first aid part of it, you know, in the
          24 hours part, first of all, I think, to train every
          employee you have on your job site in first aid and CPR is
          probably a little bit overboard.
              We look at a designated employee on the job site,
          at least one per shift.  And I think that would be something
          to consider.
              As far as training everybody, we have a lot of
          people in the industry that probably aren't able to either
          provide the training -- I mean, not so much provide the
          training, but provide the service.  A lot of people
          aren't -- as far as education, as far as the remembering
          part of it, a lot of people won't even address doing it.
              So to train everybody -- you know, to spend eight
          hours of training that person, to me, is an extra burden of
          expense.  As long as you can provide a person on the job
          site that is willing to do it, with that training, I think
          to go to 24 hours is an overkill.
              I think, you know, if you could do an eight to a
          16, I think that would be adequate, as long as you're
          covering the problems you have in your mine site and
          covering, you know, the designated training needed, as far
          as -- and we can follow with the Part 48, like I said.
              And I don't think that within six months is out
          of line to ask for that.  You know, a prestart-up for an
          employee to come to work right off the bat, maybe it's going
          to be a two-hour approach.
              Maybe a person needs to learn about lock-out/tag-
          out, the hazards of the mine, and you know, what kind of
          personal protective equipment, the hazard communication. 
          Then we should be able to turn them loose.
              I think overwhelming them with 24 hours of
          training before they even come to work, as Colorado Rock
          Products said earlier, the attention span -- and I don't
          know how many people in the classroom have ever trained a
          class before.
              But you get them going in the morning, and
          somewhere between an hour-and-a-half to two hours in there,
          you can see the glaze come over their eyes and they're
          thinking about something else.
              And so, you know, following that up, I also
          believe that, you know, the hazard training and giving them,
          you know, 30-minute or less intervals throughout the time on
          the site, let the person address it, as far as the problems
          that are on that mine site, you know, the hazard they're
          encountering, I think is something that should be looked at,
          definitely, instead of worrying about, you know, following
          this set guidelines of training.
              The next thing, I guess, is probably our biggest
          concern, is looking at the training for people that come on
          the plant side, as far as the fuel people, the sanitation
          people, and the landowners, State employees that are coming
          out to do the testing of the materials.
              For us to require a company that's going to
          provide us fuel, we'll say, on a job of 20,000 tons that we
          can wrap up in one week, to expect them to put their
          employee through 24 hours of training to give us fuel on
          three times, is not going to happen.
              The fuel companies and the sanitation companies
          are going to tell us we're nuts, or they're going to rack
          their price up so high that we're not going to be able to
          afford to have them come out for that short a period of
          time.
              And for us, if we could give them a 15-minute
          hazard training as far as what they're going to encounter on
          the job site, what they should look for on the job site,
          make sure they've got their safety protection equipment on,
          I don't think that's an outstanding request.
              To me, those are the things we should be looking
          at.  You're never going to keep a landowner out of your
          site.  To expect him, you know, when an MSHA guy is there,
          to have 24 hours of training, is just not going to happen.
              So I definitely think those are something that,
          you know, should really be looked at.
              You know, State employees, the same way.  We are
          dealing with them on a regular basis.  They are out on our
          job sites.  We have a hard enough time getting them to wear
          hard hats, you know, and steel-toed shoes.
              And for us to get them to train their college
          students for the year 24 hours before they come out working
          for us is --, you know, like I said, and you're not going to
          keep the State employees out of your job site.
              So I definitely think those are something we have
          to address.
              And to require that, you know -- the difference
          between us and a coal mine -- and that's what they're
          doing -- but they can set up a bid for a whole season.  And
          these people want their business.  They can bid it.  They're
          coming to the same location all the time.
              Like I said, if we're there for one week, and
          we're going for a price, we're not going to be able to get
          these guys to get their training.  They could take them
          longer to the training than we're going to need their
          services.
              And I think that's a really -- I guess I'm not
          sure how to state that.  But I think that's an over-
          assumption for something that we need.
              You know, maybe a person could look at something
          like the coal mines are doing, that if we don't have
          somebody in there working for five consecutive days, you
          know, leave that kind of loop hole in there.
              If you have somebody that comes in and delivers,
          and as long as you give them the hazard training, as long as
          they're not in there providing a service for five
          consecutive days, they wouldn't need the 24 hours of
          training or the eight hours of training or annual refresher. 
          I think that's something we should look at.
              Let me see.  I think that's all on that.
              Also, we have a real problem with -- well, I
          shouldn't say a real problem -- but we set up on the same
          locations where we finish crushing all the products on a
          plant-mix job, and a coal mine -- not a coal mine -- but a
          hot mix plant will come up and set in, you know, right next
          door and start feeding out of piles as we're producing.  And
          also those people are going to be coming across.
              And those fall under OSHA.  And for us to require
          them to do the training for MSHA -- and 90 percent of the
          time you're going to find that the hot mix company or the
          paving companies are going to be the prime and we're going
          to be the subcontractor.  And you know, we're really going
          to have a hard time getting them to provide the training
          when we're working for them.
              The record keeping, as far as in a central
          location, right now, I think, when you're looking at
          portable plants in the sand and gravel industry, we're
          talking, you know, a few pieces of equipment, four or five
          guys in the plant site, you know, upward to maybe ten.
              They already have to provide the MSHA quarterly
          reports, the equipment checklists, the emergency phone
          numbers, the legal identity report.  And then, besides that,
          they're looking at the Federal paperwork, the State
          paperwork, and worker's comp paperwork they have to already
          maintain.
              For us to maintain training documentation for our
          employees on the job site, I think, is excessive.  We should
          be able to have those at a main location.
              And if MSHA wants to do an audit like they do on
          us already, all they have to do is come to the main office,
          or they can request the paperwork from that ID number, and
          that can be faxed or sent to them, without us having to
          maintain it on the site.
              Another problem we have with that is we don't
          keep the same employees on the same location all the time,
          and for us to try and chase that paperwork from one location
          to the other is a big burden that, first of all, all I do is
          see us receiving a whole lot of citations on something that
          can be accomplished by just making a phone call to our
          office and us faxing you the information.
              I think the biggest thing we need to look at is
          that the sand and gravel is nowhere close to the coal mine,
          for the fact that it's portable.  Very few -- I guess there
          is a lot of commercial operations, but there is a lot more
          portable operations that don't stay at the same location all
          the time.
              And to give them more and more burden as far as
          paperwork and record maintaining and training requirements
          is going to be a lot harder and a lot different for the sand
          and gravel industry.
              Again, on the 30-minute meetings, as far as the
          way we do it right now, I provide them an outline for the
          whole year, for 52 weeks, and they have a set agenda, what
          they have the meeting on.  And they also cover the hazards
          that's on the job site.  That should be considered as part
          of the training, whether it falls in the 24-hour or not.
              To me, that is probably as good or better than
          hiring some guy with a couple years of college experience
          that grabs a book that has some training plans set up in it,
          and all he's doing is standing in front of the thing,
          putting overheads on the board and showing a couple movies
          and talking about what he thinks, you know, is in that book.
              The foreman and the employees that are doing this
          for a living have a much better understanding about what
          they're talking about, and I think they are as adequate, I
          mean, within looking at the person's capabilities.  I mean,
          you're not going to take somebody that has no communication
          skills to do this kind of training.
              But for us to require them to be MSHA certified
          as a trainer to do different specialized training, I think
          is overboard.  I think we can do that with looking at the
          person's, you know, qualifications as far as the employee.
              And maybe there needs to be some kind of
          guidelines set, but to make the person be certified, I don't
          think that qualifies him as a trainer, just because somebody
          says he took a class or he's done this.
              I think there needs to be some hands-on
          experience or that person being able to understand what he's
          training on.
              Okay.  The other thing I wanted to bring up --
          and maybe this isn't the place to do it -- but we have a lot
          of small contractors.  And I guess I am kind of discouraged
          or a little bit -- that we don't have more representation
          from the mining industry here, as far as the sand and
          gravel.
              I think the reason for that is I don't think that
          it's probably being enforced evenly, as far as the
          inspections and everything.  A lot of companies don't see
          MSHA as a problem, because they probably don't see them on a
          regular basis, as far as requiring the notice of mine
          operation -- or mine opening.
              When we start looking at the small mom and pop
          operations that have maybe four or five workers and they own
          their own little operation, if they're not held under the
          same standard, that's going to be an undue cost for us,
          compared to them, on bidding jobs and working with them.
              And the excuse that we don't want to cite them
          out of operation or a job or a company, to me, says that
          these employees aren't worth the value -- or their lives
          aren't worth the same value as the lives of our employees. 
          And I think, you know, all that stuff should be across the
          board.
              And I don't know how we're going to get a lot of
          those places to enforce that when they're not even opening
          their mine sites, already.
              The last part, you had asked earlier for kind of
          a cost range on the training.  And from what I've seen so
          far, with our training, we're probably looking at anywhere
          from 2- to $400, realistically, per employee, you're going
          to spend on training, if you're not doing it yourself.
              And if you are doing it yourself, I guess the
          cost could be even higher.  The one thing you're going to
          have to look at is there are not going to be a whole lot of
          companies providing this training.
              And a lot of these companies are going to be too
          small to be able to provide the training themselves.
              And we start looking at the amount of travel and
          cost that is incorporated in the Part 48, that you have to
          provide, you know, the cost of travel time and the expense
          of getting there.
              Now you're looking at lodging, if you're going to
          have us do the 24 hours of training before the miner comes
          to work, plus you're going to pay more for the smaller class
          size.  You're going to look at lodging, meals, on top of the
          travel time, plus the down time of that employee.
              You're looking at anywhere from 200 to $1,000 per
          employee, the cost that could be assessed, you know, to the
          sand and gravel operation.  Plus you look at, if this person
          decides, three weeks down the road, that he doesn't like
          this kind of work, you just threw $1,000 out the window.
              And maybe that's not the way to say it, as far as
          out the window, but you're not gaining anything for that
          $1,000 you've just spent on that employee, because he went
          somewhere else.
              And I think I covered everything I wanted to
          cover.  I think that's it.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Mr. Schafer, could you
          give us some idea of what your operation is like, you know,
          the number of employees in that kind of operation?
              MR. SCHAFER:  We're looking at about 300 to 350
          employees.  We have 30 to 35 sites within seven states. 
          Each of our sites move, on a regular basis through a year,
          anywhere from 15 to 25 times.
              I guess that's the biggest burden, I guess, to
          realize that, when you're looking at these smaller towns and
          these small fuel companies, and getting somebody to bring,
          you know, the sanitation, the portable toilets and that out
          to us.
              To require them to have to do any kind of
          training, other than us doing site-specific hazard training,
          is pretty much unlikely.  I mean, you're not going to get
          these companies to do it.
              And for us to have to train those people before
          they come on to our sites is going to be a lot of burden on
          the sand and gravel industry.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  What states does your
          company operate in?  You said there were seven states?
              MR. SCHAFER:  North Dakota, South Dakota,
          Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  And one thing I
          didn't understand, when you were talking about being
          adjacent to sites where OSHA was a regulator, and employees
          crossing over.
              And I didn't understand the point you were making
          about, you know, training and whether your company would be
          required to provide entry training for an employee.  If you
          could just maybe go over that a little bit again?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Well, okay.  Dealing with the
          people coming on site, as far as the visitors and the --
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  You're talking
          about they're not actually working there?  They just happen
          to be --
              MR. SCHAFER:  Well, what happens -- and I'm sure
          you've seen -- drove by the sites where you've seen a plant
          mix, hot mix company or a concrete company sitting beside
          the road.
              And most of the time you're going to see
          conveyors and crushers, because a lot of times, the sand and
          gravel industry and the hot mix plants or the paving plants
          are working on a close schedule, to where we're still
          producing when they come in and start paving.
              And you're going to get a lot of back and forth
          movement.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Right.
              MR. SCHAFER:  And for us to try and train or make
          sure everyone on their job site is trained, from, you know,
          their laborers to their superintendent to their paving
          people to their loader operators, is not feasible,
          especially when we're going to be the subcontractor, more
          than likely, and they're the prime contractor.
              And for us to require them to do the training
          before we take the job, we're going to lose the job.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  So they're not working
          for you, but they're adjacent to you, and some of their
          employees come on to I guess what would be considered your
          site?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Right.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. SCHAFER:  More than likely, we've got the pit
          leased up and the land leased up, and they move into our
          site instead of on the trail.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  All right.  And as far as
          your estimate of cost, you were talking about between 200
          and $400 for training, if you do it in-house, per employee,
          and between 200 and 1,000, I guess, if travel is involved,
          and you send people off-site.
              Is that per employee per year, or is that
          initially?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Well, depending on the 24-hour or
          the eight-hour.  I guess, to give you a ballpark, I hire,
          right now, a trainer to come in and train our employees, at
          6- -- I think, just about $700 a day.  And I could put a
          class from 30 to 50 people together.  But I also have to pay
          their travel time.
              What I was getting to is I do my annual training
          once a year.  When we start bringing employees in throughout
          the season, which you're going to do, depending on your
          job -- you know, the amount of jobs you get through the
          year, you start hiring two or three people.  Now, you're
          going to try and hire them in the location you're working
          in, or reasonably close.
              Now, the trainer might be living in, we'll say,
          Bismark, North Dakota, and the job might be in Fargo, North
          Dakota.  Now, there's going to be 250, 300 miles that this
          person might have to travel to come for the training, plus
          the lodging, plus the smaller classes.
              If you have to go with the 24-hour right off the
          bat, or even the eight-hour, you're looking at spending
          probably $100 for the employee, just for the eight-hour
          training, for the day.
              Now, if you get into the 16- or 24-hour before
          you can bring them to work, you're looking at that times two
          or three.  And then you're looking at the lodging; you're
          looking at the mileage; you're looking at the travel time. 
          That's going to be a burden.  That's going to be a heavy
          burden on the sand and gravel industry.
              VOICE:  Are you including your labor for paying
          people while they're there?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.  Well, no.  I guess I wasn't
          even looking at the hourly wage of the employee while
          they're on-site.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  That would just be the
          cost of the training and travel, taking into account the
          normal --
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.  And I believe pretty much the
          average state scale wage right now is probably anywhere
          along about 14, $16 an hour and higher.  You know, in
          Montana, we're looking at 25 or better.
              You start adding that on top of there, you're
          talking a very high expense for the sand and gravel
          industry, for this to be happening to somebody that might
          only work for you for three weeks or, you know, even six
          months.
              If they're gone in six months, you've got that
          cost and that person is gone.  Now you have to replace him,
          go through that same cost again, and hope he stays -- or
          she.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Do you have any
          questions?
              MR. BURNS:  I just have, I think, just one, right
          now.
              As far as the -- you had mentioned that the
          training records, you could -- you talked about them faxed
          to the plants.  Would all your --
              MR. SCHAFER:  Well, no.  I meant faxed to the
          actual MSHA offices, or we have done it before where we've
          been asked for the training, and we went to a truck stop of
          some business that was closer to the town, and been able to
          fax what they needed right off the bat, like a quarterly
          report.
              Now, even in that instance, to me, that's kind of
          frivolous for the fact that we send those same quarterly
          reports to the MSHA offices already.  And for us being
          required to have those on the site also is kind of a
          duplication of paperwork.
              And if we've got to do that on training, we're
          going to have to maintain it in the main office, plus at
          each site.  And you know you're going to end up losing it,
          with the shifting of the employees, or not having it at the
          right time, so you're going to end up making that paperwork,
          you know, many times before you're covering yourself.
              MR. BURNS:  Okay.  That was really my question. 
          I didn't think you would have fax machines at all your
          portable sites.
              MR. SCHAFER:  No.  Telephones are hard enough to
          get reaching in each area.
              MR. BURNS:  That's -- did you have any questions,
          Rod?
              MR. BRELAND:  Yes.  You had talked about a 52-
          week outline you provide.  Is that for each of your site
          superintendents, I take it?
              MR. SCHAFER:  That is for each of my foremen, on
          anywhere from 30 to 35 sites.
              MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  And do you keep track of the
          people that attend their sessions?  And how long are those
          sessions normally lasting?
              MR. SCHAFER:  The foreman decides on the length
          of the session, depending on the length of the class that's
          provided.  Like I said, most of these are five-, ten-minute
          reading, you know, material.
              And then the biggest thing we look at is that
          the -- address what's going on on the job site, not only for
          what's needed as far as production and that, but the
          shortcomings as far as guarding and safety and equipment
          maintenance and stuff like that.
              And to me, that should be all attained under the
          safety anyway, because it's all dealing with the job at
          hand.
              They have a sign-up book.  Each employee that
          attends that meeting will assign that sheet.  The foreman
          will write down the time, write down what the class was
          about, or what the training was about, and sign the bottom.
              And that gets sent in with their weekly
          paperwork, which, I'm sure every construction site -- or
          most every construction site maintains some kind of hourly
          and production rate, you know, that is turned in on a weekly
          basis.
              MR. BRELAND:  So is that kept in some sort of a
          record?  Say, if you asked for an individual's training that
          they had had during their employment, you could tell them
          how many sessions they had been at and --
              MR. SCHAFER:  It would be harder to do if I
          had -- if you brought in -- say, you need an individual's
          name, you know, I might have to transfer -- you know, go
          through and see what all plant sites he's been assigned to.
              But if you came in and were looking for an
          average for each job, I can go by foreman, you know, or by
          plant site ID, and I can pull up that foreman's records and
          show you every training that he's had on that plant site.
              MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  And I didn't expect that you
          would.  I was just asking for clarification.
              One other thing you talked about.  I know you do
          a lot of mobility in the job sites.  Do you have any kind of
          number or percent of employees that are basically stable
          year-round versus the number that you're hiring, rotational
          type?
              MR. SCHAFER:  I would say a 30 percent turn over
          is probably a pretty fair guess.
              MR. BRELAND:  So at every job site, when you
          move, about a third of your employees are going to be hired
          local?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Well, I wouldn't say every time you
          move.  I guess I'm stating through the year, from one year
          to the next, you look at probably a 30 percent turn over. 
          And when you start looking at training each -- you know, you
          might get a person to stay on for two or three jobs.
              You might have hired a person because you're in
          that location, and at the end of that job, that person
          decides he doesn't want to travel, which is part of this
          industry, and you lose that employee.  Now the next job you
          go to, you're going to have to fill that spot, or maybe you
          don't even need that spot on the next job site.
              MR. BRELAND:  Thank you.
              MR. SCHAFER:  Mike?
              MR. FISHER:  I have a couple of things I'd like
          to add.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  We need to be sure that
          the court reporter is able to get all this, and I don't know
          whether the microphone is picking you up.  So if you want to
          make a statement, you can either come up and use the
          microphone over --
              MR. FISHER:  I'll let him do it.  The overlapping
          of the OSHA and MSHA training.
              MR. SCHAFER:  Oh, that's right.
              MR. FISHER:  And one other quick thing.  I'll let
          him get to that. 
              MR. BRELAND:  We can get you another chair up
          here, if you want to come up.  You two work together, I
          think?
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  Just pull up a
          chair.  And just introduce yourself.
              MR. BRELAND:  It will just make it very confusing
          for the court reporter.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  And for us, when
          we're going over it.
              MR. FISHER:  I'm Mike Fisher, with Fisher Sand &
          Gravel.
              As we deal with banks and insurance companies
          every day -- and I'm sure everybody else does, too -- to
          have 24 hours for anybody to step on the plant site or be
          there to have training is kind of crazy for them.
              We like to be involved with our bank.  They come
          to our plant sites.  The insurance companies come to our
          plant sites.  You know, we are involved with them.
              But if they have to have 24 hours to come to that
          plant site, they're not going to do it.  And communication
          is going to break down between insurance companies, bonding
          companies, and banks.  I mean, that's just not good for
          anybody's business.
              Did you want to do the OSHA --
              MR. SCHAFER:  The other thing, I guess, he
          brought up that I forgot to talk about is, with the OSHA
          standards and the MSHA standards, a lot of times we get
          people that have been in a plant site or in another, you
          know -- or not a plant site -- but a shop facility or
          something like that, falling under OSHA.
              And there's a very likely possibility that person
          has received, you know, the lock-out/tag-out training, the
          hazardous communication training, and several other things
          that are falling in that same standard that we're going to
          have to apply to.
              The problem is getting the documentation to prove
          that that person has some of that so you're not duplicating
          that same training.  It's going to be definitely a burden,
          as far as proof.
              We should be able to off, somewhat, of what the
          employee says, and do somewhat of a quick refresher or, you
          know, involved in like a task training or something like
          that to where that would cover us, instead of going through
          the whole 24-hour, or eight-, or 16-hour.
              When it comes to the training, like I said, in
          our perspective, the best thing that could happen for the
          sand and gravel industry -- and I have nothing against the
          training; in fact, we do it already, and we're doing it on
          an annual basis.
              The new employees we do hire, what we're doing is
          a task training, and they're getting on-the-job training,
          and then we do an eight-hour refresher.  And every other
          year, we do the first aid.
              Now, we do that according to the person's
          capabilities and the number of people we have per plant
          site, and break it down that way.
              But if we could do a couple-, three-hour training
          before we put this person to work, and follow up with the
          rest of an eight-hour and some hands-on training, to make it
          to, maybe, the 16 hours of training within a six-month
          period of time, I think would be a lot more realistic for
          our industry than to require us to do an eight-hour training
          before we even put them to work.
              I think a hazard training or a site-specific
          training or an actual task-specific training would be --
          would go a lot further in our industry, and I think you
          would find a lot more people complying with that, because
          that wouldn't be as burdensome and a lot easier for our
          industry to take on.
              But to look at putting this person through eight,
          to 16, to 24 hours of training before we can put them to
          work is really not realistic for our industry.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  I have a question.  You
          mentioned difficulty in getting records of OSHA training for
          people that you hire who have worked at OSHA regulated
          sites.  Have you tried to get those records and had
          difficulties, or are you just anticipating that that would
          present some problem?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Actually, because it hasn't been
          addressed, as far as us having to train, with the way we've
          been doing it, we haven't done that.  We just went ahead and
          trained it all over again, as a refresher.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Uh-huh.
              MR. SCHAFER:  But that's definitely something I'm
          sure all the industries are going to look at because that's
          something we're going to want to avoid, not only doubling up
          on, but it's also going to save our industry some money on
          spending for training of those persons.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  But you haven't --
          I mean, you're anticipating difficulties, but you have not
          encountered --
              MR. SCHAFER:  Well, most companies aren't going
          to be overly likely to, you know -- and how are you going to
          send -- see, I have a sign-up sheet for my class, and I have
          OSHA facilities also, and I do the training.
              And one of our employees go to a sand and gravel
          operation or an MSHA facility and their safety director
          calls me and asks me for -- Do you have any training on this
          person that I could --
              I'm going to have a hard time giving them a list,
          with Social Security numbers, that everybody signed, with
          their names on it, and saying, Here's your documentation so
          you can put it in your file to cover this person.
              How are we going to transfer that documentation
          saying that, yes, this person has had that training, without
          doubling up a whole lot of paperwork or giving away more
          information than you actually want to?
              MR. BRELAND:  Just to follow up on that a little
          bit -- and I meant to ask earlier -- when you talk about
          initial training that you do presently, if you hired
          somebody, do you have, like a formal outline you follow now,
          at a minimum, you cover certain things?
              MR. SCHAFER:  I have an MSHA approved plan right
          now, under Part 48, that we follow on our annual training. 
          When the person comes on the job site, right off the bat, we
          do a task training and a hazard-specific training for the
          employee.  And we run with that throughout the year.
              And I guess like the guy from the Union said
          earlier, to expect that task training is not being done,
          even though documentation isn't done -- you're not going to
          walk up and tell a person to go run a $300,000 piece of
          equipment without telling them how to operate it or what you
          expect out of it.  And to me, that's task training.
              You're going to tell them what the controls do,
          what you want them to do, and the safety features and the
          personal protective equipment.  And that's task training.
              You're not going to turn a person loose in this
          industry, with the dollars that are sitting around on that
          plant site, without task training them.  The documentation
          becomes an extra burden.  And granted, that's something that
          should be done, as far as the hazard training and stuff like
          that.
              The task training, most of the time, that's a
          given, because you're not going to put a person into that
          job without giving them some type of actual, you know,
          explanation of what he's expected to do.
              MR. BRELAND:  As a part of that now, are you
          keeping track of that and keeping a record of that, when you
          hire?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.
              MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Thank you, Mr.
          Schafer and Mr. Fisher.
              MR. MANZANARES:  I have a question I'd like to
          direct, please.
              My name is Tino Manzanares, and I'm with county
          technical services.  I'm with the a quasi-governmental
          agency, and I am the insurance man that shows up at the
          plant site, not through private industry, but strictly with
          the counties.
              But I have a question to you gentlemen.  I didn't
          quite hear you, Mr. Schafer.
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.
              MR. MANZANARES:  I'm impressed that it appears
          you have a very well organized training program for your
          company.  And you gave us the figures on what it would cost
          to train your employees.
              Do you have any figures on what it would cost you
          if this man was injured on the job, and he was not able to
          perform his job for the next couple of days, on the cost
          that you're bearing?
              I mean, the direct cost, and also the indirect
          cost, the fact of, who does the job when he's not there
          because he got injured because he lacked training, or
          because production superseded training.  You had to get this
          guy to produce.
              Do you have any figures to show what it would
          cost you?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.  We're breaking that down
          right now, to see what the annual cost is going to be, you
          know, for the loss of employee and what it costs as far
          workers' comp and all that stuff.
              Granted, you don't want to put an employee to
          work without training them and giving them some experience. 
          But I'm also saying you've got to look at the realistic part
          of it, as far as the cost of what it's going to cost to
          actually put this person to work and lose them two to three
          weeks later.
              MR. MANZANARES:  I understand that, and I
          understand very well.  However, we see operations that come
          into the State of Colorado and crush for our clients, then
          they move on to the next site.
              Oftentimes, they leave injured employees that
          worked for them.  And then we inherit them later on because
          it's the job of the county, so they're forced to work for
          us.
              And we have to accommodate these injured
          employees, because they lacked training, under the American
          Disability Act, and later on, under medical leave.
              MR. SCHAFER:  But all of us fall under those same
          burdens.
              MR. MANZANARES:  We find that it's so unfair to
          hire an employee and then not provide any training.  It's
          almost like wanting him to fail or to be injured.
              MR. SCHAFER:  No.  I guess maybe you
          misunderstood what I was talking about.  I never said
          nothing about not training.
              I'm saying let's train this person as he's going
          in the job.  Let's not go stick 24 hours of training in this
          person before we even put him on the job site.
              MR. MANZANARES:  And I understand that.  The
          other thing is that we often find that, because production
          supersedes anything else, the employee is given a five-
          minute briefing on his tasks that he's going have to perform
          for the next eight hours, and he's not performing a task of
          using a shovel or a pick or doing this.
              He's often assigned complex areas in the sand and
          gravel operation, whether it be a screening plant, whether
          it be a pressure, whether he'll be driving a truck, or get
          on the loader and operate that.
              And we've seen people who assign employees to
          these tasks when they're not qualified to do that.  They
          often do it for four or five minutes, and it's during that
          time that we see some injuries.
              MR. SCHAFER:  And I understand your points. 
          What -- I guess any company out there right now that's
          producing of working that thinks that they can hire a person
          or put a person to work without sticking some investment in
          them and expects to lose them evidently hasn't been in
          business long enough to realize that doing it the safe way
          instead of worrying about production all the time isn't
          going to make their company any money.
              We are going above and beyond, right now, what
          MSHA is asking for, before this rule is even put in place. 
          What we're saying is there's some things we'd like to
          address to make it not so burdensome on us.
              For you to put every company in the same group,
          saying that we're going to do the same as some other company
          has, is totally ridiculous.  You don't know what our
          training plan is or what we do.  Granted, there are those
          companies out there, those companies who fell by the
          wayside.
              The biggest thing we're missing right here is the
          employee has to take some responsibility for his own
          actions.  Common sense goes a long way.  MSHA has got us
          under -- guarding every possible thing a person could get
          into.
              The work habits of the employee is something we
          cannot control.  You can train.  I can take a person and put
          them through six months of training straight and still have
          a person go out and injure himself.  Now, is it because I
          failed as a trainer?  I don't think so.
              You have to start looking at the individual
          employee has to have some responsibility.  And just because
          this person had quit or decided he has a back injury, or
          maybe he came to work for our company with an injury and
          needed a place to get some more money.  I'm not saying
          that's always the issue.  But you have to look at every
          situation.
              And to put every company in the same instance is
          not fair.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  And that's really what
          we're here for.  And we're trying to figure out exactly what
          kind of requirements are going to do the most good.  I mean,
          and obviously balancing that against, I mean, the burdens on
          the industry, which we, as a regulatory industry, have got
          to consider.
              Now, would you state your name and spell it for
          us?  And would you like to come up and make a presentation
          and give us your recommendations for --
              MR. MANZANARES:  My name is Tino, T-I-N-O,
          Manzanares, M-A-N-Z-A-N-A-R-E-S.  And I am a with County
          Technical Services, a quasi-governmental agency.
              And I compliment the man on his philosophy and
          his attitude.  I wish we could see more of those in the work
          area.
              It's just that it bothers me that Part 48 has
          been around.  And people are being maimed and injured
          throughout the year.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Well, and we are --
              MR. FISHER:  I guess I've got one thing to add to
          that.  As far as hiring a laborer or shoveler, that he
          doesn't just do that job.  That might be true later on, but
          that production does not supersede safety.
              If I hire somebody as a laborer and my dozer
          operator quits, and I'm still worried about production,
          there is no way I would ever take that laborer and put him
          in a D-8 because we're lacking production.
              He's going to cost me ten times as much money as
          if I shut that D-8 down and I shovel it into the trap
          myself.  There's just no way that would ever happen.
              MR. MANZANARES:  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.
              MR. SCHAFER:  I guess maybe I came across wrong
          on some of the things I was stating earlier, but I did not
          say that I didn't want to invest any money in training this
          person before we even put him to work.
              You know, you're not going to put a person out in
          this type of industry -- like I said, on every side -- and
          I'm probably pretty much speaking for everybody -- you're
          looking a $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 worth of equipment you've
          got invested on that site right there.
              You're not going to take anybody without putting
          some investment of training in them and turn him loose in
          that kind of situation.
              I mean, it's not the same as handing a person a
          set of keys for a pickup that drives every day, and asking
          him to drive down the road and pick up parts for you.  We're
          in a whole different situation here.
              And like I said, to put an hour or two or
          something like that before the person works and then trying
          to find a reasonable amount of time to get a class size
          together so the burden of expense and travel isn't going to
          be so hard on you, to me, is not asking for too much.
              And I definitely think that's something that we
          have to look at, as far as before we make this regulation,
          because we're not like the coal mine where they can hire
          somebody and, before they come in, everybody comes to this
          one location and they can sit down and train them.
              And when they hire, they're going to hire eight,
          ten people.  When we hire, we might hire one person, and it
          might be 500 miles away from us.  And for us to travel, or
          them to travel for one person, as far as the money part of
          it -- and let's face it, everything comes down to the money
          part of it -- that's not real feasible for our industry.
              And to not trust the foreman who you put in
          charge of that job site to do the training or to do some
          training on that individual before you put them to work --
              I think that person is well qualified, because
          you didn't put him in charge of a couple million dollar site
          for no reason.  You put him in charge of that site because
          you feel he knows what he's doing.  And to me, that falls
          under a competent person.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Thank you very
          much.  We appreciate your input and suggestions.
              Do we have anyone else who would like to speak
          who hasn't signed up?  Okay.  Sir?
              MR. BROWN:  My name is Richard Brown, and I am
          with Wyoben, Incorporated.  We are a bentonite clay mining
          and manufacturing firm, based in Billings, Montana, with
          mining operations in northwestern Wyoming, in the Big Horn
          Basin area.
              There are two things that I'd like to comment on
          briefly.  Before I do this, I'd like to explain a little bit
          about what the bentonite industry is and what it does,
          because we are a little different than the other mining
          industries and representatives that are being defined as
          those who will be covered under these new proposed
          regulations.
              The bentonite industry is composed of, primarily,
          five companies, here in the United States, five major
          companies.  I believe there are representatives of three
          companies here today.
              Our operations are all surface operations, open
          pit contour mines, contour strip mines, typically of fairly
          small surface area and shallow depth.
              All mine sites, all active mine sites where
          extraction is taking place, are tied directly to specific
          milling sites, specific processing plants.
              Each processing plant may have as many as 15 or
          20 mine sites attached to it, in various stages of activity,
          either being opened up, being stripped, sites where the
          mineral is being taken out, or sites that are being
          reclaimed in one phase or another.
              Depending upon the phase that these sites are in,
          there will be anywhere from one to six or seven people
          working at them, at any one point in time.
              Individual mine sites may be as much as 40, 50,
          60 miles away from a mill site, or they could be very, very
          close, within a mile or two.
              So my first comment speaks to the concept of
          where training records should be kept for inspectors'
          access.
              We often have, in our specific operations,
          miners, people in the field, that will be at three, four,
          five individual mine sites during the course of one day. 
          These individuals may be part of teams or groups that are
          coming and going, separating and recombining during the
          course of the day.
              So it becomes very, very problematic for us to
          attempt to keep records at the individual mine sites for
          inspectors.
              I should add that the individual sites, even when
          they are being actively opened, seldom have any physical
          structures on-site.  The mining equipment and, perhaps, a
          trailer with supplies and lubricants, things of that nature
          in them, is all that is actually there.
              So it's not convenient or something that would
          lend itself easily to storage of records, even if the
          personnel were pretty constant at that site for any period
          of time.
              The time frames for these various activities at
          the various mine sites vary from a matter of a few hours 
          for an individual, during the extraction phase or
          reclamation phase, upwards to perhaps as much as a month for
          the active mining phase.
              So for our particular operations, I do not see an
          easy way to maintain records for individuals' training for
          inspectors' access at the mine site.  I do see, if the
          requirement were made that we had to do this, something that
          would almost certainly cause us to be in violation
          frequently because of the difficulty in ensuring that
          current records were on-site.
              Because all of the mine sites are tied directly
          to plant sites, it seems to me that, for our industry, at
          least, it would be a most suitable and workable situation to
          have the records be kept at the plant sites.  Those are the
          focus of everything that is done in our industry, anyhow,
          and that is where all other records tend to be kept.
              It seems to me that the issue here, generally,
          not just for our industry, is one of inspector access to the
          records, ready access, and therefore, it is a time sensitive
          thing, not a geography sensitive issue.
              And as long as the records could be provided to
          the inspector within a reasonable period of time, whether
          that's 12 hours, 24 hours after actual on-site inspection,
          or a couple of hours, that would suffice.
              The need to have the records physically on-site
          at the time an inspector appears there, though, does not
          appear to me to be the primary objective -- or should be the
          primary objective.
              So I would ask that consideration be given to
          looking at a time dependent criteria rather than a geography
          dependent criteria here.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Do you have any
          suggestion for what that time might be?
              MR. BROWN:  Given the way things are going with
          information exchange and electronic format now, I can see,
          down the road, that being almost instantaneous.
              I would say, from our standpoint, we could
          probably do it within a matter of two or three hours,
          because we do not have a long distance to go from any one
          our mine sites to the plant site.  And typically, the
          inspectors come back in to the plant sites anyhow, after
          they do the field inspections.
              Others, in other industries, might have a
          different perspective on that, but my guess is, sometime
          within 24 hours would be easily met by most people.
              And even that kind of time frame should meet the
          objective of allowing the inspector to verify that proper
          training has been received by all people that were working
          at a particular mine site, which I believe is the real
          objective here.
              The second comment I'd like to make is concerning
          the less than 30-minute training sessions.
              It's my belief that less than 30-minute training
          sessions should be allowed, simply because that gives the
          individual operator the flexibility to have some sessions
          that would not be 30 minutes in length, whether it's five
          minutes, 18 minutes, 25 minutes, it doesn't make any
          difference.
              There are many topics that are covered in
          training sessions that do not need to be covered in excess
          of 30 minutes.
              If there was a 30-minute minimum mandated, you're
          going to find training sessions being stretched out for no
          valid purpose.
              Now, it's been mentioned that there will be an
          increased record keeping burden placed upon operators who
          are attempting to keep records of training sessions that
          last only a few minutes.  I think that's correct.  And I
          think that is one of the limiting things that will cause
          operators not to want to do training sessions of a few
          minutes.
              But that's something that should be left up to
          the operator.  If they can handle the record keeping burden
          of showing the training sessions of five minutes in length
          have been conducted, and they want to continue doing that, I
          don't see anything inherently wrong with that, as long as
          information that is useful and necessary is being given out
          to the worker.
              Flexibility for the operator is really a big
          thing.  As soon as you start requiring training sessions of
          a certain length, you start tying the operator's hands.
              We all know, from having conducted training
          sessions in industry, that the workers do start to lose
          their attention at about 30 minutes.  The information you're
          giving no longer really hits the target.  They get tired;
          they get bored.
              And so I know, in our company, we try and work on
          30-minute segments, knowing that this is the case.  People
          are fresher when they hear things in 30-minute increments.
              That's not to say that we bring people in for
          only 30 minutes and then cut them loose and let them go
          someplace else.
              But we may train for 30 minutes, let them go out,
          do something for a short period of time, half-an-hour, hour,
          come back, do more, just so that they are fresh mentally
          when they hear the information we're talking about.
              But I know that we often have things that take
          less than 30 minutes to get the information across.
              So I would ask that consideration be given for
          allowing less than 30-minute training sessions, so that we,
          as operators, have the flexibility of determining the actual
          length that meets the circumstance, and not be mandated to
          have longer sessions that must be filled with
          inconsequential material.
              That's all I have to say at this point in time. 
          I'm sure that we will have more written comments, down the
          line.
              If you have any questions, I'd be happy to
          entertain them.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  I don't have any
          questions.  Do you have any?
              MR. BRELAND:  No, I don't.  Thank you very much.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much, Mr.
          Brown.
              MR. SCHAFER:  I'd like to just add one comment,
          as far as our annual training.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Could you just identify
          yourself, for the record?
              MR. SCHAFER:  I'm Kelly Schafer, of Fisher Sand &
          Gravel, again.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you.
              MR. SCHAFER:  Our annual training, when you
          started adding up what we're paying our employees to be on-
          site, what we're paying for hotel rooms and meals and
          training, on an annual basis, we probably spend somewhere
          between 20- and $25,000 a year on this training.
              And when it comes to our traveling to
          our specific -- you know, sometimes we bring them all to one
          location, and sometimes we travel to different locations,
          and that's pretty much a ballpark.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  And that's total, for all
          employees?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  And how many employees,
          again, are we talking about?
              MR. SCHAFER:  We're training anywhere from 200 to
          about 250 in a year.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  In a year?  Okay.
              And so the -- I'm sorry -- so the 20- to 25,000
          includes everything?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  And does that also
          include the normal compensation for miners?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.  For anywhere from a one- to
          two-day period.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  So that would be
          an all-inclusive figure, then?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  All right.  Thank
          you.
              Is Ken Pike here, by any chance?
              Do you have another comment, Mr. Schafer?
              MR. SCHAFER:  The last thing -- the main reason
          that seems a lot cheaper is because you're looking at a
          quantity, you know, a larger quantity of people.
              So when you start looking at before you put them
          to work, that price is going to be substantially higher,
          because, you know, you're not going to get the lodging
          discounts; you're not going to get the meals discount;
          you're not going to get the group discount in the training
          part.
              And we do have our people carpool and get up
          there to where it's not an individual, one person at one
          time, training cost.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Thank you.
              Is there anyone else who has not spoken who would
          like to speak at this time, or is there anyone who has
          already spoken who is ready to share comments that they
          would like to make, things that have been raised since they
          made their remarks?  Mr. Tuggle?
              MR. TUGGLE:  Yes.  It's Harry Tuggle, 
          T-U-G-G-L-E, with United Steel Workers.
              And I guess a lot of the comments I've heard
          since I talked earlier are very interesting.
              And yes.  There is a number of operations that
          are unique unto themselves.
              And sand, gravel, stone is not like coal mining. 
          But neither is sand, gravel like stone.
              If you talk about a sand, gravel pit or a quarry,
          or a mom/pop operation, or a roadside portable operation,
          versus a stone quarry in Vermont that's -- you're talking
          500-feet deep quarries, giant derricks, explosives, heavy
          equipment, one thing and another.
              So all of this is trying to be meshed into a
          nutshell, based on the mandate here by Congress on the
          issue.
              I can sympathize with a number of things that's
          been said, and even from the last speaker, Mr. Brown, and
          his concern about the crew members moving from one operation
          to another, with the situation that an employee might even
          lose his own training records.  You know, in some areas, the
          individuals are required to have them in their hip pocket,
          in their billfold.
              There is a headquarters record keeping area, but
          if an inspector walks on site and says, Has this guy been
          trained, and the guy, without even the supervisor, you know,
          Here's my training record and here's the signatures.
              At the same time, there can be situations of that
          individual losing it, and all of a sudden he doesn't have
          the records on-hand now, and there is no room for the 24-
          hour flexibility area written into the standards on the
          issues, it would present some problems.
              Also, back on some of the earlier comments, when
          you talk about the records being kept by computer systems
          and so forth -- and I can certainly appreciate that, with
          all the new technologies coming down the pike.
              Matter of fact, if you're into the computer
          system and someone says, Well, we want to use a form
          developed by us versus a 5023 form, and if you're into
          computer systems, you can download the 5023 form and fill it
          in.  It's on the Internet by MSHA itself.
              If it complies quite a bit with the information
          needed on the 5023, I don't have a problem with that one way
          or the other.
              The problem I have with computer data, unless
          it's been scanned or can be verified in some form or
          fashion, that's a picture of an individual's signature.  I
          mean, it's not a record with the individual's signature on
          it.
              And I appreciate that these are on file and can
          be drawn on and say, Yes.  This is what the original looks
          like.  And that original is also maintained in a bank
          somewhere else -- and that is somewhat duplicate record
          keeping, but that signed certification of training has to be
          somewhere, because then the miner is to be given copies of
          that, should he leave the operation and so forth.
              I certainly appreciate the remarks made by the
          insurance person here, Tino, I'll call him.
              But there's some things in this whole realm, as
          we're talking -- all the way up from mom and pop operations
          all the way up to big granite quarries or whatever we might
          be talking about -- but there's something, to me, getting
          lost.
              People are concerned about an insurance company
          guy coming on the property, or a bank person coming on the
          property, or a guy delivering fuel on to property, or
          dropping off some porta-potties, and worried that they're
          going to have to have eight or 24 hours of miners' training.
              And I don't know anywhere where that's done. 
          It's not practiced.  I don't see the concern.
              If I go on a mine property, which I do quite
          often, I'm led around by someone that is familiar with that
          mine.  I'm not given training, unless I go underground and
          need refresher training on self-rescue or something like
          that.
              And that's, you know, five minutes, and you stay
          with this guy all the time, and whatever he says do, you do
          it.  Here's a picture of our operation.  Here's what we do
          here.  You stay with him.
              And by and large, a number of these vendors that
          come on the property, we shouldn't even be concerned about,
          unless I'm wrong and MSHA is somewhere saying that these
          people have to be trained eight and 24 hours, as though
          they're a production miner.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  I don't think so.  I
          mean, I'm not as familiar with the Part 48 policy as I
          probably ought to be, but I would agree with you that there
          are lines to be drawn as far as what type of training is
          appropriate.
              And coming on to the mine property doesn't
          necessarily mean that you get a 24 hours.  It really is
          going to depend on what it is that you're doing.
              MR. TUGGLE:  Okay.  Just a couple of other
          comments.
              And I also appreciate, I think it was raised by
          Mr. Schafer, about the -- someone doing the teaching or
          training that has hands-on experience.  Those guys are the
          experts.  I would agree.  The guys in the front and so
          forth.
              As much as you can stay away from a college or
          professionals or whatever, or you can get the State to do it
          for free, or whatever, to do some training.  But if you have
          a competent person with teaching capabilities with hands-on
          experience, it's a lot better approach than some of the
          other means that's available that runs up exorbitant that
          were being quoted earlier.
              But also, in talking about the first aid issue,
          Mr. Schafer was saying it was somewhat overkill there.  And
          I think that's a bad term to use on that issue.
              But I guess, being a member -- and there may be
          some of you that have been members of home safety
          associations, where I have been a member for the last 20
          years, and there's guys on there that's been on there for 30
          years plus and so forth.
              And that's part and parcel of the home safety
          associations' philosophy, MSHA's philosophy, and so it's not
          just for that miner.  You've taken on a family when you hire
          me or a woman.
              That particular training that you give to him, he
          can take home with him.  That may be his kids, his wife, his
          neighbors, or whatever it might be, that he might use that
          information.
              One other thing that I want to touch on, because
          of the broad range of the types of industries that we're
          talking about within this group of mining entities.
              And it's been talked about, you know, that eight
          hours should be at least the initial time spent on the job,
          and no less than 30 minutes by some, and others, at the
          operator's discretion, and so forth.
              Some believe it's six hours, and then I'll put
          them on the job and filter the other in, all the way down to
          two hours and filter the rest of the training in, and so
          forth.
              I believe we should come up with a reasonable
          figure.  I believe a reasonable figure is already
          established, as I've stated before, within Part 48.
              There's already an approach and an entity for
          change to that.
              And I think maybe it could be referred out within
          Part 46, on petitions for modification, that if you have a
          given operation where you've got people at five or six mine
          sites, or you have an operation where you have 30 percent
          turn over, or you have an operation that's unique, getting
          into bentonite or phosphates and a number of different ores
          or materials you would be talking about, is somewhat of a
          burden on MSHA, as an administrator on the metal/nonmetal
          side.
              But coal does this constantly.  Every week, you
          see ten and 15 petitions for modification on standards in
          coal, all the time.  I don't know how they keep up with
          them.
              But I think for certain segments of mining that
          eight hours would not fit the bill, that immediate
          particular circumstances, that 30-minute increments is
          unreasonable for these particular operations or whatever,
          those operators could apply for a petition for modification
          and show by record, Look, this is our last two-years record,
          three-years record, or whatever.
              We have a 30 percent turn over that's beating us
          to death, it's costing us money left and right.  We've got
          to spend a little less time with the individual, except
          site-specific.
              We don't want to get into first aid right away. 
          We don't want to get into -- in many of the sand, gravel,
          you're not into explosives there, so you're talking about
          just hazard and site-specific.
              And you could be asking those things, I think, in
          a petition for modification, where you need some sort of
          variance from the actual rule that the others should be
          living by.
              We can't have a super-weak standard for a super
          mom/pop operation and try to apply that in granite or
          limestone quarries where you've got depths of, as I said, 5-
          and 600 feet and you've got derricks all over the place,
          explosives, flame burners that cut the stone versus a shovel
          that digs sand.
              So, as I said earlier, there's got to be some
          moderation in all things.  And I think that we continue to
          pursue this.
              And where you have those problems, and where
          those hearings occur, as long as those keep coming forward,
          every one of them is good points, good food for thought,
          needs to be addressed.
              And some of these things that's been said
          already -- and we'll be looking at the whole record before
          our final comments, and state a position as to why we think
          this should be here for this particular commodity and this
          should be maybe treated differently for this particular
          commodity, on the basis of a potential for a petition for
          modification.
              With that, I have no other comments.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Do you have any
          questions?
              MR. BRELAND:  No.  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much, Mr.
          Tuggle.
              MR. BURNS:  I've just got one.  I guess, on the
          contractors, you feel that should be something that we
          should try to clear up, in this role, as to what types of
          people need to have the 24 hours and which don't?
              MR. TUGGLE:  Oh, absolutely.
              MR. BURNS:  Just to clear up a lot of the
          confusion that's out there.  Because this is --
              MR. TUGGLE:  Unless I misunderstood one of the
          earlier speakers, he was talking about this shaft and slope
          mining.  To me, if you have an operation that, all of a
          sudden, you get into shaft and slope -- and I'm not thinking
          a slope of a hill, a slope of a mine and a shaft of a
          mine -- you've now jumped from Part 46 back into Part 48.
              So that entity itself, in my opinion, needs to be
          stricken.  You don't even need to discuss it.  It's already
          covered.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Are you intending, in
          your final written remarks, are you planning to address the
          issue of different categories of employees?
              I mean, if you could, I mean, we would appreciate
          it, I mean as far as who gets the 24 hours and the eight
          hours, depending on the contractors that are coming on
          property, and the banker or the insurance salesman, or some
          middle category besides that.
              If you could address that in your written
          remarks --
              MR. TUGGLE:  Yes.  And it's going to be quite
          simple and, I think, straightforward, on the basis that, if
          you have individuals on there --
              And if you've got a potato chip delivery guy and
          he comes on a mine every day, just because he's on a mine
          every day, and he does not extract materials, does not run
          machinery or conveyor systems or involved in the process,
          other than filling a potato chip machine, this guy doesn't
          need training, in my opinion.
              Nothing to do with the 24, except that that guy
          has to be advised as to the area he's going to, or if
          there's another area, be escorted to another area to fill
          his potato chip machine, or whatever.
              The operator should not be burdened with even the
          thought of eight and 24, or whatever.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Thank you very
          much.
              MR. TUGGLE:  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Mr. Schafer?
              MR. SCHAFER:  Yes.  I just want to clarify one
          thing.  I guess he was talking about I said that the eight
          hours of training for the first aid/CPR.  He said I said it
          was overkill or, you know, not worthwhile.
              If you have ever trained a first aid/CPR class,
          where you have a certified trainer -- and I didn't want to
          get into this, because I guess it didn't need to be brought
          up in here -- but how many employees that are older in your
          companies that don't need it?
              You know, maybe that are heavy smokers or their
          hands are so thick and fat that they can't bend over to do
          the compressions, or they can't breathe for themselves and
          somebody else, they can't read the text books to go through
          the training.
              You're spending a lot of extra time going through
          this with this person, and they might not comprehend it.
              Second of all, you've got a lot of people, when
          they come in to my classes, say, I don't want to do this.  I
          don't want to be embarrassed because I can't do it in front
          of the rest of the people that are in the class, and I'm not
          ever going to help anybody else.
              So you're spending eight hours of training on
          this employee, and he's probably going to be out here
          looking somewhere else, and he's disturbing the rest of the
          class.  Or maybe the person is fine and is watching.
              But if you're going to spend the time training,
          let's have the people that are going to take the ball and
          fix the problem or help in the situation at the time.
              I'm not saying it's a waste of training.  We
          train the family members.  I bring the wives in during the
          training, and I offer choking for infants and basic CPR, and
          basic stuff like that.  We provide that for them.
              I'm not saying that I don't care about the
          families.  What I'm saying is let's spend the money where it
          needs to be spent.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Thank you very
          much.  Mr. Tuggle?
              MR. TUGGLE:  One other comment.  And maybe we
          don't need to continue to elaborate on this.  But I came
          from underground mining, hard rock mining, and we had the
          same situation of a number of -- I mean, big-hearted rock
          miners, their hands look like baseball mitts compared to
          mine.
              Took on two concepts.  And we had people that
          could not read.  We didn't have anybody that couldn't count,
          from either one to five or one to 15.
              So it left one option, either attempt to provide
          this training to all of these individuals, or have a
          situation occur in front of this individual and he said, I
          stood there and did nothing because I didn't know what to
          do.
              Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.
              All right.  Again I'll ask.  Is there anyone who
          has not spoken who would like to speak, or anyone who has
          already spoken who has additional remarks?  Yes?  This
          gentleman over here.
              MR. ELLISON:  My name is James Ellison; 
          E-L-L-I-S-O-N.  I'm the safety supervisor of the Fort
          Collins plant of Whole Land, Incorporated.
              We're a manufacturer of Portland cement.  We have
          112 employees at our plant.  Twelve of those employees are
          involved in extraction work.  The other 100 employees are
          involved in the manufacturing of converting the limestone
          extracted from our in-plant quarry into Portland cement.
              Typical of all cement plants, we have a very,
          very large outlay in capital to produce our product.
              We have very expensive heavy equipment.  We don't
          run small equipment.  We run big equipment.
              We're very training conscious.  We're very proud
          of our training record.  We do new miner, both inexperienced
          and experienced; we do annual refresher; we do first aid and
          CPR.  We keep 2/3 of our employee base certified in both CPR
          and first aid, even though the Poudre Valley Fire Authority
          Station Number 7 is less than a mile away from our plant.
              Training budget, I can document $40,000 a year,
          for the past two years, in training costs, of all types of
          training, and that does not include any salary or wages. 
          That's what we've paid to bring people in or send our people
          someplace else to be trained.
              Some of our best training is by manufacturers'
          representatives.  These people are not necessarily MSHA
          qualified as instructors.
              Recently, we brought a manufacturer's rep in from
          Victor Torch Company and, even though we have many welders
          and maintenance people that carry a list of welding
          certifications as long as your arms, they admittedly learned
          many, many new and important things from this non-MSHA
          certified instructor.
              Even with all the training and our belief in
          training, we have problems with training once or twice a
          year.
              Cement plants are very dependent upon the kiln. 
          That's the heart of the plant.  That's where the conversion
          takes place, the chemical reaction from limestone into
          cement clinker.  We call it a burning process.  And the
          limestone is actually turned into a molten state to drive
          off the impurities and cause the reactivity that is
          necessary in Portland cement.
              When the kiln goes down, the entire plant goes
          down.  Extraction work ceases.
              And typically, we bring in many, many contractors
          that are on-site for specific jobs.  Some of them may be on-
          site for environmental equipment such as dust collectors or
          byge houses; some may be specialists in refractory lining
          for the kiln; some may be iron workers; we bring in some
          conveyor people; equipment; field surface.
              We use all kinds of contractors during this
          period of time.  They are not involved in any kind of
          extraction work whatsoever.  There is no extraction work
          going on during these periods.
              Those contractors have no need of eight hours of
          new miner training; they have no need of 12 hours or 24
          hours.
              What they do have need of is site-specific hazard
          training in the site, the area of the plant, that they're
          in.  And this may take one or two hours to alert them of
          what is in that area that may cause an injury.
              They don't want to be miners.  They're experts at
          what they're doing.  And there is no reason that we should
          ever give them an hour of ground control or 15 minutes of
          ground control or self-rescuer training, because they're not
          going to be involved in any of these.  They're not going to
          be exposed to any of those hazards.
              The training of the contractors, whether it's
          done by the miner, which is a burden imposed on the miner,
          the mine operator, for these short periods of time, or
          whether it's done by the contractor, needs to only be site-
          specific hazards that they will encounter while they're on
          our mine site.
              That's all I have to say.  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Anybody have any
          questions?
              MR. BRELAND:  No.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much, Mr
          Ellison.
              Is there anyone else?
              All right.  I would like to thank you all for
          attending, and particularly those speakers who made
          presentations.
              We're going to be closing here in a few minutes,
          but before we do, I'd like to give you a short summary of
          what we expect our schedule is going to be on this project.
              As I said in my earlier remarks, we're intending
          to publish a proposed rule in the Federal Register, sometime
          in the early spring.
              And at that point, then we go into what's called
          a comment period.  And that includes a lot of people to
          submit written comments on the proposed rule.
              And also, generally, we will schedule at least a
          couple of public hearings, which are going to be similar in
          format to the public meetings that we're having right now,
          where people can come in and give specific comments on the
          proposed rule.
              We take those comments, the hearing comments and
          the written comments, and then we are intending to then
          publish a final rule before the final deadline of September
          30 of 1999.
              I would like to encourage people who have already
          spoken and have additional remarks that they would like to
          make, or people who maybe did not feel prepared or ready to
          make remarks today, to submit written comments to MSHA. 
          Again, I encourage you to send those in before February 1,
          1999.
              The address would be the Office of Standards
          Regulations and Variances for MSHA, which is in the 
          November 3 notice of meeting.  If you don't have that
          address, please come up to the front, and we can give you
          the address, if you want to know where to send those.
              And finally, if you are here and have not signed
          up on the attendance list in the back, I would ask you to do
          so.
              And I know that there are a couple of people who
          asked us earlier for a copy of the attendance sheet.  And if
          you want to come up, we'll try and get you copies if we can
          find a copy machine in the hotel somewhere.
              But again, thank you -- oh.  Yes?
              MR. CODY:  There was a pretty quick transition
          between, Do we have any other speakers, and your closing
          remarks.  I really did feel as though I wanted to make a
          couple of comments.  Is it too late?
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Oh, no.  Absolutely not. 
          Come on up.
              MR. CODY:  Feel free to shut me down if this gets
          too far out from where it should be.
              My name is Rod Cody, and I'm with the Wyoming
          MSHA State Grants program.  I'm the Director there.
              First off, I want to say that I've been in and
          around the industry for some 30 years, and that includes
          underground, surface mining, sand and gravel.  I've been
          around a good long time.  Construction, as well.
              What I've seen, coming from the old days, if you
          will, is that our greatest danger, in whatever industry
          we're in, is a lack of training.
              Now, it sounds to me like everybody that's been
          up here and talking pretty much has the same thing to say,
          We are providing the training.
              So if the training is being provided, number one,
          I don't see where the problem is with mandated training.
              I do see some problems with the 24 hour
          situation.  I feel as though everybody should have that 24
          hours, but I also feel that they shouldn't be mandated to do
          it right away.
              I think they should have to do the minimum of
          eight, and then the additional 16 within 60 days, strictly
          because there are certain things that go on on given job
          sites that obviously need to be covered.
              Now, by mandating 24-hour training, that doesn't
          necessarily say that Company X or Company Y has to pay for
          that training.
              In my area of the state, you basically don't do
          anything if you don't have the 24-hour training.  For
          instance, over the weekend, I had to get training for my
          wife.  She has no intention of working on mine sites, but
          she had to have the 24-hour training, just due to the area
          we live in.
              By mandating this training, that doesn't mean
          that all of these companies have to pay for that training. 
          Once again, what happens in my area is it's considered to be
          a big plus if you come to apply for a job and you already
          have that training.
              Most employment companies ask you, right out of
          the gate, Do you have that training?  Chances are, they
          don't want to talk to you if you don't have that training.
              So, bottom line, these folks that think that
          possibly they're not going to have the employees to do their
          job because they're requiring training, I think they're in
          error.  I can see why they think that, but this would
          essentially be the tools of the trade.  That would be a more
          valuable individual if he had that training.  So I don't
          think there's going to be a problem there at all.
              Initial training, I pretty much already covered. 
          But in that first eight hours, I'm thinking that you need to
          do hazard training, transportation and communication,
          electrical hazards, and certainly escape-way.
              And maybe that's not all of it but, certainly, I
          feel as though those topics should be covered.
              First aid.  I'm one of those that I believe
          everybody should know first aid and CPR.  It's been stated
          that some individuals are not capable of learning CPR, for
          instance.  I guess I could agree with that.
              But first aid, in itself, is simple.  It's just
          simply, as you folks know, basically taking the white stuff
          and putting it on the red stuff.  You know, if an individual
          is bleeding, you need to control the bleeding.  First aid
          is, essentially, simple.
              But that could still be a secondary issue that
          could come sometime in their 16-hour training, if you have
          an individual on that site that already has advanced first
          aid.
              And I mean, I can see where first aid could
          become a secondary issue.  But you at least need that eight
          hours of training.  By not providing that training, you're
          essentially saying that production is our main goal.
              You want to give everybody the same opportunity
          to come to that job site and give you a good day's work for
          a fair dollar, and do the same thing tomorrow.  So I think
          the training is very, very important.
              The training topics covered, I believe that Part
          48 has pretty much covered what needs to be covered for
          anybody that becomes included in the training auspice.
              Certainly, some of that would have to vary.  For
          sand and gravel -- one of the comments was, for instance --
          geez, I can't think of what Section it is -- but in Part 48,
          it's self-rescue and respiratory devices.
              Well, obviously, somebody that's working in a
          sand and gravel yard does not need a self-rescue, nor the
          training on.  But respiratory devices is certainly also
          respirators, and they do need that training.  So that is a
          relevant topic for them.
              Training plans.  I think a training plan is
          important from the standpoint that, if you're the trainer
          today -- now, that's whether or not you're a certified
          trainer.
              And personally, I believe that if they don't
          require certified trainers, they should at least require the
          individual to go through a training course so that he knows,
          within himself, that that material is being presented
          correctly.
              But the training plan itself, I think it's fair
          to assume that, if you have a training plan on-site, or at
          your main office, or wherever it's kept, that at least, if
          somebody else comes in to that training, i.e., the
          supervisor, he has something to look at to know pretty much
          what training is supposed to be presented and at least some
          idea as to how it's supposed to be presented.
              Now, obviously, the supervisors are pretty much
          the experts on most of these jobs.  There's no question
          about it.
              Generally, supervisors become supervisors because
          they've got a great deal of training at those jobs.  That
          doesn't imply, to me, that, because they have a great deal
          of expertise in, for instance, loading a hole, or to keep it
          even simpler, expertise in wiring the round in and timing an
          explosion, that doesn't tell me that this individual knows
          that you need to check the burning rate of fuse.
              You know, there's just some things that are over
          and above, maybe, what you've done for a lot of years.
              Being in a trade for a lot of years tends to
          bring about complacency.  And that doesn't necessarily imply
          that the individual wants to do that, I just think it's
          human nature.  You become narrow-sighted.  You're looking
          from Point A to Point B, and you're maybe not thinking about
          the what-ifs that are going along beside you.  From that
          standpoint, I think that you do need to involve trainers.
              Let's see.  The time frame for training, I agree
          with every one of these folks that said that it should be up
          to the operators.  If they want to do one minute or five
          minutes or 30 minutes, or whatever they want to do, as long
          as that training is being completed, I think they should be
          entitled to do.
              Now, when I was a safety director in the past, I
          actually tried that training where you break it down into --
          it's 30-minute, at this point, in Part 48 -- but now, we
          broke it down into 30 minutes, and we had 165 employees, and
          I had -- for lack of a better word here -- one hell of a
          time keeping everybody trained, due to vacations, being
          sick, being away at training, you name it.
              It was just a nightmare.  So from that
          standpoint, I would recommend the eight hours annual, but I
          still think it should be left up to the operator how they
          want to do the training, as long as they're doing the
          training.
              Instructor.  I touched on that a little bit.  I
          do think the supervisors and a lot of the office folks and
          that sort of thing have a great deal of information to
          provide in training.  There's a great deal of knowledge
          there.  They should be able to stand there and talk their
          subject as long as they want to talk it.
              But I still believe that there should be, beyond
          a competent person, a person that has been through
          instructor's training, once again, so that they know what
          has to be done within the law and they know it's being done
          correctly.
              You know, it's very, very important to get the
          information out.  But it's very much more important to make
          damn sure that the information is understood.  And that may
          be where that instructor comes in, even if he doesn't become
          certified, if he goes through the course.  And that would be
          that individual that actually wanted to be there.
              And that's -- well, one more thing I wanted to
          touch on, on the training plan.  We hear about the costs of
          training plan.
              Now, our program, in Wyoming, we actually do
          charge for training.  But now, training plans, if somebody
          calls in and said, Well, you know, we want to put together a
          training plan.  What do we need to do?  I generally tell
          them, Come on in to the office when you have some time; or I
          can come to your office; or we'll meet downtown and have a
          cup of coffee.
              And I bring a generic training plan and tell
          them, you know, This is how you go about this thing.  And
          there's no cost to it at all.  The biggest pain with that is
          actually sitting down and doing one for your company and
          getting off in the mail, all of that sort of thing.  But
          there shouldn't be a great cost for that.
              I've seen -- in fact, my neighbor across the
          street is an owner of a plumbing outfit.  Now, you don't
          think of plumbers as people who would have their own
          training plan.  He certainly does.  He believes in this 
          Part 48.  And I suppose it doesn't hurt at all, all the
          mining around.  He's more apt to be able to work on those
          mine sites because he's got the training.
              But he tells me he believes in this training.
              And that's all I wanted to say.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Do you have any
          questions?
              MR. BRELAND:  I just had one.  When you say that
          if they weren't designated as approved instructors, you
          think they should have an instructor training course, are
          you referring to the present MSHA three-day certified course
          for instructors, or what?
              MR. CODY:  That is, indeed, the course that I'm
          referring to, though maybe there could be some modifications
          on that.  I'm not necessarily recommending that.
              But now, at this point in time, we do seminars
          all over our state.  And we are actually doing a modified
          instructor kind of a training thing, even though there's no
          certification to it or anything.
              We tell them, at the end of this, that if they're
          interested in this thing and they need -- they feel as
          though they want to become an instructor, then they need to
          come by and actually go through the three-day course.  But
          we offer a modified thing already.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  How long is that, the
          modified?
              MR. CODY:  Well, I have to be honest and say
          that's varied.  There's been a great deal of interest in it,
          but we try to do it for, like, an hour.  And that just
          touches on the highlights, if you will.  And then, if
          they're interested, like I say, we tell them, Come on down. 
          We'll put you through the training.
              I don't -- I've been a certified instructor for
          many years, and I've always been proud of that fact.  But
          from the standpoint of sand and gravel and all the other
          various mining entities that are facing these new rules, I
          can see where maybe they feel that they don't need to be
          certified.
              But once again, I would recommend, at minimum,
          they be required to go through, at least, the course.  If
          they don't want the card, so be it, but at least they've got
          the training behind them to get the information out
          correctly or see to it that it is getting out correctly.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  When you say that they go
          through the course, are you talking about the three-day
          course?
              MR. CODY:  Yes, I am.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. BRELAND:  Are you talking about all people
          that do training, or the designated person in charge of
          training?
              MR. CODY:  I'm talking about a designated person
          within their company.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Who would be a
          coordinator of maybe other people who provide instruction in
          specific areas?
              MR. CODY:  Somebody to steer the ship.  Somebody
          to make sure that it's going the right course, whatever his
          title might be, or her title.
              MS. FONTAINE:  Okay.  You said that a company can
          get a generic training plan?
              MR. CODY:  Here about a week-and-a-half ago --
          now, this wasn't for a training plan -- but a week-and-a-
          half ago, I sent one of my instructors to Texas.
              And the reason was that they had planned on
          coming to Wyoming for some training, and it was better for
          them if they could acquire the training right there.
              So I sent one of my instructors to Texas.  Of
          course, two of their people couldn't make it, so they came
          to the training in Gilette, anyway.
              But for training, I believe you need to go and do
          what you need to do to get the training out there.
              Once again, as I said when I began talking, our
          biggest danger today, and very likely, as always, is a lack
          of information.
              Those people might be the best in the world at
          whatever their trade is, but if they don't have that safety
          training up front, if they don't have that knowledge up
          front, they're a walking, talking accident.  They're ready
          to be hurt, through no fault of their own.
              MS. FONTAINE:  Could you give me a range of costs
          for small mine, if you would go to a small mine to put on
          training for them?
              MR. CODY:  The cost?  Now, I have to say, if it's
          a small mine -- we have a standard cost, for various
          reasons.  First off, new miner training, being the most
          expensive, is $81 through our facility.  And the reason for
          that is because there's a credit-and-a-half college credit
          towards mining technology included in that.
              Other costs, for instance, annual refresher,
          that's 30 bucks.  But that cost -- even though the cost of
          the individual won't vary -- most people come to us, okay?
              But if we go out to the mine site, it may be a
          situation where they've got enough people to pay for our
          instructor to come out there, that we -- and realizing
          they're a very small company -- we've cut the costs.
              We're looking at cutting the overall cost as of
          the first of next month.  But we have cut cost, for certain
          companies, from our standard or our customary cost, the
          reason being, the training is important.  But you have to
          pay for the instructor, so you have to get some money out of
          the deal to pay for these instructors.
              But even at our customary cost, we talked
          about -- or it was mentioned that the one outfit had eight
          employees on-site and there was quite a bit of money spent a
          year on training those individuals, and that's a good deal.
              If the company is going to spend that kind of
          money training that few of employees, I applaud them.
              But just annual refresher for those individuals,
          if you're talking eight of them, you're talking 240 bucks. 
          I don't think 240 bucks is too much money to spend on a
          group of employees to make sure that it's reiterated.
              After you do the 24-hour training, or the
          eight/16 method, or however it is, you're going to, if your
          company's worth its salt at all, you're going to do toolbox
          meetings or safety meetings, or whatever their term for it
          is.
              You're going to do that throughout the year, and
          you're going to talk about relative subjects that's going on
          in your company today, you will.
              Within those, you're very likely -- you should
          be, anyway -- reiterating what you talked about in your
          initial training.
              But to think that you're spending too much money
          covering initial training and too much money for annual
          refresher, to me, is ludicrous.
              I see it as a big savings, over a period of time,
          because you're going to have less accidents; you're going to
          have employees that -- well, it's comparable to, if I think
          I'm working in a pigpen, I very likely am.  If I think that
          the company doesn't care about my welfare, I'm very likely
          not going to stay there.  You see what I'm saying?
              If you're showing your employees that you do care
          about their welfare, they're more likely to stay there and
          do you a good job, a good, safe, productive job.  You're
          going to save money.
              MS. FONTAINE:  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much, Mr.
          Cody.
              MR. CODY:  Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  Would you like to
          speak, sir?
              MR. MANZANARES:  Once again, my name is Tino
          Manzanares.  I'm with County Technical Services.
              I promised myself that I would just sit there and
          I would not make any comments, I would just listen.  But I
          found it extremely difficult to just be quiet.
              And I do want to extend my congratulations to the
          gentleman who spoke last.  I whole-heartedly endorse what he
          has said.
              Within the last few years, we have trained over
          5- to 6,000 surface miners, sand and gravel operations,
          everything from a hole in the ground, to a screening plant,
          to a sand and gravel operation, to a batch plant, hot plant,
          in the pit.
              I am whole-heartedly an endorser of training.  I
          asked the gentleman earlier, you know, Have you put any
          price on how much it costs when an employee is injured and
          he's not able to do his job and you have to hire somebody
          else?
              I was recently contracted, requested to do some
          training for a company, if I could do it in Spanish.  I said
          yes.
              I agreed to do a 16-hour class in Spanish,
          although I had to translate everything that I -- the
          approved mine certified training program under MSHA -- I had
          to translate that and do that in Spanish.
              I was elated to find out that, when I did the
          training, the employees, who not only did not speak English,
          but they couldn't read or write English or Spanish. 
          Therefore, at the end of the class, I was surprised at the
          amount of information that was retained by these employees.
              Everybody is trainable.  There are certain limits
          to some and certain limits to others.
              Management must be held accountable for the
          actions of their employees.  Of the employee doesn't want to
          attend class, that's why he only got to the third grade.  He
          played hooky for the rest of the time.  But since he is the
          property of the employer, management must be held
          accountable.
              Every time there is an injury, in my opinion,
          there is a failure in management.
              Getting back to thing that I said.  Yes.  People
          are trainable.  They will learn, everything from the very
          basic first aid and CPR to a person who has never seen a
          picture of a lung, when you teach silica training or you
          teach respirators.  All of these people are trainable.
              A great percentage of our employees are
          illiterate.  And how do we train those, unless we provide
          training in a formal manner?
              Yes.  I am a whole-hearted endorser of the ten-
          minute toolbox talks.  We do an extensive amount of it.
              We have over 400 videos that we can use, and many
          of those are five-minute videos.  I can teach a front-line
          supervisor, provide a topic with him, to go along with that
          five-minute video, and he can do it in ten minutes, very
          effective training.
              It's easier to move one trainer to visit a site
          than it is to move 25 people to a hotel in town and provide
          all of those facilities.
              I provided training individual mine sites in my
          van, where I only had three people in the van at a time.
              So training is essential, if we are to prevent
          and reduce the injuries to the employees.
              Thank you.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.
              Yes, sir?
              MR. OSTER:  I'm Greg Oster, O-S-T-E-R, from
          Camas.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  From -- excuse me?
              MR. OSTER:  Camas, C-A-M-A-S, Minnesota.
              I really wasn't going to say anything, because
          I'm pretty much in agreement with the Part 46, with the
          National Stone, and the coalition there.
              But I think it's interesting, as I listen to all
          the comments today.  And a good share of the people that
          spoke here today are really people making money off our
          industry.
              And I think that we need to keep in mind -- and
          I'm not disagreeing with anybody.  In fact, our company, we
          exceed all the training that's being required.  I mean,
          we've never let off.  And good companies haven't done that. 
          They continue to do good training and all that.
              But I think one of the problems I hear here today
          is that, you know, for example, Tino and his insurance
          company and his accidents and all that type of thing that
          he's talking about, none of us want accidents.  There isn't
          a person in this room that wants an accident.  And there's
          not a person here that's ever been to a fatality that wants
          to go back there again.
              And so, you know, sure, it makes sense to have
          training.  And I know Harry very well, personally.  And
          Harry talks from his side, from the Union side, as he wants
          training, he wants the best training for his group of
          people.
              But what I think we're really saying here is
          that, when this all done and the new law is published,
          there's only one group of people that are going to be held
          responsible, and it's going to be the operators of these
          operations.
              And when you all come in and the people who are
          doing the eight-hour training from the grants programs, they
          come in, and they spend two days in the operation or one
          day, and they do their training and they leave, we're still
          there operating and we're still trying to figure out how
          we're going to do this so we don't have any trouble at MSHA.
              And I think good companies ought to be saying
          that MSHA regulations should be minimum requirements.  You
          know, today we've talked like it's the only thing we should
          be doing.
              And I think, long-term, if you look at Part 46,
          and what National Stone and their coalition is really
          saying, is that we want to do training, we want to do good,
          effective training.
              And I think what happens when you get in these
          groups is we get all worked up on how we're going to
          effectively do this, legally, so we don't have legal
          problems after the new regulation is put in place.
              But I think the key here is that we want to have
          effective training for our employees, and not just what
          we're talking about here today, but maybe we're going to
          have to exceed it if we're going to stay in business.
              A good share of companies that are in our
          industry nowadays, compared to 20 years ago when this law
          was in effect, are self-insured.  They don't have a $5, or
          $50, or $100, or $1,000, or even a $5,000 deductible
          anymore.  They have quarter-million-dollar deductibles and
          half-million-dollar deductible per accident.
              So I think what I'm trying to say here is that
          the operators are the ones that virtually end up with this
          regulation.
              And when you look at it -- I was involved in it
          when it was Part 48, back in the late '70s.  And one of the
          reasons I think it never really flew is it never fit this
          industry properly and nobody felt that it did.
              It wasn't that people didn't want to do the
          training.  And I think, if you look in our industry, I'll
          bet there's a good share, 80 percent of the companies that
          are involved in this industry, may have done training, or
          more.  I don't know what the number would be.
              But I never run into very many people that aren't
          doing training.  And they didn't have to do it, but it's
          good business.
              And when you have high deductibles or no
          insurance, you can't afford to have accidents, or you're not
          going to be in business.  You're going to be getting sold. 
          And we buy those kind of companies every day, companies, all
          the time, that haven't kept up with safety, haven't kept up
          with environmental, have high accidents.  They can't stay in
          business.
              So I think the training is important.  And I
          think that the main thing with these regulations is that we
          have to get all the details worked out and how we're going
          to all do it.
              But I think the real important thing is that we
          get effective training for our employees and our managers.
              You know, we tend to talk about employees, but
          the supervisors need it just as well.  And we need to be
          able to figure out how we're going to do that in a way
          that's cost effective and -- you know, our training costs
          for coming out and doing a training from, for example, the
          grants program, is cheap.  It's the labor that costs the
          money.
              For example, in our company, we're going to do 33
          days of training for about $20,000 for an instructor.  And
          labor is going to run over $300,000 for the employees.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  You're talking about that
          normal compensation of the miners that are being trained?
              MR. OSTER:  Of the employees, while they're being
          trained, and the managers, and things like that.
              So you have to pay them and you have to rent
          rooms, and all that.
              That's good money spent, if it's a good,
          effective safety training.
              But if it goes back to when it was in effect like
          in '78 and '79, when you're doing statutory rights and
          you're training on things that just, you know, year after
          year, if you took a look at that, and it that had stayed in
          place and we hadn't modified it, you're doing training on
          things that are not helping reduce accidents.  You're just
          kind of being repetitive.
              So we need to have the flexibility to do good,
          effective safety training.  So when we're dealing with the
          type of accidents we're having and the types -- every
          operation might be different, in a company itself.  And
          that's what you need to deal with so you don't have any
          accidents.
              So we are paying Tino's company too much money,
          at the end of the year.  So he had some profits.  Good for
          you.
              That's all I wanted to say.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Any questions? 
          Thank you very much, Mr. Oster.
              MR. HUNKE:  My name is Chris Hunke, H-U-N-K-E. 
          And we're a sand and gravel producer in central and western
          Nebraska.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  What's the name of your
          company?
              MR. HUNKE:  Paulsen, Incorporated, P-A-U-L-S-E-N.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
              MR. HUNKE:  And the only comment I have is that I
          think that if industry and MSHA works on this as partners,
          that I think it will become a reality.
              Our greatest fear is that it's another avenue for
          MSHA for write citations.  And there are people -- there are
          MSHA inspectors out there that that is the way they're going
          to look at it.
              And if MSHA will focus on the same way industry
          is, as far as trying to protect our workers, make it a
          better, safer, work place, I think this will all work.
              That's the only comment I have.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.
              MR. QUIST:  My name is Al Quist.  I work for
          Camas, Colorado.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Could you spell your last
          name?
              MR. QUIST:  Q-U-I-S-T.
              This last gentleman hit a note.  And you know,
          working together is, I think, what we have to accomplish out
          of all of this.
              And it took that rash of fatalities to get a
          walk-and-talk session, where the inspectors came out to our
          mine sites and got down in the trenches with our people,
          either on a one-to-one basis, or I know, in my company, I
          had a little advanced information that they were going to be
          doing that.
              So I called MSHA and I said, Well, we're going to
          have safety meetings.  Can we schedule your inspector to be
          at our safety meeting, and I'll do my thing, and then you
          step up and you, you know, talk heart-to-heart to the guys,
          to what's going on in our industry.
              And I felt that's the first time, and it's been
          the only time, that we've really had the inspectors who see
          the aftermath of a fatality or they see the aftermath of a
          very serious accident or the potential accidents, to look at
          our employees from, you know, a regulatory view, and say,
          Guys, we really have problems out there, and this is what I
          see.
              And they related some very graphic stories that
          just put people back on their heels.  And I think it did
          more good by having the inspectors come out and talk to our
          people, and I invite that, anytime, anyplace, within our
          organization, if they come out and talk to our people, and
          not just be the traffic cop writing the tickets.
              And I know that's what they're there to do.  And
          I understand it, and all our employees understand it.  And
          when we're in violation, we get a citation, and we live with
          it.  And that's the way it is.
              But I feel that working with us is also
          important.  And I know the Rocky Mountain district has had
          annual training sessions where we would send our people to,
          and we appreciate that, and we try to send as many people as
          we can from our operations to get information from MSHA,
          because it doesn't happen that often.
              It happens once a year.  We'd like to see it more
          often.
              But we'd also like to invite -- at least, I
          would -- inspectors to participate in the safety meeting,
          because they have a lot of information, they see a lot of
          things, and they give feedback as to what they have seen at
          our operations.
              And it's a working together relationship that we
          would like to see more of.
              That's all I have to say.
              CHAIRPERSON ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.
              Anyone else?
              Okay.  I would again like to thank you all for
          coming.  And I look to forward to working with you in the
          coming months, as we try to pull something together on this.
              Again, if you're one of the people who needs an
          attendance list, we'll see whether we can get you a copy.
              Thank you.
              (Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the meeting was
          concluded.)
          //
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          //                        REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
     
     
     
     DOCKET NO.:        N/A
     CASE TITLE:        Meeting for Public Comment
     HEARING DATE:      December 9, 1998
     LOCATION: Denver, Colorado
     
     
     
         I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are
     contained fully and accurately on the tapes and notes
     reported by me at the hearing in the above case before the
     United States Department of Labor.
     
     
     
     
     
                        Date:  December 9, 1998
     
                          Helene S. Hershey  
                        Official Reporter
                        Heritage Reporting Corporation
                        Suite 600
                        1220 L Street, N. W.
                        Washington, D. C.  20005