MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

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	DIESEL PARTICULATE MATTER EXPOSURE OF UNDERGROUND
	METAL AND NONMETAL MINERS

	PUBLIC HEARING

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	MONDAY,
	JANUARY 9, 2006

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		The public hearing was held at the Little 
America Hotel, Salt Lake City, Utah, Ed Sexauer
presiding.

PRESENT:

ED SEXAUER		Chief of the Regulation Development Division in the Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances, MSHA

JIM PETRIE		District Manager, Northeastern District for Metal and Nonmetal, Chair of the Diesel Particulate Matter Rulemaking Committee, MSHA

DORIS CASH		Metal and Nonmetal Health Division, MSHA

GEORGE SASEEN	Technical Support Directorate, MSHA

BILL POMROY		Metal and Nonmetal North Central District, MSHA

DEBORAH GREEN	Office of the Solicitor for Mine Safety and Health




PRESENT: (CONT.)


WILLIAM BAUGHMAN	Regulatory Specialist, Regulation Development Division in the Office of Standards, Regulations and Variances, MSHA

CARL LUNDGREN	Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances, MSHA


	I-N-D-E-X

Opening Remarks, Ed Sexauer, Chief of the 
	Regulation Development Division in the 
	Office of Standards, Regulations, and 
	Variances, MSHA 	4

Overview of the Proposed Rule, Jim Petrie,
	Chairman of the Diesel Particulate
	Committee	14

SPEAKERS:

Bill Ferdinand, Director, Environment, Health
	and Safety for the North American Region
	of Barrick Gold Corporation	20

Richard Tucker, Newmont Mining Corporation	40

Steve Wood, Stillwater Mining Company	46

Mike Crum, FMC	94

Fred Fox, Kennesott	104

Mark Good, Kennesott	113

David Graham, MARG	147

David Ortlieb, United Steelworkers	167

Brad Shorey, United Steelworkers Local 11-0001	173

Mike Simpson, United Steelworkers Local 11-0001	174

Brent Chamberlain, Queenstake Resources	201

Adjourn	223

	P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
	(Time not given.)
		MR. SEXAUER:  Good morning.  My name is Edward Sexauer.  I am the Chief of the Regulatory Development Division of the Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances, Mine Safety and Health Administration and I will be the moderator for today's public hearing.  On behalf of David G. Dye, Acting Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health, I want to welcome all of you here today.  In memory of the 12 miners who perished last week in the tragedy at the Sago Mine, let us begin the hearing with a moment of silence.
		(Pause.)
		Thank you.
		The purpose of this hearing is to obtain input from the public on MSHA's proposed rule published in the Federal Register on September 7, 2005, addressing Diesel Particulate Matter Exposure of Underground Metal and Nonmetal Miners.
		Joining me on the hearing panel today are on my right, Jim Petrie, who is the district manager of MSHA's Northeastern District for Metal and Nonmetal and Chair of the Diesel Particulate Matter Rulemaking Committee; Doris Cash with MSHA's Metal and Nonmetal Health Division; William Baughman who is with the MSHA Office of Standards, Regulations and Variances.  On my left is Deborah Green with the Office of the Solicitor for Mine Safety and health; George Saseen with MSHA's Technical Support Directorate; and Bill Pomroy from MSHA's Metal and Nonmetal North Central District.  Also, from Office of Standards in the audience is Carl Lundgren who is an economist with our office.
		Let me reemphasize that our purpose for being here today is to obtain your views on the September 7, 2005 proposed rule.  This hearing is being held in accordance with Section 101 of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977.  As is the practice of this Agency, formal rules of evidence will not apply.  Therefore, cross examination of the hearing panel will not be allowed, but the hearing panel may explain and clarify provisions of the proposed rule.  Members of the public will not be permitted to cross examine speakers.  Also, as moderator of this public hearing, I reserve the right to limit the amount of time each speaker is given as well as questions of the hearing panel.
		Those of you who have notified MSHA in advance of your intent to speak will be allowed to make your presentations first.  I will call speakers in the order that requests were made.  Following these presentations, others who request an opportunity to speak will be allowed to do so.  We invite all interested parties to present their views on this rulemaking at this hearing, and if you wish to speak, please be sure to sign in at the registration table.  I believe I have that list up here now.  You can just let me know later if you intend to speak and your name is not on the list.
		We will remain in session today until everyone has an opportunity to speak, if you desire to speak.  Also, if you are not signing up to speak today, we would like you to sign the general sign-in sheet, just outside the room, so that we have an accurate record of attendance of today's hearings.  
		We will accept written comments and data at this hearing from any interested party, including those who are not speaking at the hearings.
		You can give written comments on this hearing to me today, or you can send them to MSHA's Office of Standards electronically, by fax, by regular mail or hand delivery, using the address information listed in the Federal Register notices.  We have copies of the Federal Register document, again, on the table just outside the door, if you'd like to have a copy.
		This is the second of four hearings.  The first was held in Arlington, Virginia on January 5.  The remaining will be January 11, 2006 in Kansas City, Missouri; and January 13, 2006 in Louisville, Kentucky.
		The post-hearing comment period will end on January 27, 2006.
		A transcript of the hearing will be made part of the record and it will be posted on our website, at www.msha.gov.  We hope to post this transcript in approximately one week from today.
		Before I begin, I would like to give you some background on the proposed rule we are addressing today.  On January 19, 2001, we published a final rule addressing the health hazards to underground metal and nonmetal miners from exposure to diesel particulate matter or DPM.  The rule established new health standards for these miners by requiring, among other things, use of engineering and work practice controls to reduce DPM to prescribed limits.  It set an interim and final DPM concentration limit in the underground metal and nonmetal mining environment with staggered effective dates for implementation of the concentration limits.  The interim concentration limit of 400 total carbon micrograms per cubic meter was to become effective on July 20, 2002.  The final concentration limit of 160 total carbon micrograms per cubic meter was scheduled to become effective on January 20, 2006.
		On January 29, 2001, several mining trade associations and individual mine operators challenged the final rule.  The United Steelworkers of America intervened in the case, which is now pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  The parties agreed to resolve their differences through settlement negotiations with us and we delayed the effective date of certain provisions of the standard.
		On July 5, 2001, as a result of Phase 1 settlement negotiations, we published two notices in the Federal Register.  One notice delayed the effective of Section 57.5066(b) relating to tagging requirements in the maintenance standard.  The second notice proposed a rule to make limited revisions to Section 57.5066(b) and added a new paragraph to Section 57.5067(b) "Engines" regarding the definition of the term "introduced."  We published the final rule on February 27, 2002.
		Phase 2 of the settlement agreement was finalized on July 15, 2002 as a written agreement.  Under the agreement, the interim concentration limit of 400 total carbon micrograms per cubic meter became effective on July 20, 2002.  We afforded mine operators one year to develop and implement good-faith compliance strategies to meet the interim concentration limit, and we agreed to provide compliance assistance during this one-year period.  We also agreed to propose rulemaking on several other disputed provisions of the 2001 final rule.  The legal challenge to the rule was stayed pending completion of additional rulemaking.
		On September 25, 2002, we published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, ANPRM.  We noted in the ANPRM that the scope of the rulemaking was limited to the terms of the Second Partial Settlement Agreement and posed a new series of questions to the mining community related to the 2001 final rule.  We also stated our intent to propose a rule to revise the surrogate for the interim and final concentration limits and to propose a DPM control scheme similar to that included in our longstanding hierarchy of controls used in our air quality standards for metal and nonmetal mines and that's l56/57.5001 through 5006.
		In addition, we stated that we would consider technological and economic feasibility for the underground metal and nonmetal mining industry to comply with revised interim and final DPM limits.  We determined at that time that some mine operators had begun to implement control technology on their underground diesel-powered equipment.  Therefore, we requested additional information on current experiences with availability of control technology, installation of control technology, effectiveness of control technology to reduce DPM levels, and cost implications of compliance with the 2001 final rule.
		On July 20, 2003, we began full enforcement of the interim concentration limit of 400 total carbon micrograms per cubic meter.  Our enforcement policy was also based on the terms of the second partial settlement agreement and includes the use of elemental carbon, EC, as an analyte to ensure that a citation based on the 400 total carbon concentration limit is valid and not the result of interferences.  The policy was discussed with the DPM litigants and stakeholders on July 17, 2003.
		In response to our publication of the ANPRM, some commenters recommended that propose separate rulemakings for revising the interim and final concentration limits to give us an opportunity to gather further information to establish a final DPM limit, particularly regarding feasibility.  In the subsequent notice of proposed rulemaking, NPRM, published on August 14, 2003, we concurred with these commenters and notified the public in the NPRM that we would propose a separate rulemaking to amend the existing final concentration limit of 160 total carbon micrograms per cubic meter.  We also requested comments on an appropriate final DPM limit and solicited additional information on feasibility.  The proposed rule also addressed the interim concentration limit by proposing a comparable Permissible Exposure Limit, or PEL, of 308 microgram per cubic meter based on the Elemental Carbon surrogate and included a number of other provisions.
		On June 6, 2005, we published the final rule revising the interim concentration limit.  This rule changed the interim concentration limit of 400 micrograms per cubic meter measured by TC to a comparable PEL of 308 micrograms per cubic meter measured by EC.  The rule requires our longstanding hierarchy of controls that is used for our other exposure-based health standards at metal and nonmetal mines, but retains the prohibition on rotation of miners for compliance.  Furthermore, the rule, among other things, requires us to consider economic as well as technological feasibility in determining if operators qualify for an extension of time in which to meet the final DPM limit, and deletes the requirement for a control plan.
		Currently, the following provisions of the DPM standard are effective:  57.5060(a), establishing the interim PEL of 308 micrograms of EC per cubic meter of air which is comparable in effect to 400 micrograms of TC per cubic meter of air; Section 57.5060(d), addressing control requirements; 57.5060(e), prohibiting rotation of miners for compliance with the DPM standard; 57.5061, compliance determinations; 57.5065, fueling practices; 57.5066, maintenance standards; 57.5067, engines; 57.5070, miner training; 57.5071, exposure monitoring; and 57.5075, diesel particulate records.
		On September 7, 2005, we proposed a rule to phase in the final DPM limit because we are concerned that there may be feasibility issues for some mines to meet that limit by January 20, 2006.  Accordingly, we proposed a five-year phase-in period and noted our intent to initiate a separate rulemaking to convert the final DPM limit from a total carbon limit to an elemental carbon or EC limit.  We set hearing dates and a deadline for receiving comments on the September 7, 2005 proposed rule with the expectation that we would complete the rulemaking to phase in the final DPM limit before January 20, 2006.
		After publication of the September 7, 2005 proposed rule, we received a request from the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, USW, for more time to comment on the proposed rule.  The USW explained that Hurricane Katrina had placed demands on their resources that prevented them from participating effectively in the rulemaking under the current schedule for hearings and comments.  We recognize the USW's need to devote resources to respond to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the impact that would have on their participation under the established timetable.  
		We also received a request from the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, NSSGA, for additional time to comment on the proposed rule and for an additional public hearing in Arlington, Virginia.  Accordingly, due to requests from the USW and NSSGA, we published a notice on September 9, 2005 that changed the public hearing dates from September 2005, to January 2006 and extended the public comment period from October 14, 2005 to January 27, 2006.
		In addition, on September 19, 2005, we published a notice in the Federal Register temporarily delaying the applicability date for Section 57.5060(b) published in the Federal Register on January 19, 2001 from January 20, 2006 to May 20, 2006, to provide sufficient time to complete the September 7, 2005 proposal to amend the 2001 DPM rule.
		At this time, Jim Petrie, the Chairman of the Diesel Particulate Committee, will present a short overview of the proposed rule, and after Jim's presentation I will begin calling speakers.
		MR. PETRIE:  If my voice gives out during this presentation, I may pass the ball here to Bill Pomroy to fill in for me, but this proposal is fairly narrow in scope.  It would revise the effective date of the final DPM limit and delete the existing provision that restricts newer mines from applying for extensions of time for meeting the final limit.
		Additionally, we request public comment on a number of significant issues including the appropriateness of including in a final rule a provision for medical evaluation of miners required to wear respirators and the transfer of miners who are unable to wear them.  And the appropriate factor for converting the final limit from total carbon to elemental carbon although, as Ed said, MSHA will address this in a separate rulemaking.
		Regarding revising the effective date of the final DPM limit, the proposed rule would gradually phase in the 2001 DPM final concentration limit of 160 micrograms of total carbon over a period of five years until a final limit of 160 micrograms is reached in January 2011.  The current interim limit of 308 micrograms of elemental carbon will remain in effect until May 20, 2006.  Thereafter, the first phase-in final limit which would be the same as the current limit of 308 micrograms EC would be effective until January 20, 2007.  
		The final limits would be reduced each year through January 20, 2011 as follows:  on January 2007, it would be reduced to 350 TC; January 2008, 300 TC; January 2009, 250 TC; January 2010, 200 TC; and January 2011, it would reach the final limit of 160 TC.
		The preamble to the proposed rule includes extensive discussion on MSHA's 2001 assumptions regarding technological feasibility; our current concerns and tentative beliefs which question these assumptions; implementation issues with available control technology; and our proposed assessment of the availability of alternative control technologies.
		MSHA requested that commenters address these and issues related to the scope of the proposed rule.  
		Regarding limitations on extensions of time for meeting the final limit, the proposal would delete 5060(c)(3)(i).  The 2001 rule restricted MSHA from granting extensions to a mine operator, if diesel powered equipment was not used in the mine prior to October 29, 1998.  This was because diesel-powered equipment prior to the date of the notice of the proposed rulemaking could experience compliance difficulties relating to such factors as the basic mine design, use of older equipment with high DPM emissions and other factors.
		Also, we believe that mines opening after October 29, 1998 would be using equipment with cleaner engines that would have less difficulty meeting the final concentration limit.
		Presently, MSHA believes that this restriction is unnecessary since applications for extensions are voluntary and the test for granting an extension is similar to that of enforcing existing 57.5060(d) for hierarchy of controls.
		The preamble discussion clarifies that we will begin to consider granting extensions due to technological or economic constraints for the initial final PEL of 308 micrograms of elemental carbon in the January 2006 date.  That has been extended now to May 20, 2006.
		MSHA requested comments on the effects of the deleting the requirement, the number of miners affected if the provisions were eliminated and whether the elimination would result in a reduction of health protection for miners.
		Regarding requests for comments on medical evaluation and transfer, specific comments are requested on whether the final rule should provide for medical evaluation of miners who must wear respirators and transfer of those miners who are deemed medically unable to wear them.  In the preamble to the proposed rule, MSHA included a specific example of regulatory language that could be included in a final rule and requested extensive comments regarding the following issues:  whether the final rule should contain provisions for medical evaluation and transfer of miners; whether the mine operators should be required to notify the District Manager of the health professional's evaluation and that the miner will be transferred; whether MSHA should include in the rule a specific time frame for transferring the miner; whether the mine operator should have to maintain a record of the medical evaluation and if so, for how long should the record be maintained; whether the provision include protection of medical confidentiality, cost to the mine operators for implementing such a requirement and other relevant information and data.
		Regarding our request for comments on developing an appropriate conversion factor, MSHA will initiate separate rulemaking to determine what the correct total carbon to elemental carbon conversion factor will be for the phased-in final limits.  In the interim, MSHA wants your comments on data for establishing an appropriate conversion factor and time period for the phase in of the final limit, technological implementation issues and the cost and benefits of the rule.
		Also, we are interested in your views on any other scientific approaches for converting the existing total carbon limit to an appropriate elemental carbon limit.
		If MSHA does not complete the rulemaking to convert the final limits before January 20, 2007, the Agency is considering using the current 1.3 conversion factor that we used to establish the interim diesel particulate PEL of 308 elemental carbon to convert the phased-in final DPM total carbon limits to elemental carbon equivalents.
		Regarding economic feasibility, MSHA stated in a preamble to the proposed rule that the Agency intended to use the entire rulemaking record supporting the 2001 final rule and new information gathered during the recent rulemaking to promulgate the new interim PEL.  This data suggests that few mines would experience economic feasibility problems in meeting the interim limit, however, MSHA is interested in gathering more information on economic feasibility implications, especially in light of recent technological developments, leaving the Agency to propose a phased-in approach to meeting the ultimate final limit of 160 micrograms.
		Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you, Jim.  Before I call the first speaker, let me just note for purposes of your planning, we have 10 speakers signed up to speak with an average time of maybe 15 minutes and a few questions following that.  That tells me that we'll probably be going until lunch time and of course, we'll stay here as long as there are people who have testimony they care to offer.
		I am planning on taking two breaks this morning, one at approximately 10:15 to 10:30, a short break, maybe 10 minutes or so; and then probably another break, more or less, around 11:30.  And then we'll probably continue based on the number speaks -- until we complete at that point.  It probably won't be necessary, based on the number of speakers signed up to take a break for lunch and then come back, although that certainly that can change, depending on how the morning progresses.
		The first speaker is Bill Ferdinand.  And I would ask all the speakers, when they come up to the speaker's table to identify yourself and your affiliation for the record.  And if you do have a prepared statement, if you would have an extra copy, if you would leave a copy with me afterwards, I'd appreciate that.
		MR. FERDINAND:  Good morning.  My name is Bill Ferdinand.  I am the Director of Environmental, Health and Safety for the North American Region for Barrick Gold Corporation.  I appreciate the opportunity to present information relative to this important issue today.
		Barrick conducts underground gold mining operations at its Goldstrike operations in northern Nevada that are subject to the MSHA regulations, including the diesel particulate rules.  Goldstrike Operations include two underground mines, Meikle and Rodeo.  Currently, Barrick's Goldstrike Operations employ 686 underground miners and support personnel.  Our underground Goldstrike Operations produced more than half a million ounces of gold in 2005.
		Barrick has closed followed the development of the diesel particulate regulations.  This is an important issue for our company and for our employees.  Our corporate policy is that sound safety and occupational health management practices are in the best interests of our company, our employees, our shareholders and the communities in which we live.  As I will explain, we have taken significant steps toward reducing diesel particulate concentrations in our Goldstrike Operations.  However, we do not believe that further reductions are warranted by health evidence or achievable with technology that is currently available or expected to become available within the next few years.
		Barrick will be providing detailed comments in response to the issues raised in the September 7, 2005 Federal Register notice.  My statement today will address those concerns which we feel are most significant and will provide a summary of Barrick's experiences with efforts to achieve the proposed final standards.
		First, and most importantly, we urge that Barrick adopt the current interim personal exposure limit of 308 micrograms per cubic meter EC as the final standard and defer any further reductions in the regulatory PEL pending further research to develop an adequate scientific basis for further reductions and to determine whether further reductions are technologically and economically feasible.  Our view of the record to date is that it does not include sufficient evidence to support reductions below the current limit.  
		We are also convinced that based on the data in the record and our own experience at Goldstrike, that the proposed final limit of 160 micrograms per cubic meter EC is not technologically or economically feasible within the foreseeable future.  
		While we will comment on many of the issues raised in September 7, 2005 rulemaking, these comments should be considered in this context:  MSHA should not adopt any rule which reduces the PEL below the current level.
		MSHA has requested that commenters address whether certain assumptions underlying the 2001 rule were correct.  Our experience over the past five years has shown that the initial assumptions were incorrect in at least three areas.  First, the 2001 rulemaking overestimated the technological advances in diesel engines and particulate filters.  Compliance with standards below the current interim level limit will require significant breakthroughs in technology to provide either lower emission engines or more effective filters, yet the technology has changed little since 2001, and there is no reason to believe that dramatic changes will occur in the next five years.  In fact, we believe that because the majority of the underground mining market is shifting to other areas such as South America, Asia and other non-U.S. markets, and there is little incentive for manufacturers to develop new and costly control technologies for application only in the United States.
		Second, the 2001 rulemaking assumed a more rapid replacement of diesel equipment than has occurred.  The cost estimates supporting the 2001 rulemaking assume that by the effective date of the final limit, 50 percent of the diesel equipment in underground mines would have new EPA Tier I or Tier II engines.  Based on our experience, this assumption was too optimistic.  While most of our mine equipment, LHD, loaders and haulers, have Tier I or Tier II engines, more than two-thirds of our utility equipment such as forklifts, tractors, bobcats and so on, do not.  At the Goldstrike operations, since 2001, approximately 28 engine change-outs have occurred and another 20 pieces of equipment have been purchased with the new Tier I, Tier II rated engines.  While we believe that replacement of the older engines holds promise for reducing diesel particulate emissions, it will not occur quickly enough to achieve the reductions on the schedule contained in the proposed rule.
		Finally, MSHA's 2001 cost estimates did not account for the rapid and unexpected rise in diesel fuel costs, which will dramatically affect the cost of compliance with the 160 micrograms per cubic meter EC proposed final standard.  In 2001, diesel costs were approximately $1.40 per gallon.  Current diesel prices are in the range of $2.39 per gallon, an increase of over 70 percent.  Available control technologies, particularly filters, reduce horsepower and increase fuel consumption to accomplish the same work.  The Agency's cost estimates should be reworked to acknowledge current diesel fuel prices.  Under current price conditions, control technologies that increase fuel consumption are likely to render ore reserves uneconomic and may, in fact, shorten mine life.
		MSHA has requested comments on whether it is technologically or economically feasible for operators to meet the 160 micrograms per cubic meter proposed final standard.  Our experience at Goldstrike since 2001 demonstrates to us that it is not.
		Our efforts to significantly reduce the diesel particulates in the underground work environment have met with limited success using new technology coupled with enhancing present control technologies.  Barrick has tested regenerative filters, increased the number of engines meeting Tier I, Tier II requirements, significantly increased ventilation and implemented new high maintenance standards.  Taken together, these efforts have allowed us to meet the interim standard.  We have reduced diesel particulates that were commonly in the range of 600 to 800 micrograms per cubic meter TC in 2001 to levels today that typically range from 250 to 450 micrograms per cubic meter TC.
		To meet the interim standards, we have increased our ventilation from 800,000 CFM in 2002 to over one million CFM by the year 2004.  And we have increased  nearly 1.5 million CFM this year to effectively double our air volume moving through the mine to meet this interim limit.
		During the same period, we have significantly increased maintenance programs and replaced engines with EPA Tier I, Tier II engines.  We have also modified mine designs to minimize DPM concentrations and we have installed a number of environmental caps.  Our estimates of the total cost of measures taken to achieve compliance with the current interim standard is approximately $1.68 million annually, in total, $8.4 since the Year 2001. Our experience indicates that MSHA's 2001 cost estimates underestimate the cost of compliance.
		At this time, we are unable to prepare a cost estimate for compliance with the 160 micrograms per cubic meter EC proposed final standards, because we cannot reasonably describe control technologies or methodologies that would be effective for the Goldstrike operations.  Our ventilation is near its capacity.  Further increases are likely to create fugitive dust issues for hauling equipment.  Replacement of the remaining mining utility equipment with Tier I, Tier II engines would not achieve the 160 micrograms per cubic meter EC proposed final standards.
		Further, we have not identified filters that would be effective for our sites.  We have tested an active regeneration DPF system, specifically DCL Minex Black Suitout Filter on our Tamrack (Phonetic) 1400 which is an 8-yard scoop over an 8-month period.  Because of filter limitations, the scoop was only operated for seven to eight hours per shift before back pressures increased the cause for filter regeneration.  This rendered the equipment unusable for the remainder of our normal 11-hour production shift.
		The active regeneration system was determined to be impractical because it was not effective for the entire shift and could not be regenerated between shifts.  Regeneration took anywhere from 2 to 5 hours.
		As I mentioned, we have installed six loaders with environmental cabs to decrease exposure to diesel particulate matters and achieve other work environment considerations such as dust and noise reduction.  We anticipate by the end of 2011 that 65 percent of our mine and support equipment will have been fitted with environmental cabs.  So in other words, out of the 100 units, 65 units will have added these cabs.
		We expect that the environmental cabs will be effective, but only for those who work within the cabs.  Thus, we do not believe this is an effective strategy for meeting the 160 micrograms per cubic meter EC proposed final standards throughout the workplace.
		In addition, environmental cabs are tremendously expensive.  It is estimated that the replacement of this equipment, along with the cabs, will ultimately cost $49 million.  We are investing in environmental cabs because they provide us with additional benefits beyond the protection from diesel particulate matters.  They are not a cost-effective means of meeting the proposed final standards.
		Ultimately, if the reductions are implemented, as proposed, we view respirators as the only effective means of ensuring compliance.  We estimate that in the early years of the phased reduction of the proposed rule, approximately 56 percent of underground miners would require respirators and that meeting 160 micrograms per cubic meter EC proposed final standard will require 70 percent of our underground miners to wear respirators.
		We appreciate that the Agency acknowledges that it will take substantial time to achieve any further reductions in diesel particulate concentrations.  However, it is our view that the five-year phase in with arbitrary annual 50 microgram reductions is not practical because there's no technology available that would allow us to meet the final limit.  Barick and other operators will be forced to design and implement a new plan every year to meet the lower and interim levels and maintain compliance with the regulatory standards.  Focusing on annual short-term reductions is not effective or efficient.
		The annual reductions will also increase the time and effort devoted to preparing, submitting, reviewing and approving extensions.  If the Agency ultimately determines to go forward with lower standards, we believe that MSHA should reevaluate information regarding technology and economic feasibility to reduce the number of phases and to extend the time frame for compliance with the final standards.  For example, the Agency might consider two phases over an eight-year period, establishing a lower interim standard after the first four years and requiring compliance with the final standard at the end of the eight years.  
		That concludes my comments.  We do appreciate the opportunity to present our views on this and I'd be more than happy to take any comments or questions.
		MS. GREEN:  Before the others ask questions, could you just repeat what you just said about the appropriate phase-in period of the final -- because we're looking for information on alternative phase-in periods.  That's one of the issues we want more information on.  What was your recommendation?
		MR. FERDINAND:  We would like to -- if MSHA is going to proceed along those lines, we would rather have two phase-in periods.  The reasons for that, rather than annual ones, is because the technology limit is not out there such that you're going to reduce those incremental levels.  And even if it was, talk about the cost to do so would be prohibitive.  So what we would propose, if MSHA proceeds, is to have a phase-in period after four years and then a final limit after the eighth year.
		MS. GREEN:  And did you have a recommendation for what the first phase-in limit would be, or the next phase-in limit would be after four years?
		MR. FERDINAND:  No, we don't.  We would prefer to keep the current interim standard, but if MSHA would proceed, we would have to take a further evaluation and come up with those.
		MS. GREEN:  Okay.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Doris?
		MS. CASH:  I had a question about the -- I believe you said you had replaced 28 engines during that time?
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes ma'am.
		MS. CASH:  What -- is that what your normal rate of replacement would be for your fleet?  Or what would be?  I mean can you tell me what you would normally be doing for turnover rates?
		MR. FERDINAND:  Normally, what we would normally do, we took the tact that this standard was going to come up and thus, since those engines were scheduled for replacement, we went ahead and scheduled those with the new Tier I, Tier II compliance engines.
		They could have been reworked, but it was our position that we went ahead and spent the money at this point to see if we could meet the 400 micrograms per cubic meter TC limit.
		MS. CASH:  Okay, so let me see if I'm hearing you right.  You would normally, that would be on the same schedule as you normally would have either rebuilt or replaced the engines and you went with the replacement to meet the higher --
		MR. FERDINAND:  That's correct.
		MS. CASH:  All right.  And that's out of your fleet of 100 units?
		MR. FERDINAND:  We have 114 currently.  At the end of our mine life because of retirement, we scheduled to have 100.
		MS. CASH:  Okay.  And what I would ask is we are interested in any cost information you can give us, any information on any of the testing that you've done and I would ask if you can submit that to us, we have until January 27th to get your written comments in and it would be beneficial to us if you can share that information with us.
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes.  The available information that we have will be included in the final comments.
		MS. CASH:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Any other questions on this side?
		Jim?
		MR. PETRIE:  You had mentioned that we didn't account for rapid increases in diesel fuel costs and that filters may be a factor in increasing fuel consumption.  Have you seen a decrease in fuel consumption with newer engines, newer equipment and have you tried any types of alternate fuels?
		MR. FERDINAND:  We have not tried any alternate fuels and I really can't tell you if we actually have lessened our unit consumption.  I would not think that we have and the fact that during that same period of time we have actually increased the number of units operating, so that's -- it would be a guess on my part if we had reduced our consumption, but I don't know that for a fact.
		MR. PETRIE:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  You mentioned you started out with levels around 600 to 800 and then could you maybe in your written comments maybe clarify or like with each type of technology, did you see more significant reductions?  Because I think you said you ended up down around the 200 to 400 range that you're currently operating at right now.
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes, when we first started into this program, we looked at very much like other operators is to test technology.  After we tested for eight months in the Year 2001, we didn't think, based on our experience and the experience of other operators that it was going to occur.  So we took the tact at that point let's look at existing control technologies that we can implement, improving our maintenance program, including -- improving our ventilation systems, that those might be the best means to really enhance and lower the levels within the mine.  So the bulk of those reductions were, in fact, due to those primary considerations of ventilation and improved maintenance programs.
		MR. SASEEN:  Also, you mentioned on that you put a DCL active system, filter system on a scoop.  What size scoop was that?
		MR. FERDINAND:  It was an eight-yard scoop.
		MR. SASEEN:  Production or clean up?
		MR. FERDINAND:  It was production.
		MR. SASEEN:  Production?
		MR. FERDINAND:  It was production, yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  And do you know what engine is in that scoop?
		MR. FERDINAND:  If you can bear with me I can take a look see.  It was a 300 horsepower Detroit engine.
		MR. SASEEN:  I assume -- is that electronic?
		MR. FERDINAND:  I believe so, but I'm not positive.
		MR. SASEEN:  Maybe if you can clarify that because I guess you're saying you got 7 and 8 hours per shift versus you need almost 11 hours.
		MR. FERDINAND:  We need 11 hours, yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  Okay.  Did you look into change in the size of the filter?
		MR. FERDINAND:  No, we didn't.
		MR. SASEEN:  Or doublings?
		MR. FERDINAND:  We looked at different methodologies, as far as swapping equipment out, shift changes, schedule changes in its operation, but in the scheme of things it didn't work out.
		MR. SASEEN:  Okay, and it was just on one scoop you tried it?
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  Yes, if you could clarify in your written comments if that was an electronic engine and maybe the age of it.
		MR. FERDINAND:  I will.
		MR. SASEEN:  Thank you.
		MR. FERDINAND:  You bet.
		MR.          :  A couple of questions.  You mentioned your annual compliance costs, $1.68 millions annually.  I wonder in your written comments if you could itemize that cost so we know what amount of money is going to what control technologies.  Also that the total cost over the total period of compliance back to 2001, itemize that.  I think it was --
		MR. FERDINAND:  $8.4.
		MR.          :  Something, yeah.  If that could be itemized that would be helpful.
		MR. FERDINAND:  We can.
		MR.          :  Also, do you have any miners now that are required to wear respirators, say for dust or some other --
		MR. FERDINAND:  We do.  Anybody who is underground at our operations we do provide them with a pulmonary function check to make sure that they are capable of wearing those and there are areas in the mines that have elevated readings, so we do have certain entities who do wear respirators.
		MR.          :  So you're now doing some form of medical evaluation for those miners?
		MR. FERDINAND:  All miners who go underground, we do that as a matter of fact, regardless.  If you're underground, we do that.
		MR.          :  Do you know right offhand if any of those miners have been found unable to wear respirators?
		MR. FERDINAND:  To my knowledge, no.
		MR.          :  Okay, no you don't know or no --
		MR. FERDINAND:  No.  To my knowledge, none have been found unable to wear the respirators.
		MR.          :  Thank you.
		MR.          :  Just a quick follow-up question.
		On that DCL unit, could you provide us some specific costs, what it costs you to purchase it, install it, being an active system, what the costs were to maintain it?
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes, we will.
		MR.          :  And for how long you actually operated it.
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes.
		MR.          :  Okay, thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Deborah?
		MS. GREEN:  As a follow-up question to Bill Pomroy's question about medical evaluation, would it be feasible for you to give us some cost information on how much that program -- how much expenditures you have to put forth for a medical evaluation program?
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes.  We can provide that information.
		MS. GREEN:  Thank you.
		MR.          :  Just another question concerning one of the three comments that you made about some assumptions that were wrong in the original 2001 rule.  And it has to do with the rapid replacement of engines, that the engines are not being replaced rapidly enough and you mentioned that you have done quite a bit of engine replacement in the larger production equipment, but not so much in the smaller utility equipment, the bobcats and tractors and so on.
		I'm just wondering if you'd know or could you estimate or maybe could you include in the written comments what percentage of the total utilized horsepower underground is the larger production equipment, the loaders and trucks versus the smaller utility equipment and also approximate hours per shift of usage of the larger equipment, production equipment, loaders and trucks, versus the utility equipment.
		MR. FERDINAND:  Yes, we can.  That's important to note in the fact that the utility equipment may be only used for one, maybe two hours a day and that's why those efforts have not been at replacing those types of engines because they're not being utilized as often as the production mine equipment.
		MR.          :  You had also mentioned that your ventilation has almost doubled since 2001 and I wonder if you could indicate in your written comments the specific nature of those ventilation upgrades, you know additional shafts or did you just repower existing fans, specifically what was the nature of the ventilation upgrades, both major ventilation upgrades, system-wide, as well as auxiliary ventilation systems.
		MR. FERDINAND:  Absolutely.
		MR.          :  Thanks.
		MR.          :  Regarding your pulmonary evaluations, with what frequency are they conducted or are they just during the pre-employment exams, or do you do them annually?
		MR. FERDINAND:  I think that they're done annually.
		MR.          :  Annually.  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  I believe that's all the questions we have, Bill.  I want to thank you for your presentation.
		MR. FERDINAND:  I'll get you a copy.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you.  Our next speaker is Richard Tucker.
		MR. TUCKER:  Good morning.  My name is Richard Tucker.  I'm the Regional Health and Safety Manager for Newmont Mining Corporation in Northern Nevada.
		We welcome and appreciate the opportunity to express our comments at this time.  We feel that the proposed diesel particulate matter exposure underground with metal and nonmetal mines is a very important subject that we should discuss.  
		Newmont is a major mining company and utilizes diesel equipment in its underground mines.  We have four operating underground mines in Northern Nevada. 
		We have a few basic statements to make in this cover letter, then we'll proceed to respond to specific questions asked in the notice.  And those specific answers will be addressed in our written comments.
		For the reasons set out, our answers to a number of specific questions will refer back to this information that I provided in public comment.  
		First off, we feel there should be no further reduction in the DPM standard.  There's no legal, scientifically sound basis for lowering the existing standard.  The September 7, 2005 proposed rule is proceeding on assumptions that are invalid.  Because of these invalid assumptions, many of the specific questions that MSHA poses are impossible to answer in logical manner at this time, without accepting erroneous assumptions upon which they are based.  
		To the extent that these comments address those questions, it is always with the caveat that there should be no further reduction in the DPM standard.
		Some of the assumptions that we feel are incorrect are as follows and again, these are incorrect assumptions.  There is a valid scientific health-related basis for PDL lower than the settlement level of 400 micrograms per cubic meter total carbon as modified to 308 micrograms per cubic meter elemental carbon.  
		Another one we feel is incorrect is -- an incorrect assumption is that achieving the 308 micrograms per cubic meter standard is technologically feasible in all or most mines.  Additionally, achieving the 308 micrograms per cubic meter standard is economically feasible in all or most mines.  We feel that that is inaccurate.
		Achieving the 160 micrograms per cubic meter total carbon standard will become technologically feasible within a relatively short period of time.  We feel that that's not going to be possible also.
		Achieving the 160 micrograms per cubic meter total carbon standard will become economically feasible within the time frame allotted by the standard.  Each of these assumptions is incorrect, we feel, and there taints the entire rulemaking process.  We feel like those items need to be reviewed and additional work and study done on those before final rule is established.
		The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act Section 101(A)(6)(a) provides that the Secretary, in promulgating mandatory standards dealing with toxic materials or harmful physical agents under this subsection, will set standards which most adequately ensure that on the basis of the best available evidence that no miner will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity, even if such miner has regular exposure to hazards dealt with by such standard and for the period of his working life.
		The best available scientifically sound evidence does not indicate that miners will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity if regularly exposed to elemental carbon or total carbon fraction of diesel particulate matter at the current level of 308.
		As MSHA acknowledged in the preamble to the rule, the scientific community has not yet widely accepted any exposure response relationship between the amount of DPM exposure and the likelihood of adverse health outcomes.  
		MSHA reviewed and updated its risk-assessment on June 6, 2005 rule amendments and concluded that no change was warranted.  The NIOSH study currently underway is designed to help address that question and any effort to reduce the current standard prior to the completion and evaluation of that study is premature and is not in compliance with the law.
		The latest available scientific data in the field shows that it is neither technologically or economically possible for all mines affected by the current regulation to meet that standard.  This is discussed further in our comments on feasibility and will be addressed in our written comments.
		Given that the current standard cannot meet feasibility for further reduction of this standard would violate provisions as we are not able to attain that standard at this time.
		And again, we will provide written comments on the questions that MSHA has solicited to us and provide those written comments to you.
		I thank you for the opportunity to submit these comments and will take any questions at this time.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Does anyone on the panel have a question?
		Jim?
		MR. PETRIE:  Is Newmont current complying with the 308 microgram elemental carbon limit and if so, by what technology are you using to do that?
		MR. TUCKER:  To answer that question, I'll say that we are doing everything that we can to meet the standard and our current estimate is that we're meeting the standard 30 percent of the time.  We have replaced a number of cabs in our pieces of diesel equipment, also increased ventilation.  We've done testing on different filters and have changed some of our mining sequences in order to help provide less exposure to diesel.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  You just mentioned you have tried some filter technology.  Could you provide in your written comment, maybe some specific examples of the type of engines that you put them on, what type of issues you had with them, positive, negative and any costs associated with implementation of those filters?
		MR. TUCKER:  Yes, I'd be happy to provide that to you.  Just in brief, we've had difficulties with filters because of the size of the filters and the length of time that they actually go without regeneration and it's quite a maintenance problem we found in dealing with the filters, but I will provide that information to you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Any other questions?  
		Jim.
		MR. PETRIE:  Does Newmont have any type of medical evaluation they do for workers that are required to wear respirators, either for diesel or dust or other contaminants?
		MR. TUCKER:  Yes.  We currently have a medical evaluation program in place that was established for dust.
		MR. PETRIE:  And are those evaluations done annually or during pre-employment physicals?
		MR. TUCKER:  Both.  They are done during pre-employment physicals and then annually thereafter.
		MR. PETRIE:  Okay, thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you, Richard.
		MR. TUCKER:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Our next speaker is Steve Wood.
		MR. WOOD:  Good morning.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this morning.  I've also brought Buck Chamberlain with me, for those of you who haven't met Buck.  I'm the corporate safety director with Stillwater Mining Company.  We operate two underground plating and platinum mines in South Central Montana.  Buck is the industrial hygienist at our Stillwater Mine.
		We welcome the opportunity to speak with you this morning, appreciate MSHA's willingness to acknowledge that there is some need to converse and discuss the issues that pertain to the diesel rule and as most of you have known, Stillwater has been very participated in this issue.
		We urge MSHA at this time to act in this rulemaking to delete or revoke the permissible exposure limit of 160 micrograms per cubic meter of air and adopt the 308 interim limit as a final regulated standard.  Stillwater appreciates the Agency's proposed phase-in of the final rule because it allows for technological advancements and time for us to comply.  However, the phase-in approach to the final rule, DPM concentration, does not rectify the error in the rule which includes the lack of scientific justification, economic and technological feasibility and an appropriate TC/EC conversion factor.
		The rule is simply not feasible for the majority of the mines' operators to meet and the appropriateness of the phase-in approach still does not diminish the inability of most mine operators to comply with the final exposure limit.
		As MSHA is aware, Stillwater has been a leader in the cooperative effort and good faith efforts of industry, labor and the Agency to conduct research aimed to help develop and test DPM reduction technologies.  We are committed to further protection of our health and safety of our miners and we welcome further opportunities to continue our cooperative research efforts.
		Consistent with our commitment, we have just recently completed another joint research project with NIOSH in support of the metal/nonmetal diesel partnership.  The purpose of this study was to evaluate the applicability of DPM control technologies for the Stillwater fleet.  
		As many of you know, the isolated zone studies that were conducted at Stillwater previously provided -- and we previously provided comment on those studies and they were basically conducted at the Stillwater mine and we made our facilities and our personnel and our resources available to the partnership, in an effort to identify potential solutions that would benefit not only our company, but also with our industry partners, to help us all gain a better understanding of the difficulties in complying with this rule.
		These studies provided significant insight into the viability of diesel particulate filter systems, diesel oxidation catalyst converters and fuel form relations in reducing the concentration of DPM in an underground mining environment.
		While the Phase I study was well suited for its initial objective, it provided no reliable data to indicate that the selected filter technologies would, in fact, provide the necessary reduction of DPM in an actual mining environment.
		Thus, the Phase II case study was agreed upon in an effort to provide this relevant information.  The Phase II case study report explains and applies the lessons of the Phase I study and provides critical safety and feasibility information regarding the use of DPS systems in actual mining conditions. 
		The Phase II study demonstrated the technological limitations that mines will encounter during attempted DPM reductions efforts  in the actual mining cycle.  Equipment failures and performance below that obtained during the isolated zone testing and as advertised by manufacturers were commonplace and will be repeated as the technologies are deployed elsewhere.
		Moreover, the Phase II case study could only indicate or include those pieces of equipment for which a DPS system could be retrofitted.  This category of diesel equipment represents only a small fraction of the total Stillwater fleet.
		The Phase III study, selected control technologies including seven alternative fuel formulations and four filtration systems.  These were tested to evaluate the effectiveness of the technologies for controlling DPM and gaseous emissions for underground diesel-powered equipment.  Again, the study was well suited for its initial objective in an in situ environment, but provided no insight as to how effectively the selective filter technologies and alternative fuels would control DPM in the actual mining application.
		The isolated zone proved the dangers inherent to promulgating a rule and mandating  technology changes before feasibility and safety is proven.
		As reported in the Phase II case study, the very technology that justified MSHA's feasibility determinations for the rule and appear promising in the isolated zone Phase I, produced such high levels of NO2 in actual mining conditions that the miners were withdrawn and the test was stopped prematurely.
		The condition was also present during specific DPM control tests and portions of all the isolated zone studies which led to the premature ending of some testing.
		The experience gained in the isolated zones is extremely relevant to this rulemaking.  It determined that after-market exhaust treatments would not ensure compliance to the final rule.  It identified that two identical pieces of equipment may not be able to utilize DPS because of different duty cycles.  It identified that only a small portion of the Stillwater diesel fleet was capable of successfully using the passive regeneration type systems.  It identified the DPM controls have the potential to produce the hazardous conditions such as high NO2 levels.  
		It also identified the selection and the implementation of the proper DPM control systems as more complex and extensive than previously considered.  Finally, it concluded that additional research and testing was needed to evaluate the applicability of DPM controls for the entire fleet.
		NIOSH and the metal/nonmetal diesel partnership conducted a study in November of this year of 2005 at the Stillwater mine to review gas related to the applicability of after-market DPM controls applied to our existing fleet.  The study was conducted to gain better understanding of potential barriers to the application of after-market DPM control technologies.  Equipment was classified into basic categories on the applicability of the equipment being suited for the installation of either a passive or an active regeneration system.  
		The appropriateness of these controls was determined by reviewing the work-area geometry where the equipment would be operated, the duty cycle, the thermal profile and the back pressure limitations, along with the physical visibility obstructions that could occur for the operator and if the controls would be likely to produce other hazardous gaseous emissions.
		The study classified our equipment into three categories, whether or not they were likely applications, potential applications or unlikely applications.  The final report of this study has not been completed, but will be presented at our DPM partnership meeting on January 19th of this year.  The study identifies the complexity that mine operators are going to experience when evaluating effective DPM controls and applying after-market controls to the existing fleet.
		DPM control solutions need to be evaluated on a practical case-by-case basis for each mine operator, mining method, duty cycle, and for the specific type of equipment.  It's simply not a matter of fixing or selecting a DPF and installing it on a piece of equipment.
		Research and testing of DPF regeneration systems has concluded that passive regeneration systems are preferred over active regeneration systems.  A fit and forget method of the passive regeneration system has proven more reliable and functional for the Stillwater fleet with high duty cycles.  Thermal profiling is conducted on equipment to determine the duty cycle and ensure the compatibility of the passive regeneration system to the equipment.  However, currently, 25 passive regeneration systems have been installed on underground mining equipment and additional profiling is being conducted.
		Our practical experiences with equipment that have the capability to operate the passive regeneration systems indicate this type of control can reduce these DPM exhaust emissions.  Average operating life for the passive regeneration systems utilized at Stillwater is 3,000 to 4,000 hours at a cost ranging from $7,000 to $8500 per unit.  At these costs, annual expenditure to install and maintain regeneration systems for the 82 identified units would be $656,000.  The number of units suited for passive regeneration systems continues to be the minority when compared to the total equipment fleet.
		The majority of the Stillwater fleet is not compatible with the passive regeneration due to low duty cycle or low exhaust temperatures that do not support passive regeneration. 
		For equipment not compatible with passive regeneration systems, active regeneration systems have been researched and tested at Stillwater.  The costs of these systems have ranged from $8,000 to $11,000 per unit.  The systems tested have been primarily off-board regeneration systems due to the lack of feasibility and practicality for an on-board system.  Practical experience with active regeneration system has not indicated these control's options are economically feasible for Stillwater diesel fleet.
		Initial operating time before the unit is required to be removed and placed on regeneration is at best 10 to 15 hours, however, experience has shown that this can be as little as four hours before off-board regeneration is required.  
		The equipment identified for use with active regeneration systems has been limited to equipment that is parked on the surface at the end of the shift.  Unfortunately, not all equipment can logistically be brought to the surface for regeneration.  For those units that must be regenerated underground, additional excavations to house the regeneration equipment and to provide parking during regeneration would be required.  These additional excavations are neither practical or economically feasible.
		Additionally, moving equipment to the regeneration station is time consuming, unproductive and cost prohibitive.
		Stillwater's DPM reduction plan placed high expectations on the use of disposable filter elements to reduce DPM exposures.  These filter elements were installed on 89 pieces of equipment, primarily located in the lower off shaft at the mine. 
		The equipment identified for the installation of the filters was primarily of low DD cycle, low thermal profile and equipment that is not suited for either passive or active regeneration systems.
		The effectiveness of these disposable filters was estimated to reduce DPM by approximately 60 to 65 percent.  Unfortunately, practical experience with these filters prove to be discouraging when the operating life of the filter became the primary concern.  The average operating life ranged from 4 to 10 hours, requiring filters to be discarded and replaced every two shifts.
		Filter installation had to be positioned within the confines of the engine department to improve operator visibility and to reduce accidental damage.  The physical dimensions of the canister and filter were evaluated and a size was selected that met the requirements for installing the unit within the operating compartment.  Unfortunately, only one supplier was identified who was willing to develop a filter size for the Stillwater application.  Other suppliers recommended larger filters used in tandem that would need to be installed outside of the engine compartment and on top of the equipment frame.  This installation already subjected the canister to accidental damage and obstructed the visibility of the operator.
		Additional challenges encountered were a higher number of filters that burned out, causing the seals and media to be ineffective at capturing the particulate matter.  It was concluded that the exhaust temperatures, even though not high enough to be compatible for passive or active regeneration systems, did exceed the maximum temperature limits of the disposable filter.
		The disposable filters are rated for 650 degrees Fahrenheit and technically have the potential to work with many pieces of equipment.  However, these controls are also limited by the amount of DPM they can store.  Information provided by the supplier and research done by the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory indicated the 10-inch diameter filter has the capacity of 8 grams of DPM per inch of filter length.  Beyond this loading rate, the back pressure will rise quickly and the potential for hot spots or burn outs will increase.  The number and size of filters required was calculated based on 10 hours of run time between replacements.  Few units have the space available for the filter or have the potential to exceed the 650 degree Fahrenheit limit during normal operations.
		The use of disposable filters in parallel, due to its particulate load and the cost of -- let me back up just one second, excuse me. 
		The use of disposable filters has proven to be cost prohibitive and as an example, I would share with you a Toyota pickup which we run several in the mine, would require two filters to be used in parallel due to the particulate load of these trucks at a cost of $200 per filter, the annual cost to maintain filters on the truck is estimated to be between -- right at $40,000 per unit.
		The intent of the metal/nonmetal diesel partnership study was to identify the appropriate DPM control for the Stillwater fleet as it exists currently.  The table which I'll provide to you in written comment represents the results of this study.  Results are divided into three categories of control applicability.  As the results indicated, 29 percent of the Stillwater underground fleet is applicable for either passive -- for either a passive regeneration or an active regeneration system.  Forty-nine percent of the Stillwater fleet was categorized as having potential where additional information was needed to determine the applicability of installing a passive or active regeneration system.  And 23 percent of the Stillwater fleet is not suited to have either a passive or active regeneration system installed.
		Stillwater is committed to continue its research on the equipment identified as potential to determine if effective controls can, in fact, be identified.
		You asked about alternative fuels.  Stillwater is presently using number one diesel and has started receiving shipments of ultra-low sulfur fuel.  While ultra-low sulphur fuels have shown negligible reduction in DPM, the proven benefits indicate that ultra-low sulfur has the potential to improve DPF efficiency and reduce the potential for runaway regeneration.
		The utilization of ultra-low sulfur fuel at Stillwater will continue.  Stillwater continues to research and negotiate with its regional suppliers on the availability of other alternative fuels, primarily biodiesel.  
		We ran limited tests of biodiesel at the Stillwater mine and it has shown potential in reducing DPM concentrations.  However, the availability of receiving biodiesel has proven difficult.  No manufacturers of biodiesel have been located in the proximity of the mine, making availability for delivery a significant concern.  In addition to availability, cold weather concerns were evaluated to determine the necessary storage requirements to reduce the potential for the fuel to gel.  Because regional suppliers do not have the capability to manage, store, blend and transport in heated containers, on-site storage was evaluated.  A cost analysis concerning 
on-site storage was conducted with the regional supplier and proved cost prohibitive.
		Currently, this option is not economically feasible and time is needed for manufacturers to construct distribution centers closer to mines or alternatives must be identified to make alternative fuels more economic.
		Water emulsion fuels were also tested in the Isozone studies.  We saw significant effect of engine performance during these tests.  Engine equipment operators indicated during the testing that these fuels had a significant reduction of horsepower.  Stillwater has not conducted any future or any additional tests of water emulsion fuels.
		With regard to environmental cabs, feasibility of cabs within the Stillwater operations has been a huge issue, not only for DPM, but also for noise.  The ability to install cabs on all equipment is neither feasible nor practical within our mine, due to the geometric constraints.  Some cabs have been installed, however, on equipment that can be constrained and restricted to a specific mining location.  These constraints minimize equipment utilization and operational flexibility, but is used when possible.
		Since 2001, Stillwater has performed a proactive engine campaign to replace the higher DPM emitting engines with the newer EPA Tier I and Tier II rated engines.  To date, 68 percent of the underground equipment meets the U.S. EPA Tier I or Tier II rating.  In addition to replacing older engines, Stillwater has been upgrading newer existing engines by installing electronic EMR II governors.  This proactive approach of replacing and upgrading engines has indicated an impact on reducing DPM concentrations.  Stillwater has also tested the newly available Tier III engines.  Currently, one Tier III engine is being operated at the mine and three additional engines are expected to arrive in late January.
		In conjunction with the engine replacement programs, Stillwater has been involved in an extensive emission monitoring and engine-tuning program.  This program provides knowledge of how the equipment is running and ensures that the engine is performing within optimal emissions parameters.  The longer the engine stays in its optimal parameters, the more efficient the engines run, which potentially has an impact on the amount of particulate that the engine emits.
		As far as ventilation is concerned, both the Stillwater and East Boulder Mine have completed major ventilation upgrades.  Both currently have additional ventilation raises being developed to surface that will further support the reduction of DPM.  However, even with these significant enhancements, compliance to the DPM regulation cannot be guaranteed.
		Since 2002 to present, the Stillwater mine has increased ventilation, CFM, from 766,000 to 1.212 million CFM.  The East Boulder mine has increased ventilation from 135,000 CFM to 215,000 CFM.  The East Boulder mine has just recently completed another ventilation raise to surface, has one in progress that's scheduled to be completed by mid-year.
		With regard to the conversion factor, it is apparent that MSHA also has a concern about the complexity of developing an appropriate conversion factor in order to determine the correct TC to EC relationship.  Stillwater believes that additional research is needed in order to determine an appropriate conversion factor.  Recent evidence indicates that the EC to TC relationship may change depending on various dynamics such as fuel type, DPM control technologies being utilized and engine duty cycle.  The relationship between elemental carbon and total carbon as DPM concentrations are reduced remains unclear.  Additional research is needed to determine the appropriate variability and to what extent the error factor for EC compliance determination must be increased as the DPM limits decrease.
		As mentioned by an earlier speaker, Section 101(a)(9) of the Mine Act, due to the premature promulgation of this rule, no available scientific evidence exists that determines any health related effects with DPM exposures at any level.  The current limits lack the scientific certainty that DPM poses any health related diseases.  It is because of this uncertainty that MSHA needs to delete the 160 final PEL and permanently adopt the 308 interim limit as the final regulated number.  The NIOSH/NCI study of possible DPM related health effects is coming to conclusion, and should give evidence if DPM is correlated with any adverse health effect.  
		MSHA has chosen not to wait for the outcome of this study and intends to promulgate the DPM rule without the justified scientific evidence of adverse health effects.  By doing so, MSHA has not met the requirements of Section 101(a)(6)(A) which states the Secretary, in promulgating mandatory standards dealing with toxic materials or harmful physical agents under this subsection, shall set standards which most adequately assure on the basis of the best available evidence that no miner will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity even if such miner has regular exposure to the hazards dealt with by such standard for the period of his working life.  Development of mandatory standards under this subsection shall be based upon research, demonstrations, equipment and other such information as much be appropriate.  
		In addition to the attainment of the highest degree of health and safety protection for the miner, some considerations shall be the latest available scientific data in the field, the feasibility of the standards, and experience gained under this and other health and safety laws.  Whenever practicable, the mandatory health or safety standard promulgated shall be expressed in terms of objective criteria and of the performance desired.
		MSHA is encouraged to postpone this DPM regulation until this valuable study is completed and the results of the study can be evaluated.  This study is critical to help identify the appropriate exposure limit.
		With regard to respiratory protection, Stillwater is committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for its employees.  Unfortunately, this DPM rule has posed a significant burden on the workforce with the requirements of respiratory protection.  Even with its extensive effort to reduce  DPM exposures miners are currently  being required to wear respirators.  Based on internal DPM personal sampling 60 percent of the samples exceeds the 308 exposure limit and 99 percent of internal samples exceed the 160 final PEL.  Although exposures have decreased, over 50 percent since the 2001 rule was promulgated, Stillwater continues to have significant challenges to comply with the 308 interim rule.
		Currently, miners are required to wear respirators during certain tasks, such as operating LHDs and haul trucks that have proven to be a significant course of DPM exposure.  Based on these internal samples, the use of respiratory protection would increase and ultimately be required by nearly all miners through the entire work force as the rule continues through the proposed multi-year phase-in, ultimately to the 160 final PEL.  This requires usage of respirators is not practical and would significantly burden the miner.  
		Stillwater is concerned that if respirator usage were to be mandatory throughout the entire mine, miners' acceptance of the rule and the ability to safely remain productive would be severely compromised.
		With regard to transfer rights and transfer of miners, the transfer of miners unable to be medically cleared to wear a respirator needs to continue to be managed by the mine operator and through its collective bargaining agreement when in unionized operations.  In the event that an employee cannot meet the requirements of wearing a respirator while performing their duties and there is no available work that the restricted employee is qualified to perform, the employee should be considered medically unfit for duty.  The employment of such employees may be terminated subject to the provisions of the applicable company policy collective bargaining agreement and/or state and federal law.  In the event that an employee cannot meet the requirements of wearing a respirator while performing their duties and there is available position in which the person is qualified, the employee should be transferred to the existing position and that's available to him.  This employee should then receive pay at the rate of pay for the new job classification.
		As the proposed rule stands currently, a single sample collected is adequate basis for determining compliance.  In the event that the sample exceeds the PEL, the affected miner is required to be properly fitted and trained for a respirator.  Stillwater believes that anytime the average of three samples taken by MSHA indicates the PEL has been exceeded for more than one month in any year, and MSHA determines that exposures are likely to remain above the applicable level, overexposed miners should be entitled to exercise their right to wear a respirator.
		With regard to extensions, the Isozone study results indicate that each mine had unique challenges to comply with the DPM rule and current technology may not be available to reduce DPM concentrations to the final limit.  Stillwater believes that when a mine demonstrates a "good faith" attempt to reduce DPM exposure levels, but needs additional time to comply, the mine should be granted a one-year renewal extension, special extension of time to work towards compliance.  
		Stillwater also recommends that until feasible control devices are demonstrated to be effective and commercially available for current in-mine equipment, the operator should be granted a special extension.  Stillwater agrees with MSHA that extensions need to be granted and managed by the District Manager, but would also request a final written determination of both the District Manager and the Administrator for metal and nonmetal should the operator be denied an extension.  Special extensions should also be granted for the entire mine or a portion of the mine.  
		Pending the outcome of MSHA considerations of an application for special extension, the PEL previously in effect or the previously granted special extension should remain in effect.  This would ensure that regular communications continue throughout the DPM reduction efforts with the mine operator.  These special extensions should be granted until such time when feasible, effective controls are readily available to industry.  
		MSHA would be allowed, within the provision, to review evidence of good faith efforts toward compliance during the extension period.  MSHA should also be part of these efforts in the form of compliance assistance and information sharing.  MSHA should also grant repeated special extensions as long as the operator demonstrates good faith efforts to reduce DPM levels.  Stillwater also urges MSHA to provide clarity in the rule for how the special extensions will be granted and how feasibility determinations will be made.
		Technological and economic feasibility.  Technology and economic feasibility determinations are perhaps the greatest barriers to the promulgation of a supportable and effective DPM rule.  The availability of DPM control technology that MSHA was certain would be available by January 2006 has not been adequate to reduce DPM concentrations to meet the 308 microgram interim rule or the 160 final rule.  The potential availability of additional controls during the multi-year phased-in period is not guaranteed as well.  
		Industry cannot rely on what might be available to them in the future.  This statement is probably best supported by the actual procurement, installation and replacement costs of DPM controls being significantly greater than MSHA estimated in their feasibility work.
		Even with the incurred costs and efforts associated with reducing DPM exposures, Stillwater has not yet been able to find any feasible means for compliance to the 308 microgram interim rule or the 160 final PEL.
		In conclusion, Stillwater Mining Company maintains its commitment to provide a safe and healthful work environment for its employees.  However, following extensive research, analysis and the implementation of available feasible control technologies, the company still cannot guarantee full compliance with the 308 microgram interim limit in all circumstances.
		As a positive result, Stillwater has, in fact, reduced its exposures by nearly 50 percent.  SMC has worked diligently to identify and implement economic and technologically feasible controls to comply with the 160 final PEL, but unfortunately is still unable to attain ultimately control.
		Again, the staggered phased-in approach for effective dates to the final DPM concentration does not rectify the error in the rule, which includes lack of scientific justification, economical and technological feasibility and the appropriate TC to EC conversion factor.
		In conclusion, we urge expedited action by MSHA to complete the rulemaking consistent with the interim settlement agreement including first, the deletion of the 160 microgram final PEL; second, the permanent adoption of the 308 microgram interim rule; third, the adoption of the compliance extension provisions for the 308 limit to permit yearly applications and extensions based on feasibility issues; and four, adoption of personal protective equipment and administrative control options, to supplement engineering controls, pursuant to existing standards and policy; and then lastly, provide a clear explanation of the process for granting special extensions and incorporate this into the final rule.
		We thank you for your time and I'd like to welcome any questions you may have.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Jim, do you have a question?
		MR. PETRIE:  As with the other speakers, what medical evaluation procedures does Stillwater have and with what frequency are they conducted?  And would you be able to provide some cost information on the cost of any medical evaluations that you do?
		MR. WOOD:  Sure will.  Medical evaluations are conducted annually, prior to being placed on respiratory protection program and annually thereafter.
		MR. PETRIE:  I would appreciate if you could provide some cost information on that.
		MR. WOOD:  We will in our final written.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Doris?
		MS. CASH:  Yes.  You said you had looked at a biodiesel and had some problems with the costs on it being prohibitive.  Could you provide me written comments, and explanation of that so that we'll have that cost information for our own economic analysis?
		MR. WOOD:  We will.
		MS. CASH:  We'll look at them and that will be helpful.
		MR. WOOD:  Will do.
		MS. CASH:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  Yes.  You said you had 25 passive systems that were installed on vehicles.  Can you elaborate on what type of vehicles they are?  Are they currently still on there, running today?
		MR. WOOD:  The passive sit traps (Phonetic) are placed on our haulage fleet, our haul trucks.  They have an engine that's a 1013.  They do have a high duty cycle, high thermal T30 rating, so we are seeing success as far as those pieces of equipment.
		MR. SASEEN:  And they're still running today?
		MR. WOOD:  Correct.
		MR. SASEEN:  And you said 3,000 to 4,000 hours.  Was that combined or is that each?
		MR. WOOD:  That's each.
		MR. SASEEN:  Each unit is --
		MR. WOOD:  Three to four thousand hours each unit.
		MR. SASEEN:  Today, still today.
		MR. WOOD:  George, it's interesting.  It's application related.  It has to do with thermal cycle and the ability to regenerate as you well know.  This particular fleet runs fairly steadily throughout the entire work shift and does generate thermal cycles that are supportive of running a passive regeneration system.  Small amount of our fleet when you look at our fleet in its entirety, we're running well over 300 pieces in the mine and we're looking at 25 that are suited for --
		MR. SASEEN:  What size haul trucks are
they?
		MR. WOOD:  MTI60.
		MR. SASEEN:  And have you seen a change with the install of these 25, have you seen a specific drop in DPM levels associated with the installation of those?
		MR. WOOD:  You folks are aware of the size and complexity of the Stillwater mine and it's a dynamic mine.  Things are changing and moving all the time, equipment is being utilized in various locations.  We've seen accumulative reduction by nearly 50 percent when you take the ventilation upgrades, the active and passive filters that are being utilized, the somewhat ineffective but whatever result we got from the diesel, the disposable filter elements.  
		Cumulatively, we've seen a reduction.  It's very hard for me to say that we've seen a noticeable reduction with the active filters based on the way that they're utilized and the dynamics of not only the ventilation system, but the travel that these trucks take up and down our ramp systems and along grades, all which ways.
		MR. SASEEN:  How about the miners?  Have they given you any feedback on what the ones working around to be operators driving those vehicles?  Can they tell a difference?
		MR. WOOD:  There's been a noticeable reduction in the atmosphere of our mine.  You can see that the air is clean.  And what that means and specifically what that tells us, I'm not sure, but exchanging engines for cleaning burner engines, tuning these engines, operator awareness and participation and operating equipment in a fashion that reduces DPM overloading as well, all these things and working in concert with one another has had an effect of making the circumstances much better and much improved and noticeable improvement. 
		I couldn't tell you with one particular control solution had an effect by in and of itself would have been noticeable, just don't know.  Everything working in conjunction with one another has had a positive effective.  That, in fact, is part of the role.  That is probably the most difficult part of the problem, identifying exactly what's working, what's not working, the various duty cycles and thermal cycles that are generated in the way that our equipment is operated, makes this a very complex issue for us.
		MR. SASEEN:  Okay, on the active systems, what type of machines -- again, what type of machines?  Are they currently still operating with success?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes, the active systems were placed on -- currently, about five utility vehicles.  They did not have a duty cycle that would support a passive system.  We did place DCL Titans on them.  We do -- we initially had limited success.  Like we said, it was about 10 hours before regeneration, but right now we're down to about four hours before these pieces of equipment need to get regenerated.
		MR. SASEEN:  And what type of engines are in those?
		MR. WOOD:  They'll be Deutsche 1013s. You mentioned in a statement that any time that you can fit and forget, so to speak, a filter or a control on a piece of equipment, you're much better off, if you're able to do so.  Anything that requires individual interaction with regard to taking an off-board regeneration reactor unit and regenerating it or changing a disposal filter or any of those kinds of things, it seems like we have less success managing those than we do with an active type system.  It's just unfortunate that it's just such a small fraction of our total fleet that's able to be suited or fitted for an active system.
		MR. SASEEN:  Active or passive?
		MR. WOOD:  Passive, I'm sorry.
		MR. SASEEN:  Passive, thank you.  You said on the active systems you're seeing less hours between regeneration?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  Have you identified engine condition or maintenance or filter?
		MR. WOOD:  That's right now currently being researched and looked at is why we're seeing this degradation as far as these systems is what's currently being looked at right now.
		MR. SASEEN:  If you do have some information by the close of the comment period, we'd appreciate if you could provide us with that, to give us a history there.
		MR. WOOD:  I think a lot of it is subject to operators, how an operator actually runs the equipment.  I mean not intentionally or unintentionally, just how the person happens to operate.  Those that seem to be operating at a higher RPM and generating a higher exhaust temperature, seem to cause those active systems to last a little bit longer before they're needing to be regenerated.
		MR. SASEEN:  And just one, it goes to the disposables again, the 89 pieces, are they still currently installed?
		MR. WOOD:  For the most part.  We will be making a decision to get rid of -- get those off relatively soon.  We're trying to find another solution for the small equipment load cycle type equipment.  At the time, first of the year actually, first of 2005, we thought that those may offer some real potential to that fleet and have since determined that they've been not nearly as effective as we would hope.
		MR. SASEEN:  And they are mostly on the Toyota pickup trucks?
		MR. WOOD:  They're on a lot more than trucks.  We've put them on just about any kind of utility vehicle or employee transport vehicle that we have.
		MR. SASEEN:  And the main reason, I mean you said there were 4 to 10 hours.  You just don't feel that's significant enough?
		MR. WOOD:  No, they burn out.  You get a spike in exhaust temperature that will exceed the 650 degrees Fahrenheit that will cause them to burn through, the loading or unexpected loading of particulate on the filter will cause the filter to burn through.  The operator, who's dependent upon a back pressure indicator to tell them when it's time to change, will not see a rise in back pressure, due to the fact that the filter is burned through and so therefore they're not doing anything effectively, but yet, there's no indication to the operator that there's a problem or something needs to be changed.  And this could happen very, very quickly or it can actually take a few hours before it happens, but --
		MR. SASEEN:  Just a final question, have you looked into exhaust gas cooling prior to those filters?
		MR. WOOD:  Not that I'm aware of.
		MR. SASEEN:  Thank you.
		MR. WOOD:  You bet.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Bill?
		MR. POMROY:  Just a question.  You mentioned that the passive filters have a life of their own, 3,000 to 4,000 hours.  What is the typical failure mode at that point?  What causes them to fail?
		MR. WOOD:  Many things from a crack -- and I don't know what would cause that and so --
		MR. POMROY:  Do you know what your schedule is for cleaning the filters, for removing the ash?
		MR. WOOD:  As far as maintenance on the filters themselves, that's just barely starting to get effective, as far as what type of time frame we want to go in there.  I think the initial time frame right now is going to be about every 500 hours before we go in there and do clean those.
		MR. POMROY:  So you are cleaning them now, probably around that --
		MR. WOOD:  That is what's been decided at this point.
		MR. POMROY:  How about on the active filters, how often are those cleaned of the ash?
		MR. WOOD:  Active filters right now are just pretty much being an evaluation test phase and we haven't done anything to the schedule.
		MR. POMROY:  How much fuel do you buy every year for the two mines, for East Boulder and Stillwater together?  A guess or maybe you could include that in the written comments.
		MR. WOOD:  I can get that to you.  I believe it's just over 200,000 gallons is what I'm thinking.
		MR. POMROY:  Okay, for the two mines together.  Where do you store your fuel now?
		MR. WOOD:  On site.
		MR. POMROY:  I mean underground or surface?
		MR. WOOD:  On surface.
		MR. POMROY:  No underground storage at all?
		MR. WOOD:  There are satellite storage facilities that are set up throughout the mine, but the bulk of storage is on surface.
		MR. POMROY:  And that's outdoor tanks, buried tanks, above-ground tanks?
		MR. WOOD:  Above-ground tanks.
		MR. POMROY:  How much is stored underground?  Is it just batch tanks?
		MR. WOOD:  Don't know -- yeah, I don't know.
		MR. POMROY:  Do you drop that down bore holes or do you haul it in?
		MR. WOOD:  We take it in in totes, drive it in.
		MR. POMROY:  Okay.  A couple questions about that Spokane NIOSH study.  You had indicated 29 percent of the fleet was suitable for passive filters, 49 percent had potential and 23 percent was not suitable for either passive or active.  Do you know what the breakdown is by horsepower, rather than just by unit?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes, we will provide that to you.
		MR. POMROY:  Also, I'm not sure how to say this, but could you also include in that response an indication of hours of usage per shift as well as horsepower so that you get some idea of how many grams per shift of DPM production would be suitable for filters, would have potential for filtration and would be not suitable.
		MR. WOOD:  I think you'll see a table in that in the final report that will be presented on January 19th to the partnership as well.
		MR. POMROY:  To take into account both the horsepower and the hours of usage per shift.
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. POMROY:  Okay.  A couple questions about the ventilation.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Let me just interrupt here for a second.  We're running considerable over the time period where I said we would take a break.  What I propose is that we take a 10-minute break right now and come back and finish up our questions, if that's acceptable to you?
		MR. WOOD:  You bet.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Let's take a break for -- I have 10:43 until maybe 10:53 and we'll come back promptly at 10:53.  Off the record.
		(Off the record.)
		MR. SEXAUER:  Okay, we're back on the record.  I think Jim, you have a question?
		MR. PETRIE:  Yes, just a few more on your respiratory protection program.  Do you have an estimate on the number of miners under your current program that you found unable to wear respirators and if you could, provide us with that information as well as an estimate of how many might there be under the final rule?
		MR. WOOD:  I'll include it the final --
		MR. PETRIE:  Okay, so you'll be submitting that information?
		MR. WOOD:  We'll submit that.
		MR. PETRIE:  Okay.  Just a few more questions then.  Do you have any miners that currently are wearing powered air purifying respirators or non-negative type pressure respirators?
		MR. WOOD:  Not for DPM.
		MR. PETRIE:  Not for DPM.  Okay.  And if you have had miners that could not wear a respirator, what does your company currently do with them?  Do they offer transfer or are they terminated?
		MR. WOOD:  We haven't had as yet.  We had one individual who may have been close and chose to retire.  It was time for him to retire anyway.  Currently, if a person is qualified and there's an available position for which is he is, can fulfill the requirements of the job, and unable to wear a respirator that's required in his regular position, he would be transferred into that position and paid at the rate of the new classification that he's transferred to.
		If there was no available position or position for which he's qualified for, he would be then placed into a situation where it would be with our human resources group as -- using our collective bargaining agreement as a tool to determine what would be done with it.
		MR. PETRIE:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Doris?
		MS. CASH:  Yes.  You said that there was a certain percentage of your miners that currently are required to wear respirators when they're in the positions where your own testing has shown that they might be over-exposed.  Could you please include that information also as to what you think your current information is as to the number of miners that are now wearing respirators?
		MR. WOOD:  Okay.  The other thing along with that too, Doris, I think it's very important that we capture as well is this conversation around the single sampling determination, to put a person into a respirator.   We've had persons who are working in job classifications where multiple internal samples have indicated that person would not be over-exposed.  However, on a given day, dependent upon activity and other things going on in the area, a sample may come up or could come up over-exposed, a single sample.
		Our practice has been when that sample indicates a person is over-exposed, we fit them and put them into a respirator.  Probably, not the best practice.  Probably, should have multiple samples that need to be taken to make that determination.
		Let me back up and clarify that just a little bit.  That's the practice that we use internally.  We take multiple samples to determine those jobs or those job tasks where a person's exposures are significant enough to put them in a respirator.  They exceed the interim rule.
		When MSHA comes in and does a sample, the single sample that they take if indicative of an over-exposure that person then is put into a respirator, if there's an over-exposure.  That's my concern.  I think that it's very important that we recognize and realize that mine conditions and things are going to change.  The mines are dynamic and on any given day a single sample could indicate a potential over-exposure.  Is that person then at any significant health risk?  I don't think so because there aren't any studies that indicate that he would be.  So it doesn't make a lot of sense to put the person into a respirator based on that one over-exposure.
		I would much prefer to see what we recommended, three samples taken, prior to making the determination, three of MSHA's samples taken that show an over-exposure, prior to putting a person into a respirator.  Seems to make more sense to me.  There's more scientific basis for that at that point.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Deborah, do you have a follow up question?
		MS. CASH:  In reference to the multiple samples being taken for purposes of placing a miner in the respiratory protection program, I just need you to clarify that you're not speaking in terms of multiple samples for making the determination that the miner is over-exposed, but the purpose of the multiple samples would be for whether or not you need to have that miner wear a respirator?
		MR. WOOD:  That's correct.
		MS. CASH:  Okay.
		MR. WOOD:  That is correct.  Can I give you an example of that?
		MS. CASH:  Yes.  I was going to ask you that in your written comments that you submit, could you provide the Agency with a scheme for how we could implement that or how we could put that in a regulation?  I would appreciate it, and some specifics about what we should be doing for purposes of if we were adopt that type of scheme?
		MR. WOOD:  We will.
		MS. CASH:  Okay, so I want to clarify one other thing for purposes of your comments, so we would have the single sample for purposes of determining whether the miner is over-exposed, and then if the miner is over-exposed and the miner has not been placed in a respirator beforehand, the citation would be issued or if the miner is in a respirator, and other feasible controls could be provided, you would still get a citation, but the bottom line is the citation is issued for that, but you would like some intervention or some other type of additional sampling from the Agency before you are required to place that miner in a respirator?
		MR. WOOD:  That is correct.
		MS. CASH:  Okay.
		MR. SEXAUER:  William?
		MR. BAUGHMAN:  Hi.  If you have any information that you could provide about what prompted you to make thees recommendations, that would be helpful as well about -- if you have any special studies with respect to what you might recommend, as well as any recent or historical information about with respect to occupations and miners and how many replicates or how many times they were over-exposed or may indicate over-exposure.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Any other questions?  A couple more questions here.  What is your company's procedure for monitoring NO2 exposures of equipment operators?
		MR. WOOD:  We place gas testing equipment on them.  It would be either be an ITX or TMX, full-shift samples.
		MR. SEXAUER:  And then what?  If you look at that monitor and when the monitor goes to what level, then what do you do?
		MR. WOOD:  We haven't seen anything as far as initial time weighted average exposures.  With the initial testing on some of these highly catalyzed suit traps and that stuff, during the research, it was during that time where we saw the spikes of NO2 and at that point we disconcluded all of the testing and stopped from there.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Your procedure just for normal, routine production operations though is that you do have an ITX or a TMX on each piece of equipment?
		MR. WOOD:  No.
		MR. SEXAUER:  No.  Just for the research?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Okay.  Let's see, do all of the engines that have filters attached, are they provided with back pressure gauges?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes, they are.
		MR. SEXAUER:  The Toyota pickups that you mentioned had fabric filters, the synthetic media filters, are those really like a Miller technology modified Land Cruiser or is it more of a production Toyota pickup?
		MR. WOOD:  It's a Miller technology.
		MR. SEXAUER:  It's a Miller technology.  You buy those from Miller.
		MR. WOOD:  We do.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Do you know what engine is installed in those?
		(Pause.)
		MR. WOOD:  It just says 1DZ11.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Okay.
		MR. WOOD:  And 1HC.
		MR. SEXAUER:  1HC.  Could you get a breakdown of how many you have of the 1HC versus the other engine?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Just a couple questions about the biodiesel, too.  Where is the closest biodiesel production facility to Stillwater, do you know?
		MR. WOOD:  There are more than one available to us, none of them seem to -- nothing that we can depend upon.  We've been working with Senex (Phonetic), a local distributor and refiner in Billings.  They're highly interested in developing some sort of market, commercial market for biodiesel in the area, where they would choose to pick this fuel up, I just don't know.
		The difficulty, as I mentioned, has been finding a way to transport and store enough biodiesel that can remain on site during the cold winter months.  There's no way to transport biodiesel from any facility, even Billings or Columbus that can get it on site without having the effects of this gelling causing some difficulty and float difficulties because there aren't transport vehicles that are heated.  So what we were looking at was to try and find a way to develop the infrastructure at Stillwater, the storage facilities at the mine where during the warm months it could be transported to site and remain on site, either put into the underground environment or remain on surface and heated, so that during the winter months, we wouldn't have to worry about availability.  That's the storage method that was preferred and the one that proved to be -- not cost effective at present.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Your current fuel deliveries are in just in 8,000-gallon semi-trucks?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SEXAUER:  And they come out of Billings?
		MR. WOOD:  Out of Columbus.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Columbus.
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Let's see, what steps has Stillwater taken since the MSHA tech support evaluation of your ventilation system to improve installation of auxiliary ventilation systems  to ensure proper operation over time, but those auxiliary systems?
		MR. WOOD:  We've gone to -- we changed our blast bag, what we call it, the bag that's carried up toward the working phase.  We have improved upon the connections of the auxiliary fans.  We have an auditing process in place that audits the connections themselves to make sure that they're being maintained adequately.  
		There have been a number of upgrades that have occurred, probably since your last visit as well.  In fact, I can't remember the exact timing.  I believe that the initial bore hole to surface was already in when you folks were there in our upper west.  We have a second one scheduled for this year as well and multiple number of internal bore hole systems that have been established in our lower off-shaft areas of the mine as well.
		But mainly, I think, probably the most effective has been oversight and attention paid to audits and inspections to improve that capability.
		MR. POMROY:  If you could detail those procedures in the written comments that would be real helpful.
		You've mentioned about 68 percent of your engines are either Tier I or Tier II compliant.  I'm just wondering do you know offhand or maybe you could include in the written comments what percentage are Tier II as opposed to a combination of Tier I and Tier II?
		MR. WOOD:  We'll get that for you.
		MR. POMROY:  I think that's all I have.
		MR. SEXAUER:   Just to -- I forgot to ask, on the passes ceramic systems, can you say which manufacturer you're using or what model?
		MR. WOOD:  The majority of them is Englehart (Phonetic), as far as models, I don't know.
		MR. SEXAUER :  But they're Englehart, okay.  I think that's it.  
		To follow up with Bill's, on those different Tier I and Tier II, if you could identify the type of machines that they're installed in and then you said you're having several Tier III engines delivered?
		MR. WOOD:  We have one currently on site.  We should have three more here at the end of this month.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Are you continuing your engine emissions check, routine engine loads?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Can you supply us with any information, current information on how that's been going?  Okay?
		MR. WOOD:  What was the question?
		MR. SEXAUER:  On the repeat engine load test, the emissions check that you do, I think you were doing it at your 250 hour checks, if you can provide us some update information on how that process has been going?
		MR. WOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you.  We have one more question over here.
		MR.          :  Your diesel fuel that you currently receive, is it stored on the surface, underground, both?
		MR. WOOD:  Both storage is on the surface and individual totes are taken underground.
		MR.          :  Do you know what the storage capacity is in each area roughly?
		MR. WOOD:  No, I don't.  I can provide that.
		MR.          :  If you can provide that, I'd appreciate it.  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Steve, Buck, thank you very much.
		MR. WOOD:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Our next speaker is Mike Crum.
		MR. CRUM:  My name is Mike Crum.  I'm with FMC Corporation out of Green River, Wyoming.  I'm an industrial hygienist there with FMC.  FMC will compile written comments and submit them for the record.
		FMC also supports MARG's position regarding the proposed rule.  We are current MARG members.  It is difficult to comprehend that this rule has maintained its complexion even though MSHA admitted mistakes and errors of the rulemaking process within the Federal Register.  These Agency errors are significant and substantial enough for the Agency to do the right thing and delete the 160 microgram final limit from rulemaking.
		Even with the deletion, MSHA will have a non-science based health standard to which many mines will struggle to maintain compliance with the 400 microgram limit.
		MSHA's sampling data tells a very erroneous story to those looking at compliance with the interim final limit and the proposed final limit.  The sampling data underestimates current exposures.  
		Sampling data currently reflects the true problems with any enforcement relying on a single shift sample.  Control technology that was supposed to be the silver bullet, has yet to be effective for mine operators to effectively meet standards.
		These DPFs have not been completely effective for large equipment and work to assist operators with low horsepower engines has yet to begin within the partnership.  Even though this is a technology-driving standard, in the last five years technology has not even caught up with the 400 microgram standard, let alone the 160 microgram standard.
		So why would anyone believe that technology will respond favorably within the next five years?  This technology has been worked on steadily by government agency, being NIOSH, costing the taxpayers millions of dollars without yielding a favorable result.  NIOSH, with all their experts, scientists, research budget and labs, has not been able to determine an effective control technology.
		Mine operators participating in these partnerships, have been willing to open their mines for research in good faith and again have not produced favorable results, speaking specifically of the NIOSH case study, the Isozone study, etcetera.
		Respiratory protection in our operation will be very expensive and challenging.  Statistics show that roughly 4 percent of any given population will not be cleared for negative pressure respirator use.  In our mind, this percentage is low, primarily due to age.
		This brings a case, our respirator costs will increase from roughly $28 to over $700, which would include medical monitoring and different respiratory protection.  We will submit comments for the rulemaking process to the record.  We have actively participated with the MARG Group and the NIOSH partnership, or DPM partnership and we'll continue to do so.
		We look forward to any opportunities that we may have to participate in number one, permissible equipment controls, as well as low duty cycle controls.  
		And that's all I have.  Thank you.  Any questions?
		MR. SEXAUER:  Doris?
		MS. GREEN:  Yes.  You said that you anticipate your respiratory protection costs and I assume that's per miner would increase from $28 to over $700.  Could you give us some information on what those costs would be and why the -- what the increase would be?  And what the different type of respirators would be that you would be going to?
		MR. CRUM:  I will include that in the comments, but just for the record, should we start to see miners who cannot be medically cleared with foreign negative pressure, half face mask, we would indeed due to our leanness of our operation, we would be required to go to probably a powered-air purifying respirator.  We would have to install battery charging stations.  Those items aren't cheap.
		MS. GREEN:  Okay.
		MR. CRUM:  And we're looking at roughly 60 percent of our population as -- our sampling data shows that we are roughly 60 percent in compliance with the 400 and we are roughly 85 percent out of compliance with the 160 microgram standard.
		MS. GREEN:  All right, thank you.  And could you also include that information if you haven't already in your written comments?
		MR. CRUM:  We will submit that to MSHA again, yes.
		MS. GREEN:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  Yes, Mike, you made a statement, I'll give you a chance if you want to clarify it, you said DPF filters were not effective and I believe you said the high horsepower engines, you made that in your statement.
		MR. CRUM:  I did.  And I based --
		MR. SASEEN:  Can you clarify that as to what --
		MR. CRUM:  I will.  I've been involved with the NIOSH studies for a number of years, up until moving to Green River.  The concern I have is we do have the potential for runaway regeneration for our operation being gassy mine.  That's probably not a real good fit for our operation.  
		The other potential that is there, that has been proven is the elevated NO2 exposures which are a known health hazard.  The primary concern there obviously is the miners' health.  Secondary concern there is once the ceiling limit is reached, those miners can have no further exposure.  Any time you burn a diesel engine, you get some NO2 exposure.  What do you do with those guys?  You bring them to the surface.
		So miner health, number one.  Lost production, number two.  It's a cost to both parties.
		MR. SASEEN:  So you're pretty much to the ceramic --
		MR. CRUM:  To the ceramic catalyzed filters, yes, that's correct.
		MR. SASEEN:  At your own mine, have you looked at any other alternative filtering systems?
		MR. CRUM:  We have evaluated both passive and active filters on our duty cycles and thermal logging, we just can't do it.  Our equipment doesn't run in the right ranges.  Again, we have permissible equipment, so that poses its own challenges to us.  The disposal filters, again, we concern ourselves with the burn through and the flammability issues that they do pose that have been seen in the past.  
		So right now, our primary focus is on alternative fuels and maintenance practices.  We have in the last two years begun doing our emissions controls testing and during our major long-haul moves, we have instituted bio fuels.  Even with the bio fuels, we have not seen compliance to the 160 standard where every piece of equipment within that section is operated using bio fuel.
		MR. SASEEN:  On your disposables, have you tried any heat exchange or technology up front?
		MR. CRUM:  We have not yet.
		MR. SASEEN:  Do you have any plans to?  Or could you share any schemes with us?
		MR. CRUM:  I can within comments.
		MR. SASEEN:  That's fine.
		MR. CRUM:  I don't have that.
		MR. SASEEN:  Right, I appreciate that.  If you could do that within comments, that's fine.  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Bill?
		MR. POMROY:  A question about your use of the bio fuels.  You're only using the bio fuels during long mobiles (Phonetic)?
		MR. CRUM:  That is our major, once every 12 to 18 month major exposure where we could feasibly see the 600 microgram exposure.  That is a choice we made a couple years back to implement the bio fuel during those moves where very large horsepower engines for hauling shields and that is primarily our usage right now, although we intend to expand that as we work through some details on fuel storage, fuel segregation, testing protocols, etcetera.
		MR. POMROY:  In your written comments, could you maybe include some details about where that fuel comes from and what the costs are compared to ordinary number two or number one?  What do you normally run, number one or number two?
		MR. CRUM:  I believe we run on number one.
		MR. POMROY:  Also, the bio fuel that you use, do you know what the blend is?
		MR. CRUM:  I don't off the top of my head.  I don't have that data.
		MR. POMROY:  Can you get us that information, too, what is the blend of the bio fuel with the standard.
		MR. CRUM:  I will.
		MR. POMROY:  Do you have any cold weather issues with the use of the bio fuels, if your long mobiles (Phonetic) happen to happen in January --
		MR. CRUM:  Just icy highways because everything we have is stored underground.
		MR. POMROY:  You store it all underground anyway.  Okay.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Jim?
		MR. PETRIE:  Yes.  Do you currently have a medical evaluation program for risk evaluation?
		MR. CRUM:  Yes, we do.  
		MR. PETRIE:  With what frequency are they conducted?
		MR. CRUM:  Annually for those that require respiratory protection.
		MR. PETRIE:  Would you be able to provide us with some cost information on that in the record?
		MR. CRUM:  Absolutely.
		MR. PETRIE:  Comments.  And do any of your miners currently wear powered air purifying respirators?
		MR. CRUM:  Yes, our miners that operate the long wall.
		MR. PETRIE:  And if you could provide some cost information on that, we'd appreciate it as well.  Have you had miners that have been unable to wear any type of respiratory protection and if so, what have you done with those miners?
		MR. CRUM:  Negative pressure respirators, yes, we have.  Fortunately, for us, with medical treatment, they were able to get that clearance to wear negative pressure masks, although one thing you have to understand with our operation, we have very little exposure underground that would require respirator use with the exception of what's pending with the diesel rule.
		MR. PETRIE:  Okay, thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Mike, thank you very much.
		MR. CRUM:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  If I may, Steve, Steve Wood, we have one more question we wanted to ask you, if you don't mind.
		George?
		MR. SASEEN:  In your written comments, you talked about exploring the bio diesel.  What percentage of blend were you planning on starting to use at Stillwater?  What's your strategy?
		MR. WOOD:  We ran a test for a little over a quarter.  We brought in what we were able to obtain.  It started out with a five, B-5 blend.  We started out extremely low just because we wanted to try to reduce or minimize as much of the solvent effect as we possibly could and not have an influx of plugged filters all of a sudden.
		MR. SASEEN:  Right.
		MR. WOOD:  And work our way up to a B-20 blend and actually determined that the test was successful and it became an availability issue at that point, were we going to be able to continue with utilization of biodiesel based on our inability to receive the product.
		So we got to B-20.  If it were available and if it were cost effective, we would probably want to continue to increase that as well.
		MR. SASEEN:  But there's no plans right now or are you just looking at the --
		MR. WOOD:  A lot of discussion going on.  We're working with a number of folks which I can detail for you in our comment as well, trying to make it more available to us and working with some folks in Idaho and Department of Energy and others as well, trying to make it available to us.
		MR. SASEEN:  All right, thanks.  Sorry to have to bring you back up.
		MR. WOOD:  No problem.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Fred Fox and Mark Good.
		MR. FOX:  Good morning, my name is Fred Fox.  I'm the Director of Health Safety Environment for Kennecott Minerals which is located here in Salt Lake City.  With me I have Mark Good who is the Senior Mine Engineer up at the Greens Creek Mine, located near Juneau, Alaska.  
		And may I be the first to welcome everyone here to Salt Lake City.  And I hope during your short time you have an enjoyable stay.
		I've provided our comments, written comments to each panel member and in doing so maybe I'll go over what we've provided and I hope then just to paraphrase so we don't spend a lot of time in the testimony.
		I plan just to go over more of the general administrative issues, some history involving Kennecott and basically a background of our involvement in the rulemaking and then I'll ask Mark to stand up and correct me when I'm wrong, of course, but also to talk about the programs up at the Greens Creek Mine on the engineering and administrative work that's being done on feasibility.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Let me just say for the record that the document that you've given us we'll put into the record and it's clearly identified on the first page of it, it has your name, Fred D. Fox, Director, HSE, Kennecott Minerals Company and further down it has the name Mark Good, Senior Mine Engineer, Kennecott Greens Creek Mine.
		MR. FOX:  Thank you, Mr. Moderator.  If you want to go back to the first chart that we've included, we will present in this, in the written testimony here attachment 1 which covers all the samples we've taken to date, starting back in 2000 up to the more recent samples.  Looks like it was December 31, 2000.
		On attachment 2, we include a summary of the feasible engineering controls used at the Greens Creek Mine.  You'll see a table there along with a number of footnotes and hopefully we can refer to those during Mark's testimony, as well as attachment 3, indicating the ventilation system at the Greens Creek mine, mainly focusing on the cascading ventilation system that we have in place today.
		Attachment 4 includes a table, as well as a graph, and the table goes through all the samples taken, along with the area and most importantly the elemental carbon and the total carbon concentrations and these are not, and I have to repeat this, not all personal samples.  So you'll see some numbers that vary considerably, based on where the location and the type of sample taken.
		And finally, Attachment 5, we've included what we intend to do this year in moving forward with our diesel control plan.  
		So with that, on behalf of Kennecott, we want to thank MSHA and really everyone in this room and outside that's been involved, in continuing to address this complex and challenging regulatory burden.  I think we all recognize it as a burden on both sides, to comply with the standards that really were rushed in, we believe over five years ago, and I think we've heard earlier, well ahead of the science and technology, able to adequately define and address them.
		Now we also plan to submit written comments by the January 27th deadline.  Well, maybe not ironically, but Mark and I both were sitting just up the street a little bit over two years ago at the University Park Hotel and as we put together our comments for today, we obviously went back and looked -- what did we saw two years, four months ago?  And unfortunately, our testimony hasn't changed a great deal from what we presented then.  
		The regulations required and continue to require corrections and amendments that were discussed during Mr. Moderator's description of the preamble.  And I'll just maybe highlight some of the things that happened over the last five years.  And of course, there's been temporary postponements of the rules, industry petitions for review, delays, settlement discussions, joint studies, additional rulemaking.  There's been two partial settlement discussions.  New information, a lot of new information on the technical and economic feasibility of meeting the rules. 
		So I just emphasize, we are moving forward, but it's been a struggle over the last five years, obviously.  Yet, as mentioned earlier, there's much more information to come, very important information.  And I'm speaking of the NIOSH NCI study on health effects and probably other studies as well that we need to really get completed, including the Stillwater study and evaluated.
		Within this five-year period, Kennecott has actively participated in the rulemaking process, primarily focusing on implementing DPM rules to reduce exposures to our miners.  That's the most important thing, I guess why we're all here.
		And Mark will describe what has been done at Greens Creek, addressing the engineering and administrative controls, tried there and deemed feasible.  And that's, I think, real important as we've heard earlier and we'll probably hear later on today.  There's a lot going on, but we really want to focus on what is deemed feasible.
		However, despite our best efforts, compliance with the interim limit which was 400 and now 308 EC, is considered feasible at best and I'm speaking specifically at the Greens Creek Mine, and that's our only underground mine that Kennecott Mines owns.
		We are unable to reach this final limit and that's why we provided the graph of Attachment 1.  You can see there has been progress, quite a bit of progress made, but we're still unable to reach the final limit, the 308 at all times in all places of the mine and at best that's where we're at, but we feel we're unable to reach the final limit and do not believe compliance with the proposed phase-in limits can achieve at all times and at all locations in the Greens Creek Mine -- can be achieved at all times, at all locations.  
		We can go out and we can sample and we can hit and get below the limits on one day, in one area of the mine and on the same day in another area of the mine we just won't be as lucky.  And it has to do with the site-specific conditions up at the mine which Mark will talk about.
		This was our position way back when we started in January 2001.  And I was telling Mark, we didn't really know a lot about this.  We kind of just grabbed at certain things and back in January 2001 in another hearing in Salt Lake City, we testified it was kind of -- sort of a grab, or an unknown if we could even meet the proposed 400 limit and that was our position then and this is our position now.  We feel a lot has been done and progress has been made, but again, just meeting what we'll call the interim limit at best is feasible, but not at all locations and at all times in the mine.  And when we get down to the 160 proposed limit, it just gets even more concerting to us.
		We have worked hard to implement the rules and we'll continue to work with MSHA, NIOSH and the diesel partnership.  We do look forward to new technology and to implement controls that are feasible for site-specific conditions at the mine.  And as you are aware and heard this morning, Greens Creek is not alone in its efforts to deal with this regulatory challenge.  The staggered effective dates over the five-year period for the final limit may help some mines to comply, but we still remain very concerned that we will not be able to comply with the staggered proposed limits.
		MSHA's position on feasibility does not reflect consideration of current complications with respect to implementation of controls.  MSHA has acknowledged, we believe, that it has limited in-mine documentation on effective DPM control technology.  And this is, we think, the reasons for extending and staggering the effective dates for the final limit.
		We're encouraged by this, but because the current state of DPM control technology and site-specific conditions at the Greens Creek Mine and specifically the narrow openings, the cascading ventilation system and the mining equipment and methods used, we believe will not be able to comply with the final limit.  Because of this and because of the overwhelming weight of evidence submitted into rulemaking record that supports the deletion of the final limit as infeasible, as applied to the Greens Creek mine, we once again respectfully request that MSHA delete the final limit.
		Absent the deletion of this limit, the process of obtaining special extensions for additional time to meet the final limit is critical to continue compliance up at the Greens Creek Mine, very critical.  Special extensions will be necessary to enable continued compliance for the proposed rules.
		Because of this, there's a need, we believe, for a formalized procedure to grant special extensions.  Compliance for the DPM rules will be dependent upon Greens Creek receiving additional time to take actions to minimize exposures to DPM, such as maintaining controls and implementing a respiratory protection program.  The need for special extensions is evident and we agreed that the decision to grant them shall be made by the District Manager, but under a more formal procedure addressing specific time frames, documented reasons for approval or denial and as mentioned earlier, means for appealing a decision of the District Manager to the Administrator.
		Clarifications of a special extension can be approved for each applicable staggered limit and that a one-year extension, that the one-year extension tolls the subsequent yearly limit because we do believe because the annual extensions doesn't give much time to bring forth more technology, so as we're moving forward and we will continue to move forward, but we believe that that should toll that particular limit until it's met by implementing controls during the special extension.
		And without more formal procedures in place for granting the special extensions, we see potential problems addressing applicability.  Is it for a specific area in the mine or is it for an entire mine?  That was brought up a little bit earlier.
		We see the burden of proof is overwhelmingly placed on the operator without the benefit of appeal or recourse.  And I'm speaking of the proposed rules as they sit now.
		With that, I'll ask Mark to now discuss the site-specific issues on feasibility in implementing controls at the Greens Creek Mine.  We can take questions --
		MR. SEXAUER:  Fred, before we do that, I just want to state for the benefit of those in the audience the document that you've submitted to us at the beginning of your testimony, we will be scanning it and posting it on our web page and everyone will have access to those charts that are included in there and that will appear on our web page, just following the transcript.
		MR. FOX:  Okay, great.  
		MR. GOOD:  To pick up where Fred left off there, we want to talk a little bit about the feasible engineering controls that we've applied to this point and maybe speak to some of the infeasibilities as well.
		At the Greens Creek Mine, we've taken kind of like a multi-pronged approach in terms of trying to come into compliance with the DPM regulations.  Our first kick at the cat, as it were, was to try to put filters on the equipment as best we could and determine which piece of equipment was going to be applicable for it, so our first stabs at it were met with some levels of success and a lot of levels with failures.  But we've kind of refined things to the point now where we're a little bit more comfortable on applying acid filters on some of the equipment that we've got.  
		The mining equipment that we have in the fleet, effectively totals 83 pieces of equipment at this point of which 17 of them are haul trucks, mainly the big loaders or the heavy haulers, rather.  We've got 13 loaders of different sizes, the predominant production fleet is a total of 450 or 1250.  It's a 300 horsepower piece of equipment.  We've got a number of those.
		And then we've got some smaller ancillary loaders as well for the Bobcats and the like.  We also have 13 utility vehicles, powder trucks, scissor trucks, boom trucks and that type of thing.  They typically run around 150 horse.  We've got six graders and other kind of smaller utility things like forklifts and the like.
		A whole fleet of tractors, 50 horsepower, Kabota (Phonetic) tractors and then we've got a number of drills, both production jumbos and bolters.  Those ones typically are running about 85 to 100 horse diesel engines.  The filter technology we started playing around with in 2000 and that was basically before much was known about filters at that point, so we kicked off our trials with those and ended up with some failures on it.  The filters were loading up back pressuring and that type of thing.  
		We worked with the manufacturer to try to determine solutions to that, came up with some solutions in terms of insulating exhaust lines and wrapping the canisters with insulation, as well as the mounting of the tail pipes and that type of thing.  And we finally came up with a combination that worked for us and to this point we've installed virtually all of our heavy hauler fleet with passive filters.  They're working okay at this point and we have one active filtration system on a Caterpillar engine 3306, elephant stone loader that's working as well.
		We're still working towards the applications of filters on the low-duty cycle or the small equipment fleet.  We haven't come up with anything as yet that's going to be feasible for us at this point.  We're still trialing this.  We're going to be testing some active filtration systems on a couple of our powder trucks.  That will be happening this upcoming year and we'll probably talk to that at the end of the session here.  But as yet, the active filtration system is still an open question to us as to how effective and how applicable it's going to be fleet wide.
		I don't want to go through this verbatim because you've got it in front of you, so I'm just going to scan through quickly and -- the feasibility of equipment, medium to low duty cycle engines with the pass of an active filtration system we're looking at.  
		Logistical problems with that, I think, as a former speaker alluded to was parking lots or regeneration stations spread out throughout the mine.  That's obviously going to provide a lot of logistical problems for people trying to relocate the equipment up to a place where you can plug it in or regenerate it or basically haul the filters off board and regenerate them that way.  Those are not going to be particularly effective or efficient, I guess, in terms of utilization of that kind of technology.
		Some of the areas where we've got a staging area, for example, a tractor barn, where all of the tractors happen to be in a particular location at the beginning of the shift and we'll probably be able to make implementations that way, but in terms of having a scissor truck which is going to be used throughout the whole course of the mine from the top to the bottom, it may be parked at any point in the mine at the end of the shift and logistically, being able to provide areas for those regeneration stations is going to be really difficult from a logistical standpoint.
		On another note, talking to the environmental cabs, we've taken the stance where any piece of equipment that we can buy as a new capital purchase where it's applicable, where we're purchasing with environmental cabs and they've proven pretty effective in terms of reducing DPM exposures to the operator, but as you can see in some of the sampling that we've done, any place outside that cab to anybody who happens to be on foot is going to be subject to high DPM levels and there's nothing that an environmental cab is going to be able to provide for those people.
		As alluded to earlier by other comments, the environmental cabs are pretty expensive options for you.  They're going to be ranging anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000, $65,000 to retrofit a cab or even to buy it as an option.  It's typically fairly expensive.  
		Nonetheless, we have purchased a number of pieces of equipment with those cabs where we can find it's applicable, the jumbos and the bolters, for example, we've gone down that road, bearing in mind that we're not going to be able to get the equipment into all of our headings so it puts a burden on us from an administrative standpoint, to allocate those pieces of equipment to areas where we can actually fit them in the mine.
		So it's not a wholesale applicable control that you're going to be able to apply everywhere throughout the mine.
		Engine replacements.  We've embarked on a program beginning in 2003 to replace a number of the old two-cycle engines that we had in the property.  They were typically a Detroit 471 two-cycle engine which the filter manufacturers and others basically would not allow or they wouldn't allow so much that, it was the application of filter technology, ceramic model of filters wasn't applicable to it.  They produced far too much oil and other contaminants in the exhaust that would plug and occlude the ceramic filters and therefore, they wouldn't warrant the engines and the filter manufacturers wouldn't warrant their equipment either.  So we've gone on a program to replace all of those.  We've done quite a number of them.  I think we replaced about 8 or 10 of those underground.  We still have or three to go and that will be happening through the course of this upcoming year.  But when those ones are done, we'll only have say about five pieces of equipment that are still going to be dirty engines, but they're not going to be the kind of engine with a high enough duty cycle that we're going to be replacing any time soon.  
		But apart from that virtually every other piece of equipment is going to be either an MSHA-approved Deutsche, Mercedes or Detroit or Kabota (Phonetic) engine.  So we're going to be in pretty good shape that way.
		As far as ventilation is concerned, this year we're embarking on a program to upgrade ventilation where we can in the mine.  We have some severe restrictions at the Greens Creek property in terms of our location, physical location.  We're operating within a national monument.  We've got, I think, about 25 or 27 regulatory agencies that look over our shoulder and try to make sure that we're complying with water limits or EPA, you know, the whole nine yards.
		And so our ability to disturb surface footprints is pretty restrictive.  We just can't go and put a bore hole anywhere we choose.  But nonetheless, we are going to be trying to upgrade the mine by putting a couple of bore holes to an area that's already disturbed.  It will impact a portion of the mine, but it's not going to improve the conditions in the deeper parts of the mine at all.
		We've also upgraded our auxiliary ventilation circuitry, down underground.  We're trying to move more air to the headings where we can, move from 75 horsepower fans up to 100 horsepower fans, to try to get additional air moved to the faces which is where typically our higher DPM levels are. So over the course of the last four years, I think we've bought almost 20 fans to achieve that end.  
		So to summarize, the ventilation, we're currently moving at 250,000 to 300,000 CFM through the mine.  By the time the upgrades are done, we should be approaching about 450,000 CFM, but again, most of that air is only going to be surfacing the upper reaches of the mine and because of our cascading ventilation system, we won't be impacting materially the amount of air that gets down to the base of the mine.
		Administrative controls, we basically just educated the labor force there.  If they're queued for loading, the engines are off.  So we try to minimize the amount of idle time of the equipment operating within the mine.
		Some of the other things that we've done, Bill and George, you guys were part of the two-week collaborative effort that we put in on the filter efficiency study that we conducted up there.  A lot of the results are actually in here as well as far as the sampling was concerned.
		Conversion factor for the final limits.  I'll speak to that a little bit here.  Within the table at Attachment 4 and Attachment 5, basically compiled most of the sampling that we've done over the course of the years, dating back to 2000 and Attachment 4 has got a graph on there that speaks to the EC-TC ratio and I think this is probably been mirrored or reflected in a number of studies.  NIOSH has been doing work on this as well as our own and you can see as the EC level drops down or the total carbon level drops, the spread of the EC-TC ratio goes from 1.1 up to -- well, we've got one point there at 4.5 so when it comes to determining the EC-TC level as you guys already alluded to in terms of the final rulemaking, that's going to be a real important part.
		MR. FOX:  It was kind of interesting to note though, around the 400, we're at the 1.3.  There you go.  We're right on for some of it.
		MR. GOOD:  Our plan moving forward again, we're going to take a multi-faceted approach to this thing.  The engine replacement program will continue.  We're almost finished that.  We've been two and a half years into the makings on that effort.  And we're virtually done in that area. 
		The passive exhaust filter retrofit program, the last six confirmed passive filter candidates, we've done, so we've done temperature profiles on the exhaust gas temperatures.  The last six that we feel are going to be applicable and we've just received those filters actually in December, so they will be retrofitted into the equipment this first quarter coming up.  And then there's two other potential candidates.  We tested these things back in 2001 and they ran too cold, but duty that those two loaders have seen has changed which speaks to the dynamics of the game, you know, what might be applicable in one year, if you shift your equipment around or into a different location of the mine, it may change the rules somewhat.
		So there's two more additional passive filter candidates that we're going to evaluate this upcoming quarter.  As far as active regeneration filters are concerned, we're going to be doing temperature profiles on a number of the newer engines.  So I should speak to that a little bit.  We've replaced a number of the 471s with the Mercedes 904s.
		At the time, we hadn't done temperature profiles on the 471s because the filter technology wasn't going to be applicable anyway.  Now with the 904s in place, we can go ahead and test those out for temperature profiles.  Not only is the equipment running cleaner, just with the engine change out, but we might be able to filter those.  And in a couple of cases, I've already done temperature profiles on those things and they have met the threshold of the T30 on that.  So a number of the candidates are already a done deal.  But there's still, I think, about 10 of them outstanding that we don't know yet.
		Diesel engine maintenance training.  We've been in contact with the contractor out there in industry to do some education testing, education and program development for us.  He's been involved with BHP in the past and we're going to be looking at establishing a training program for our diesel mechanics to be able to test the emissions on our equipment.  
		Most of our stuff is electronically controlled, so the maintenance on it is going to be limited basically to intake filters and basically monitoring temperatures to some degree, but the actual middling around with torque-converter matching and injector maintenance and that kind of thing is going to be fairly limited for us.
		We brought to bear some of the resources of Rio Tinto.  We're a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto and their purchasing people are on the path now to source out biodiesel fuel suppliers in the West.  We just initiated that conversation back in December with our purchasing people and they're beating the bushes now to try to determine what we've got for biodiesel availability as well as fuel characteristics.  
		The cold temperature issues and storage is a problem for us.  Also, wet climates, biodiesel fuels may have a preponderance to soak up a lot of water and in our environment up there in the rainforest, that's a big issue for us.
		We also have issues with separate fuel streams.  We bring in fuel into a common tank farm at the Hawk Inlet and that services not only the underground fleet, but it services the diesel generation power for the mine, as well as the surface vehicle fleet and so what we may want to try out for biodiesel, specific to the underground environment where the DPMs are an issue, is going to be complicated by the fact that we might not be able to run them in diesel turbine.  Solar, the Caterpillar dealers, I have asked the question of them last month and they said that the only people that are currently running biodiesel fuels or planning to in their turbine generators for power is in Korea, I think it is.  So again, even the manufacturers don't know what effects the biodiesels are going to have on their specific piece of equipment.
		Separate fuel streams may entail additional tankage, additional freight or barge traffic up and down the coast.  It's not just as easy as phoning up somebody and asking for an 8,000 gallon tanker to roll into the site and run it underground.  We've also got a bunch of undetermined questions there regarding biodiesel fuels in terms of lubricity, you know, with the reduced sulphur content in the fuel or no sulphur content in the fuel.  How does that affect the actual chemical properties of the fuel?  What does it do to the injectors?  What does it do for that type of thing and can you put additives into the fuel, into biodiesel fuels that will compensate for some of the items that are going to be taken out in terms of going to ultra-low sulphur fuels or biodiesels.
		So our purchasing people have indicated that biodiesel is available in Seattle at a B2 blend which in speaking with most people, unless you're going to a B20 or a B50, you're not going to be doing much in terms of anything.  And the B2 blend in and of itself at a 2 percent biodiesel is I think they were saying is going to add between 20 and 25 cents a gallon cost to the fuel.  So again, we'll be getting more information on that as the months progress, but our purchasing people are on that one.
		Increased mine ventilation flows, we've -- we're in the process, I think we've had about a $6 million contract out there for mine infrastructure which includes about a thousand feet of development drifting  for ventilation drifts, as well as four -- I think they're close to 400 foot ventilation bore holes.  That should be completed by about August of this year.  
		We'll be putting an 84-inch diameter fan, 400 horse fan in place as well as a bunch of ventilation door controls to help increase the mine air flows in the upper reaches of the mine, but again because of the configuration of the mine, it's not going to affect the lower reaches very much at all.
		And the last thing on our list of control plans is the respirator program.  We do have a respirator program in effect, but actually committing a guy to wearing a respirator, based on DPM sampling is going to be one that we're going to need to come to grips with.  Do we need to go with a single sample or probably in all likelihood we're going to want to do an average over a number of shifts and a number of different operating environments to basically commit a guy to wearing a respirator for any length of time.
		I guess that summarizes our testimony.  
		MR. FOX:  We appreciate you listening to us again.
		MR. SEXAUER:  We probably have some questions up here.  
		Jim?
		MR. PETRIE:  Yes, I have a few.  The points that are plotted in Attachment 1 are the values that are listed in Attachment 4, is that correct?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes.
		MR. PETRIE:  It's a combination of MSHA samples?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes, and those are EC.  So where the MSHA sample has been totalled up as a total carbon, we backed that out to the 1.3 because that's the way it was put to us.
		MR. PETRIE:  It does seem to indicate quite an improvement over the years, particularly the samples taken in December of 2005.
		MR. FOX:  The story shows that improvement has been made, but we've still got the outliers out there which on a compliance sampling standpoint, it would still put us at risk and there's -- even at the 308, we're still over in a couple of instances there.
		MR. PETRIE:  On those outliers, particularly since there seem to be so few in the recent sampling, would you be able to provide us with a little more detail on the occupation or equipment or exactly what those particular ones were?
		MR. FOX:  They may even be on the table there, Jim, as far as the occupations are concerned.
		MR. PETRIE:  Okay.  Thank you.  In regards to respiratory protection, do you conduct medical evaluation currently of respirator wearers?
		MR. FOX:  We do PFTs before we put anybody in a respirator.  They have to pass PFT.
		MR. PETRIE:  Are those done just during pre-employment or annually?
		MR. FOX:  No, our respirator program encompasses not just DPM, but dust, particularly for lead -- we're a lead mine and if we get biological monitoring samples, blood leads that come high or spike high, then we put them into a respirator program until their levels come down to a point, but once they've been identified as a candidate for a respirator program, they go through the PFT evaluation.
		MR. PETRIE:  Is that on an annual basis?
		MR. FOX:  Not on an annual basis, just as they go into the program and then as their biological monitoring falls into compliance, then they can come voluntarily out of the program.
		MR. PETRIE:  Have you found many miners that are unable to wear a respirator?
		MR. FOX:  We haven't had anybody to date, but the number of miners that we've put into a program to respirators, rather, probably numbers under 10.
		MR. PETRIE:  Any information you could provide us with cost of the medical monitoring that you do, number of miners that you test, we would appreciate that.
		MR. FOX:  Okay.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Doris?
		MS. CASH:  Just in looking at -- I'll ask you the same as we've asked our other speakers, as you looked at diesel costs or alternative fuel costs, if you can include in your comments what type of costs you've had and what your experience has been with the supply and looking at things like delivery storage, what's going to affect your ability to use or continue to try such things.
		MR. FOX:  We can definitely get -- as Mark said, through the preparement group, costs on different suppliers, once it gets to the -- even getting it to the island and once it's on the island, there's going to be basically a list of things you've heard today.  I don't think we'll get into the engineering of facility and separating the systems, but we can at least point out some of the obstacles that we'll be looking at in implementing biodiesel.
		MR. GOOD:  This is still in its infancy.  WE're just getting going on the biodiesel stuff.  We know it was a hot button with MSHA, so we figured we better --
		MR. FOX:  Better put it down.
		(Laughter.)
		MS. CASH:  Okay, and also on the respiratory protection, if you could give us an indication on the number of miners that you require in your company policy, you know, as a result of your testing the miners that you've put into respiratory protection and typically how long they have to stay in such a program or if there's -- is this something that once they're in that, is it for a particular position and until other testing shows that they're not at high exposure.  I'm kind of interested in as you say, you've done your monitoring and there are circumstances where you would require them to be in a program, but it's also a question of how long and how long a shift is typically they would be required to wear a respirator.
		MR. GOOD:  That's going to be kind of a difficult comparison because most of the people that have gone into the respiratory program have been put into the program under other auspices, as opposed to DPMs specifically.
		MS. CASH:  Okay.
		MR. GOOD:  And I guess the difficult part for us to try to come to grips with is we've got a mine that's fairly spread out.  The miners, it's a nonunion operation so all of the miners or at least the Tech 5 miners are multi-tasking.  I guess they could be running a scoop for two hours.  They could be running a jumbo for an hour an a half.  They might be on a bolter after that.  
		And so their occupations vary through the course of a shift as well as they may be allocated to the lower parts of the 200 South for two and a half hours to muck out a round and then jump back up into one of the fresh air areas for two or three areas to bolt around and that type of thing.  So actually trying to pin down a specific occupation to a DPM exposure, one, by occupation is difficult; and two, by where he happens to be in the mine is another difficult one.  
		Going back to speaking to how long a miner would be in a respirator, a respirator program, for example, is a real hard one to try to put your finger on.  I mean biologically, if we do it for lead dust, once your blood lead has dropped down below 20 micrograms or 15 micrograms or whatever it is, then you can come out of the program, but if we've got high DPM levels in one certain area of the mine and that guy may be in there for three hours and out and then back in, how do you quantify that?
		MS. CASH:  Okay, so you would be requiring them say if you knew that they were going to be in an area where they'd have high DPM, then he'd be required to wear the respirator while he's in that area and then if he went to say an upper level of the mine where you have better ventilation, where you feel that he might not be over-exposed, then he wouldn't be wearing the respirator then.  He would only be wearing it in the areas where he's below --
		MR. GOOD:  Yes, this kind of goes around to how we do the sampling because then we're into area sampling as opposed to personal sampling which goes against what the MSHA compliance sampling does.
		MS. CASH:  I understand.
		MR. FOX:  We're going to struggle with this, Doris, and it's very important.  We need to come up with an internal procedure to identify areas and occupations and that's what we're going to have to work on, but what we can do in the comment period is provide some of the maybe unique and maybe not so unique hurdles that we would have to overcome to put a program in place.
		MS. CASH:  All right, thank you.  That would be helpful.
		MR. FOX:  Yes.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Bill?
		MR. POMROY:  Yes.  Hi.  You have indicated on Attachment 4 -- 
		MR. SEXAUER:  Excuse me, Bill.  Could you speak into the microphone, please?
		MR. POMROY:  You've indicated on Attachment 4 some sampling done by Greens Creek.  Can you comment a little bit on the methodology used or, if possible --
		MR. FOX:  All of the sampling that we have done to date has been using the NIOSH 5040 method.  I think the lab that we used was Golsom (Phonetic) Labs in New York.  
		The sampling during the 31 mine study was side by side sampling, so whenever I think it was Larry Mackin put a filter on.  We put one on the same place as he did, so the ones that are highlighted in yellow are side by side samplings and that goes to show the variability of the TC/EC relationship as well as the variability within the actual sample.  You know, the MSHA samples were all analyzed at the PRL and ours went out to an independent lab.
		But in answer to your question, all of the Greens Creek filters, the samples that we took were all analyzed with the NIOSH 5040.
		MR. POMROY:  Do you know if you had occasion to take some extra information about possible interferences upstream or close by or what not?
		MR. GOOD:  The only notes on that were kind of sketchy.
		MR. POMROY:  Can you elaborate a little bit on the frequency of miners that are close to equipment fitted with the environmental cabs, working the same area or downstream?  I guess I'm trying to get a handle on how many miners might be affected when equipment is running.
		MR. GOOD:  As far as environmental cabs are concerned, I think we've got a total of 14 pieces of equipment that have got environmental cabs on it out of the 83 pieces of equipment, so it's not a real high percentage.
		The guys that would be in environmental cabs on any given shift would probably number about eight or nine, perhaps and then out of a work force of -- oh gosh, I'm just -- out of a labor force of perhaps 30 guys underground at any point in time, only nine of those guys will be in a cab.  Everybody else will be either open cab or pedestrian or mechanics or whatever.
		So you're probably looking at 60 percent, 70 percent of labor force not in a cab.
		MR. POMROY:  Thanks.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  Mark, let's see, I've got you at 30 haul trucks and loader from your inventory here, 30.
		MR. GOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  Seventeen haul trucks, 13 loaders and so you're saying that all 30 of those are now with -- equipped with ceramic filters?
		MR. GOOD:  No.  Out of the 17 haul trucks, the heavy haulers are all outfitted with them.  So I believe we've got six of those and the back fill fleet has got filters on board as well.  But there are a number of trucks, we've got fuel trucks -- let me rack this up --
		MR. SASEEN:  Would that be utility?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes.  
		(Pause.)
		MR. SASEEN:  Would it be easier if you broke this down in your written comments?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes.  I think so, George.  I could do it for you, but it would take up everybody's time.
		MR. SASEEN:  That's okay.  No, if you could break down what -- where you got your filters on your haul trucks and your loaders and I guess what I was getting to, looking at what is filtered versus what is not filtered, do you feel that or have any idea that by filtering those other machines, that would help bring you into compliance with the lower limit?
		MR. GOOD:  It's going to help a bit, but it's not going to be the answer because most of those other utility vehicles, the utilization of those things are going to be somewhere 10 to 20 percent utilization, so their contribution to DPM into the atmosphere is fairly limited.
		Going back to your previous question, our haul trucks, 17 haul trucks, 13 of those have got filters.  Of the loaders, we've only got 2 of them on with another 2 slated for -- 4 actually, 4 slated for refitment here this quarter.  So we'll have roughly half the loader fleet outfitted with filters by the summer and all of the haul trucks should be outfitted with filters by this summer.  The other loaders that we've got are little bobcats and that type of thing, so they're really not applicable.
		MR. SASEEN:  You're not including those bobcats under the 13 loaders, are you?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  Oh, okay.  That was a little confusing.
		Yeah, if you could maybe break that down, that would -- have you considered in your plan you talk about looking at active systems, but have you decided to look at any disposable filter technology with heat exchangers?
		MR. GOOD:  Not really.  Most of our equipment, well, it's not permissible gear, so we're running turbos on virtually everything.  So no, we haven't even gone down that path to look at -- a water tank and heat exchangers and all that kind of stuff, to try to cool the temperatures down to the point where we could put disposable filters.  We want to try to tackle other opportunities before we go down that road.
		MR. SASEEN:  And have you looked into any of the automotive type vehicles for some of your replace -- because they're further ahead on the reductions of emissions for some of your -- maybe some of your tractors.  Have you looked into that?
		MR. GOOD:  It has been brought up by our parent company, mainly from a seating capacity and seat belts -- they like to see everybody with seat belts and seating and that type of thing, but we haven't been able to come up with a vehicle out there that is as maneuverable as a Kabota (Phonetic) tractor that can turn around in 10 or 12 feet, that type of thing.
		I think the tractors, we may be able to tackle those things with a swap on/swap out type of filter, but we haven't tested them yet.
		MR. SASEEN:  Thanks.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Bill?
		MR. POMROY:  Kennecott is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto?
		MR. FOX:  Yes.
		MR. POMROY:  Are they -- is Rio Tinto looking at DPM controls in other underground mines outside the U.S.?
		MR. FOX:  They're looking at us.
		MR. GOOD:  Yes, we're kind of -- definitely yes, the answer is.  There's not that many Rio Tinto underground mines.  In fact, there's two on the horizon that are looking at us as leading the way for what's feasible or not.
		MR. FOX:  We did have a sister company in Sweden, Zincgruven (Phonetic) because they're in the European group there, were looking at -- they were applying filters there and they were also into the European USLF fuel which I think was 10 or 15 PBM or something like that.
		But they were handcuffed because they had their regulations were 1 PBM NO2 in the air where ours is about triple that.
		MR. POMROY:  What type of filters were they looking at?
		Did they actually use some?
		MR. FOX:  They couldn't use a catalyzed filter at all.  They had to go with active filters and they were using silicon carbides and they had some problems with the robustness of the silicon carbide in the mining environment.  They'd break up and that type of thing.  So they were having some issues with that, primarily related to the NO2 production.  
		MR. POMROY:  Have you guys looked at the Riposte (Phonetic) filter system, the centered metal filter?
		MR. FOX:  We were introduced to it in October of this up at a conference up in Toronto.  At that point, they were trialing it.  My information was that they were trialing it on fixed point generators.  They hadn't put them into a mobile fleet at that point.  We're still keeping our finger on the pulse of that to see how effective that's going to be.  But to my knowledge yet, I haven't gotten any information that tells me that they put it into a mining environment yet.
		MR. POMROY:  You had mentioned that you're going to be trialing some active systems on a couple of powder trucks this year?  Do you know, have you narrowed down what system you might be trying?
		MR. GOOD:  Well, there's a couple of candidates out there.  We're looking at DCLs, blue sky system, and then there's also an emission control system, ECS, I think it is.  They've got an active system on there that -- that would have to be a plug 
--
		MR. POMROY:  I guess that was my next question.  Are you strictly looking at on-board regeneration for these active systems?
		MR. GOOD:  No, we're an open book right now.  The ones that are going to be in the 150 horse range are going to have to be on-board because they just can't see us swapping on a 60 or 70-bound filter on a shift by shift basis.  That's not going to work for us, both from a logistics standpoint and from an ergonomics and health standpoint.  Somebody is going to twink a back for sure doing that.
		So the swappable filters, we're looking for the Kabota (Phonetic) tractor fleet, the little ones that are six or eight-inch diameter, something like that, but the bigger ones, 150 horse utility fleet is going to have to be a plug-in style and it may  not be applicable.  I'm just a little nervous about having an electrically regenerated filter cooking off around the powder truck and expecting things to work perfectly all the time.
		MR. POMROY:  Do you know if an engine is installed in those powder trucks?
		MR. GOOD:  Actually, the two powder trucks are up for a 904 retrofit this quarter.
		MR. POMROY:  Okay.  Maybe you answered this already.  I apologize if you already did, but the data points that are listed on the chart in Attachment 4, those are the same ones that are included in the tables?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes.
		MR. POMROY:  In Attachment 4 and also on Attachment 1, it's all just a compilation of all that.
		Would it be possible maybe in your written submittal to regraph the data in the chart on Attachment 4 so it would show which data points were developed during which time period, the early data from 2001 versus the 2002, 2003 and so on?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes, I could do that.
		MR. POMROY:  That would be helpful.  That's all I have.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  Mark, in your written submission, could you give us some information on the number of hours you're getting on your ceramic filters for your passive systems?
		MR. GOOD:  Yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  And what manufacturer you're going with and maybe what -- also any costs associated with filters.  And then the last thing would be what type of cleaning cycle you have for the ash removal?
		MR. GOOD:  That's on a 250-hour basis.  We're bringing equipment in.  It's just part of the PM.  The equipment rolls in on a 250-hour basis, so we pull a filter and blow it out.
		MR. SASEEN:  Okay.
		MR. GOOD:  And do that.
		MR. SASEEN:  Is that what's recommended by the filter manufacturer?
		MR. GOOD:  No, they recommend a 1,000-hour interval.
		MR. SASEEN:  But as far as blowing them out, is there any other procedure that they recommend for ash removal that you're aware of?
		MR. GOOD:  No, just removal of the ash.
		MR. SASEEN:  Just blowing it out.
		MR. FOX:  Shop air.
		MR. GOOD:  Just shop air.  Oh, I mean there's different things out there.  I think ECS has got a little shop vac thing that they've got -- what do they call it?  Cone B (Phonetic) filter cleaner, whatever it is.  So I mean there's compressed air.  There's vacuums.  There's different varieties of things that we can use.
		MR. SASEEN:  Okay.  Thanks.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Jim, any questions?
		MR. PETRIE:  Yes.  Mark, I believe you mentioned that your miners multi-task, that they work on a number of different types of equipment during a given shift, performing different tasks, even working in different areas or levels of the mine. 
		Do you have any strategy that you could suggest on how MSHA would determine where and when those miners found over-exposed would be required to wear respirators?
		MR. GOOD:  That's a tricky one.  In fact, there was a number of samples -- I think it was during the 31 Mine Study that a couple of the samples were voided because we were trying to get readings on the powder operator, for example, and the guy changed positions halfway through the shift and he handed off the sample pump to his on-coming partner that was hot changing with him, so that voided the sample.  But that's the kind of thing you're up against.
		In terms of coming up with a strategy for determining compliance on that, it would just have to be on a given basis.  The inspector would come on to the site and you'd have to stipulate, okay, you're going to have to drive a truck for the whole day and that's all there is to it.
		MR. SASEEN:  Any thoughts you might have on that in that regard, I would appreciate it.
		MR. GOOD:  Okay.
		MR. SEXAUER:  I think that's all the questions.  I want to thank you, gentlemen.
		What we're going to do now is we're going to break for lunch.  Obviously, my projections have been off, as far as the time.
		We've had five speakers.  We have five more that are signed up and then maybe others who would like to speak following that.
		So what we'll do is we'll break.  I have 23 after 12.  Why don't we break until 1:30 and resume promptly at 1:30.  And we'll just continue at that point.
		Okay, we're off the record now.
		(Whereupon, at 12:23 p.m., the public hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p.m.)







	A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N  S-E-S-S-I-O-N
	1:30 P.M.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Let's go back on the record.  We'll now resume the hearing and the next speaker is David Graham.
		MR. GRAHAM:  Good afternoon.  My name is David Graham.  I'm the Manager of Safety and Health for General Chemicals Soda Ash Partners in Green River, Wyoming.  We operate an underground trono mine in Green River and use diesel equipment which is impacted by this proposed rule.
		I also serve as the chairman of the MARG Diesel Coalition, a group of companies supported by their trade associations and it leads the industry in scientific and engineering research efforts regarding the safe use of diesel equipment in underground mines.
		Accompanying me today is Henry Shiette (Phonetic), senior partner of Patton Boggs, LLP and counsel to the MARG Group.
		The diesel rulemaking record contains MARG comments and testimony at every stage of this rulemaking proceeding and it will be supplemented with our detailed written documents before the end of the comment period.
		The concepts underlying the MARG participation in this rulemaking have never changed.  MARG members are committed to aggressively protecting all personnel from hazards in the workplace, including any hazards that might be posed by diesel exhaust.  MARG members support sound, scientific research to identify, evaluate and prevent hazards and engineering research to assist in the effort to protect personnel.  And MARG members support sound regulations and fair enforcement that further safety and health.
		The MSHA proposed rule does not further safety and health.  It's inconsistent with sound science, engineering and good government principles and violates almost every duty Congress imposed on MSHA regarding the issuance of new standards.
		The written comments MARG and its members will file for the record will demonstrate this conclusion beyond any doubt.  We testified to express our disappointment in the inability of the Secretary of Labor and her Agency, MSHA, to correct what MSHA itself has acknowledged to be a flawed rule.  We hope that the Agency will recognize the errors of this rulemaking before the Courts are forced to act.  
		Rather than responding to each specific MSHA request for comments, as we will do in our written comments, I emphasize the following reasons that MSHA must delete the 160 microgram PEL which is neither supported by health risks, nor feasible regardless of whether it is expressed as TC or EC and regardless of whether it is phased in with yearly reductions until 2011.
		The January 2001 DOL MSHA rule that stated this controversy was rushed and premature, published on the last day of President Clinton's Administration.  The publication violated specific bipartisan congressional directives mandating that any diesel exhaust rule be informed by the congressionally-funded, multi-million dollar NIOSH NCI Study to determine if diesel exhaust poses potential health effects and if so, safe levels of exposure.  At great expensive and disruption, MARG members and their employees, including my company and my fellow miners, provided the mine sites, sampling access and extensive records access for the on-going study of 14,000 miners that use diesel equipment since it was originally introduced in mining 30 plus years ago.
		The NIOSH NCI Study is expected to be completed some time in 2006 or 2007.  Thankfully, as shown by the comments of Dr. Chase contained in the rulemaking record, the first NIOSH NCI preliminary data releases confirmed our experience that there was no excess cancer or disease found among our workforce as a whole.  The 160 microgram MSHA diesel exhaust limit issued in January 2001 was the product of proven conflicts of interest, violating DOL ethical rules, demonstrated by the deposition testimony of MSHA official Thomas Tom, submitted to the rulemaking record by MARG.  
		The 2001 rule was flawed, not only because there was no proven health risk from diesel exhaust particulate, generally, that MSHA did not even know what constituent of the thousands of minuscule diesel exhaust participates presents a health risk or should be measured or controlled.
		Instead of relying on already regulated diesel exhaust gas limits to provide protection until the NIOSH NCI Study was complete, like OSHA, DOT, the Coast Guard, the FRA and other agencies that regulate diesel safety, the MSHA conflicted author selected the now withdrawn ACGIH total carbon limit for diesel exhaust as MSHA's regulated substance.
		The 2001 premature MSHA rule adopted this flawed basis and regulated the total carbon content of diesel exhaust, even though MARG and NIOSH NCI research had demonstrated that total carbon could not be accurately measured and was not a feasible surrogate for diesel exhaust.
		Millions of dollars and countless time was spent by MSHA and the industry to prove again what the industry and NIOSH had already proven, that regulation of total carbon was invalid, if for no other reason because it was not feasible to measure.
		Finally, MSHA reluctantly admitted this error, acknowledging the need to amend the rule and stop its attempt at regulating total carbon, yet, MSHA repeatedly was informed by independent experts, including Dr. Jonathan Borack and his team from the Yale University School of Medicine, that elemental carbon, while perhaps easier to measure, did not pose a health risk and did not have any consistent relationship to total carbon, nor to levels of diesel exhaust.
		MSHA has admitted that the relationship between elemental carbon and total carbon is not stable and varies from mine to mine, day to day, place to place within a mine in a statistically significant manner.
		The scientific data on the conversation of total carbon to elemental carbon poses an independent and insurmountable legal obstacle to converting the 160 final total carbon limit to an elemental carbon limit.  Unless a settlement agreement is reached that waives the need for sound science to support a limit, and establishes an uncontested EC settlement limit.  MARG compromised and settlement efforts have been rejected, yet MSHA actions to force a rulemaking result to preserve the invalid MSHA final limit is not a response MARG believes will survive review by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
		The rulemaking record is replete with the modifications and changes that MSHA was forced to make to the diesel exhaust measurement method that it admitted for its premature 2001 rule.  
		Seemingly, every major element of MSHA's designed 2001 method to collect and analyze diesel exhaust, carbon samples failed and required repeated redesign, including the filter used to capture particulate, the cassette used to hold the filter, the laboratory device and method used to analyze the particulate collected for carbon and the methods of determining whether the collected material was actually diesel exhaust or other carbon-based material, like cigarette smoke, oil mist, explosives, blasting particulate and even carbon from the mineral being mined, all of which interfered with obtaining accurate results.
		To this day, there is little confidence in the MSHA diesel carbon measurement and analysis method adopted by the rule for enforcement.  And no other federal agency is using it or has proposed it for the enforcement of diesel exhaust limits.
		Drs. Borack, Cohen and Hall published peer-reviewed articles and provided comments to the MSHA rulemaking, informing MSHA that measuring diesel exhaust at low levels, measuring total carbon and measuring the 160 PEL were neither feasible nor accurate.
		MSHA's Federal Register response to these scientific comments was to acknowledge its inability to measure total carbon with accuracy, but to cite its own nonpublished, nor peer-reviewed studies as statistical analysis of multiple punches taken from the same filters, they claimed to prove that measurements were accurate and feasible, including measurements at its 160 PEL for elemental carbon.
		After repeatedly attempting to obtain the MSHA Federal Register cited punch to punch analysis data, data was delivered by MSHA to MARG experts last week.  At best, the data appears to present a scientific slight of hand.
		MSHA Federal Register statements claim that its data supported a conclusion of reliable, repeatable, carbon sampling results at low levels, including the 160 PEL.  MSHA criticized an analysis by MARG experts as a limited database and claimed a far larger punch to punch database which results supporting its accuracy and precision conclusion.  Yet, when the data finally was delivered last week, it included the analysis where a large percentage of filter blanks or controls and static backup filters that had never been used as the primary filter for the collection of diesel exhaust samples.
		These nonexposed filters would produce very low, almost negligible carbon results, driving down the MSHA punch to punch analytic difference and acting as false proof of the accuracy of the MSHA carbon measuring system.  It just wasn't right.
		Moreover, the disingenuous MSHA Federal Register response to sound, scientific evidence proving the lack of accurate measurements used an MSHA-created, computer Monte Carlo analysis that generated 10,000 hypothetical results until the Monte Carlo predicted that actual, flawed MSHA fuel data was consistent with meeting the NIOSH accuracy criteria.
		The MSHA analysis, like a Monte Carlo prediction of holding a winning lottery ticket, can prove almost any data accurate when run thousands of times around a fixed mean and a predetermined coefficient of variability.
		Our written comments will document these specific abuses that the Data Quality Act was supposed to prevent and that they are contrary to statutory MSHA rulemaking duties to base rules on sound, scientific evidence.
		We are disappointed in the DOL MSHA rejection of our petition for Data Quality Act correction and their decision to respond only as part of the rulemaking, essentially negating the Data Quality Act.  We cannot imagine White House approval of such a tactic to render congressionally-mandated OMB review meaningless.
		MSHA was forced to admit that its January 2001 conclusion that its TC limits were feasible was wrong.  Thankfully, the invalid limits were repeatedly postponed beyond the effective dates announced in January 2001.  MARG endorses all extensions needed to achieve the deletion of the unsupported 160 final limit.  
		The 400 total carbon limit was implemented as an interim, partial settlement agreement level to be enforced as an agreed-to elemental carbon equivalent, regardless of data that there was no consistent correlation between elemental carbon and total carbon.  And, regardless of MSHA sampling and NIOSH testing evidence that feasibility continued to be elusive for a significant percentage of the industry that would need extensions, even from the interim settlement agreement goal.
		The interim partial settlement agreement mandated a single expedited rulemaking proceeding to address the flaws of the final limit and to convert the interim limit to a measurable limit.  MSHA violated that agreement repeatedly by not acting expeditiously to address the final limit and in June 2005, acted only on the interim limit conversion to elemental carbon.
		Today, 30 plus percent of the industry continues not to be in compliance with the 308 elemental carbon interim limit based on the MSHA single sample enforcement scheme and MSHA collected samples as demonstrated by the latest data compilation and analysis MARG submitted for the record.
		MSHA sampling results and NIOSH testing demonstrate that the 160 final limit is not feasible for 90 to 95 percent of the industry which continues to be out of compliance with the final limit, five years, after MSHA concluded that it was feasible in its 2001 Federal Register adoption.
		Out of compliance with the MSHA limit means that miners will be forced to wear respirators for unproven health hazards at carbon exposure levels that MSHA admits are not related to health effects, out of compliance with the MSHA limits as determined by MSHA based on one single sample.  The respirators will not constitute compliance and miners will be forced to experiment with unproven, engineering controls to try and achieve compliance.
		Out of compliance means that MSHA will issue citations and penalties and when the citations cannot be abated because engineering controls are not available, the mines will be at risk of closure orders, even while the miners are wearing respirators.  Since MSHA has no real world experience whatsoever with diesel particulate measurements, levels or controls for mining equipment when it issued its 2001 rule, the rule was based on assumptions that have been proven to be invalid.
		MSHA used an estimator to determine its rules were feasible, another computer model.  This one assumed critical ventilation data incorrectly and assumed that not yet tested, often nonexistent retrofit engine particulate filters were feasible, available and would achieve compliance.  It didn't happen.
		NIOSH testing over the last five years has proven the invalidity of the MSHA feasibility conclusion and of the MSHA rule itself with the Stillwater Mine tests serving as an absolute proof of the invalidity of MSHA assumptions.  The June 5, 2005 Federal Register acknowledges that the current DPM rulemaking record lacks sufficient feasibility documentation to justify lowering DPM limits below 308 elemental carbon micrograms per milligram cubed at this time, 70 Federal Register at 32916.
		Real world conditions and testing and MSHA compliance sampling have forced repeated acknowledgements by MSHA of the original rule's invalidity and of the need to make massive corrections and issue extensions for the limits imposed by the rule.  While extensions of invalid regulatory limits are better than letting the limits go into effect, they are neither the best result nor a reliable method of assuring the future for mines and miners that produce critical materials for our nation's economy.
		The current MSHA proposed rule, phasing in the effective data of a 160 PEL over the next six years perpetuates the lack of validity of the rule itself.  There is no evidence whatsoever that the 160, either total carbon or elemental carbon, is valid or feasible.  Nothing has changed since the MSHA June 2005 conclusion.
		There is no evidence whatsoever to support a new MSHA assumption and the proposed rule that every year from 2006 to 2011 the industry can phase in artificially scheduled reductions in elemental carbon levels.  Mines and miners have no basis to believe that MSHA would endlessly grant extensions from rules and limits that are neither justified nor valid until unknown technology is available to achieve the limits or science further proves and MSHA admits that the limit should be deleted or changed.
		Existing petitions for extensions by mines that clearly cannot comply with current limits have not been granted and citations going unabated creating the possibility of closure orders.  There is no evidence that MSHA will adopt this proposed rule and act to extend the new compliance deadlines repeatedly year after year in a timely fashion as its phased-in levels are triggered by the calendar, not by the development of feasible controls which simply do not exist today and are not expected in the foreseeable future for all mines.
		The MSHA proposed rule requires unsupported presumptions that feasible engineering controls exist and that health hazards are tied to the reduced levels.  Rather, MSHA, meeting a statutory mandate of basing new rules on the best available scientific evidence that supports its rules, MSHA again proposes rules that it already has admitted do not comply with the statutory mandates.
		The rule proposes to grant mine operators the opportunity to prove to MSHA that its presumed feasibility conclusion is inapplicable to their mine, a near impossible goal given the feasibility presumption already made by MSHA.
		Given underlying lack of any health risk evidence tied to MSHA's final limit or various proposed interim limits on elemental carbon and the lack of evidence to support the feasibility of the limits, the only valid course of action is for MSHA to delete the final limit and the phased-in scheduled limits or for the Courts to invalidate it.
		Phased implementation is not a substitute for regulations that are mandated to be based on sound, scientific and engineering evidence.  
		I appreciate the opportunity to express my concerns and those of the MARG Group.  I thank you for your consideration and attention.
		Are there any questions?
		MR. SEXAUER:  Does anyone have any questions?
		MR. PETRIE:  Yes, I do.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Jim.
		MR. PETRIE:  I'm just wondering what is the experience at your mind of controlling DPM with controls, have you tried and what success or lack of success have you found and will you be submitting information on that?
		MR. GRAHAM:  We have from the beginning, actually, started with a maintenance program.  Looking at the rule we had, coming out of the NIOSH study, our numbers were significant based on, actually, based on the way that they were testing them at the time and of course, that analysis has changed somewhat since then.  But our biggest push has come from the maintenance aspects.  We have a gassy mine.  We have three gassy mines.  And we put a lot of air underground, 1.2 to 1.5 million cubic feet per minute of air.  So we're pushing a lot of air down there.  We liberate anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 million cubic feet a day of methane, so we have to have a lot of air which helps us.
		But what we did see is the fact that certain jobs that were done, similar to Mike Crum's testimony for FMC in the long wall moves, it takes four to six weeks.  They obviously had situations that put them over the 400.  Very similar to us, we do not have a long wall, but we have bore miners and continuous miners.  In those instances where we move from one panel to another, when a panel finishes up and we move to another panel, we too, have a situation where the limits are exceed, the 400 is exceeded.
		Inside the maintenance practices that we used, we got an emissions tester.  So we established a baseline for all our engines.  Now one of the assumptions that MSHA made at the time was there was going to be a turnover of equipment.  Well, I wish that was true.  
		I have a Jeep.  I started out there in 1979.  My Jeep was brand new in 1978.  I'm driving the same Jeep.  Different engine, but the same Jeep.  We don't turnover equipment very quick.  We rebuild engines.  We're a commodity chemical business.  We don't turn over a fleet in five years.  We don't turn over a fleet in 10 years.  To be honest with you, I don't think we turn over a fleet in 20 years.
		We continue to use what we have.  We have got to survive.  So one of the things that we looked at was the maintenance practice, okay?  And it helped.  You know?  The one thing that it did, it forced us to take a look at that and do things that we probably should have been doing before.  And it helped.
		We tried the biodiesel too, we looked at that.  But similar to what Steve Wood indicated, we're a little bit remote also.  We're a little bit aways from anywhere.  We're three and a half hours, three hours from Salt Lake; four or five hours from Casper, Wyoming; four hours, five hours from Twin Falls, Idaho.  And these are places that have the capabilities for us to get biodiesel.
		Like I said, we used it before.  One of the problems we had, we didn't have the expertise at the time to do the testing to see if it really helped any.  Some of the guys liked it.  For whatever reason, said it smelled better, if that's any indication of what we should use it for, then we'll use it.  But we really didn't do the testing that we probably should have done to determine if it had an effect.
		MR. PETRIE:  Do you know what mixture you were using?
		MR. GRAHAM:  It was a 20 percent blend.  
		MR.          :  We're going to be submitting for the record a map of available biodiesel distribution centers and information about biodiesel costs and price supports which are due to expire next year, as I understand it, and information about the increase in cost of biodiesel that has substantially impacted its availability and usability in the mining business.
		So we'll be submitting that information for the record.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  Yes.  How many permissible pieces of equipment do you have compared to your total fleet?
		MR. GRAHAM:  I think we have six pieces, six pieces of permissible equipment, 913s.  And we may have two load tracks.
		You know, the thing is with our engines, most of our -- most of the stuff going back to actually your question, Jim.  We didn't try any of the filtering mechanism type stuff because our engines are all pretty much low horsepower.  I mean they're like 70, 80 horsepower.  Eighty-five percent, I think of our fleet, is below 70 horsepower.  So there's really -- I mean there's really nothing out there to try at this point as far as a filtering mechanism that we're aware of that's going to fit within our mine.
		The permissible equipment, the 913s, the load tracks and things like that, we don't know how to approach that yet from a filtering standpoint.  And these are old pieces.  I mean these 913s aren't new.  I mean they were the old Ineco (Phonetic) 913s.  They're not new stuff.
		The load tracks and stuff, the wagons, they're relatively new.  And I say that relatively new to us is five years.  That's new.  So we do have some newer stuff that we can try, if there's something out there that's available to us.
		MR. SASEEN:  Do you conduct medical evaluation of respirator wearers?
		MR. GRAHAM:  We do.
		MR. SASEEN:  Is it annual or --
		MR. GRAHAM:  We do it as a pre-employment physical and then if they're required to wear respirators, we have them do it and do it on an annual basis.  We've done that for years.  And I've heard that question asked many times.  I appreciate asking the question, but just because we do it, doesn't necessarily mean that it ought to be a standard there that makes us do it.  There's a lot of people that's already admitted to doing that which is a good business practice, guys.  You know that.  We know that.  But does that necessarily mean that we have to have it mandated under MSHA that we do this type of thing?  I don't think so.
		MR.          :  Particularly for diesel exhaust where MSHA's own statements admit that the dose response relationship is not agreed to in the scientific community and that there's no particular number for elemental carbon or total carbon that's tied to any particular health effect.  So to engage the respirator issue for diesel exhaust, makes no sense to the MARG Group whatsoever. 
		Respirator issues are generic.  They apply to every dust and every substance that MSHA regulates.  MSHA has a respirator rule and that respirator rule is subject to rulemaking should the Agency so choose.
		But to change the respirator rule only for diesel exhaust when there's an admission that the scientific evidence isn't there for specific health effects, for specific items like elemental or total carbon and at what level, makes no sense.
		And by the way, when you're thinking of the MARG Coalition, we want you to think of the fact that the Coalition represents a broad spectrum of mining operations from limestone mines underground, to trona mines with differing ventilation to the salt mines to the gold mines to the Stillwater mine, from the large to the small or medium, the variety of horsepowers, all of these mining operations that have been the leaders and the research, both health effects on the NIOSH side and engineering on the NIOSH side, all of these MARG numbers have come to this conclusion for the variety of types of mines that are out there and the variety of the conditions.  We're not speaking from just one perspective, but from a broad perspective.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you, gentlemen.  Our next speaker is David Ortlieb.  I'm sorry if I mispronounce that.  It's a little hard to read it here.  Is David available?
		MR. ORTLIEB:  I have a worker panel with me today.  My name is Dave Ortlieb.  I am Assistant Director in the United Steelworkers Health and Safety and Environment Department.  The USW represents 850,000 workers in North America, including the majority of unionized metal and nonmetal miners, both in the United States and Canada.  
		Before I begin my formal remarks, I would like to share with the group that a long time safety and health staff person with the USW Health and Safety Department who specialized in MSHA issues for over a couple of decades, Harry Tuggle, died on Saturday from prostate cancer.  I imagine a number of you in the room knew of him or knew him.  His funeral is tomorrow in Pittsburgh.  Memorial contributions may be made to the Beachview United Presbyterian Church, 1621 Broadway Avenue, Pittsburgh 15216.  Tributes or condolences can be made via www.woodrufffamilyservices.com.  We'll miss him very much.  Thank you.
		With me today are Brad Shorey, President of our Local Union 11-0001 which represents the miners at the Stillwater Mine in Nime (Phonetic), Montana; along with Mike Simpson, the full-time Health and Safety Rep for the Local at the mine.
		In our comments today, and in a much longer written material that we will be submitting later in January, the USW will be leveling strong criticism against MSHA's proposal that tries to weaken the standard that protects thousands of American miners from cancer-causing diesel exhaust.
		As stated by the president of the USW, Leo W. Gerrard in September of 2005, the Administration's proposal puts the lives of our members at risk.  This is the second time MSHA has tried to gut the standard.  Miners, in fact, all Americans have the right to expect better from their government.
		This is a very sad day indeed for MSHA for this is the first time that MSHA, as well as the entire Department of Labor or OSHA, has attempted to significantly weaken a major health standard that is already in place.  Make no mistake about our position.  We honor the history of the Agency and its past values and are greatly appreciative for all the dedicated work of the MSHA staff, both in Arlington and in the field.  However, our mission, the USW's mission, is to prevent the senseless and horrible diseases and deaths that miners will have to suffer and the pain and the undescribable agony that the families and loved ones will have to endure.  
		If MSHA's mission is ultimately successful, many miners throughout the United States will continue to risk cancer and serious respiratory diseases.  Some miners will pay the ultimate price and will become the next generation of workers to die from occupational diseases.  This is unacceptable to the USW.
		Underground miners experienced the highest level of exposure to diesel particulate matter of any population in the U.S., much higher than the limit of 160 micrograms per cubic meter.  They have experienced such exposures since diesel particulate matter was identified as a carcinogen over 20 years ago by NIOSH. The time period is the average latency for the development of lung cancer.  Latency is the time from first exposure to development of a tumor, as you know.  In other words, a miner who entered the industry 20 years ago, has already accumulated a significant risk of disease as a direct result of delay in this rulemaking.  Furthermore, it is the USW's position that the 160 limit measured as total carbon is not adequate.
		According to risk assessments by NIOSH and others, this limit would not reduce miners' lifetime risk associated with exposure to diesel particulate matter to less than one in one thousand.  
		The current diesel exhaust final limit of 160 total carbon is scheduled to become effective later this spring.  When the standard was made law in 2001, mine operators were given five years to comply with the limit, as you know.  MSHA and NIOSH gave the mining industry an extraordinary amount of help in the form of compliance assistance and research into feasible, practicable and relatively inexpensive controls.  The USW agreed to a change in the standard that will give individual mine operators an unlimited number of special extensions where they can demonstrate the need.
		None of that, unfortunately, was enough for some operators or their trade associations.  While some operators have made a good-faith effort to lower exposures and come into compliance, history shows that all too many will wait until the day that government finally has the power to cite them and impose penalties.
		MSHA now proposes to delay that day for five more years.  Reopening the record gives others the opportunity to argue that the standard should be weakened further, perhaps to the point where the day of reckoning never comes at all.
		This is different from most other rulemakings in that a standard is already in place and the Agency proposes to weaken it by a lengthy delay.  MSHA previously found the standard to be both necessary and feasible.  The burden of proof rests squarely with MSHA and anyone else who might propose a more drastic weakening.
		Although we have no obligation to prove our case that the existing standard should be retained, the USW intends to show in this rulemaking that the existing standard is feasible in all its aspects.  We will do so through written documentation later in the process.  
		Today, we want to touch briefly.  Today, we want to touch briefly on a different issue in rulemaking, respirators and the need for medical evaluation.  Every employer, regulated by OSHA is required to provide medical evaluations for workers required to wear respirators.  Every professional association involved in safety and health recommends it:  the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists and the American Occupational Medicine Association, to name the most prominent.
		There is very substantial evidence in the record of the relevant OSHA hearings to support medical evaluation and we would ask that that evidence be incorporated into this record as well.
		We believe that most miners unable to wear a negative pressure respirator will be able to wear a powered respirator.  Very few miners will have to be reassigned, but unless miners are assured that they will keep their jobs even if they cannot wear a respirator, some may refuse the evaluation or may give inaccurate answers on a medical history.  No one should have to choose between their health and their job.  
		Miners removed from high exposure areas must therefore have transfer rights and full earnings protection both as a matter of health and as a matter of simple justice.  Job rotation should not be utilized by miners as a tool for circumventing, I should say job rotation should not be utilized by mine operators as a tool for circumventing these issues.  And of course, as a matter of law, transfer rights and earnings' protection are explicitly required by the Mine Act.  We will elaborate all these points in our written submissions and Brother Shorey and Simpson will also discuss them in a moment.
		That concludes my statement.  After all of us have finished, we will, of course, be happy to answer any questions to the best of our ability.  I would ask that you direct all questions for our group to me initially since I am more familiar with the particular expertise of each panel member.
		We're going to have, at this point, Brad Shorey make his opening remarks.
		MR. SHOREY:  Thank you, Dave.  My name is Brad Shorey.  I'm the President for United Steelworkers Local 11-0001 at Stillwater Mining Company.  Dave said the nine sites earlier, that's actually three sites.  That would be the Stillwater site, the East Boulder site and the Columbus facility which is under OSHA supervision.
		So anyways, first off, I'd like to thank MSHA for taking a proactive approach to the DPM problem.  I'd also like to thank the United Steelworkers for their effort, time and money for helping the workers, because that's the perspective you're going to get from me today.  I'm not going to give you a lot of technical information that you've heard earlier in this hearing. You're going to hear from a person that was actually in the mine.  I've worked in the mine and I've had a lot of different situations in the mine.
		And I'd also like to thank Stillwater Mining Company, if you can believe it, for taking a proactive approach, because I believe they have been taking a proactive approach in dealing with the DPM issue.  And I think credit needs to go where credit is due, but I think there's more that we can do.  So I'm just going to leave it at that and I'll talk about some more stuff a little later.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Mike?
		MR. SIMPSON:  Good afternoon.  My name is Mike Simpson.  I'm the Joint Safety and Health Committee Representative  at the Stillwater Mine site.  I also, unlike Brad, I do have working dealings with Columbus site, which gets me involved in some of the OSHA aspects of things.  And you know, just really I'd like to just mimic what Brad said as far as thanking all the groups that are involved today, specifically the ones that he mentioned.
		And I'm going to leave it at that and we'll just go ahead and get started with this.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay, thank you.  We're going to cover a number of different issues.  First off, Brad, would you give a description of the number of diesel powered vehicles at the various mines?
		MR. SHOREY:  A description of what types?
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Just the number.
		MR. SHOREY:  The number.  I'd have to say on a -- of course, I don't have that information in front of me, but a rough guestimation, I'd have to say that there's probably 400 pieces of underground equipment.  Maybe some over that dealing with the transportation equipment, Toyotas and things like that that Steve Wood and Buck Chamberlain talked about earlier.  But there's a lot.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay, and how many miners at the site there?
		MR. SHOREY:  At the Stillwater site, there's give or take about 800.  At the East Boulder site, give or take, there's 400.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Next, we'd like you to make some comments about the diesel emission reduction program at the plant.  Is there a written program?
		MR. SHOREY:  There is.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Has the Local been provided with a copy?
		MR. SHOREY:  We have.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Could you describe the program, as you know it?
		MR. SHOREY:  Well, and that's kind of the same thing I've been hearing a lot of today is that there's -- the program has got a bunch of different systems, SOPs, policies, working simultaneously to try to achieve certain numbers in certain areas through testing and for example, one of the SOPs would be idling equipment, you know, that it's a standard operating procedure at Stillwater Mining Company not to idle equipment and from that to like I said, doing testing, filters, that we haven't had a whole lot of luck with, but engine replacement maintenance, things like that.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay, we're going to talk about the engine emissions testing efforts at the plant.  Does the company conduct regular engine emissions testing as well as personal and area and industrial hygiene monitoring?
		MR. SHOREY:  They do.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Are you provided with copies of all the test results that they do?
		MR. SHOREY:  I'm provided upon request.  A lot of the information is shared. We've just now started here recently joining the company in DPM meetings that they're having to specifically isolate this issue, outside of other safety issues and -- but that information is never denied.  I mean if I request information from Buck or any of the IH people, then it's provided.
		MR. SIMPSON:  If I could just add to that too, a lot of that, because of my participation in what Brad spoke of which was the DPM meetings that they are having up there, I get a lot of that information because of my position and part of that reason is also because Brad's got other duties throughout the whole complex and that information is typically forwarded to him by me.  But again, like he said none of it has been withheld.  If we ask for it, we get it.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  We'll talk about ventilation in the mine next.  What's the state of ventilation in the mine and is it well maintained?
		MR. SHOREY:  Keep in mind I've been in this position for five years, so from where it was to where it is, there is an extremely big difference.  And I would have to say that there's been a lot of effort in upgrading ventilation in the mine, increasing air flow and bringing in engineers that are experienced in that line of work to help with air doors, shutting off certain areas, making sure that flow is the right way, you're not recirc'ing air.  All of those different kinds of things has increased the ventilation in the mine greatly.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay, there are six primary means being used throughout the mining industry to lower diesel particulate matter emissions and reduce worker exposures.  These include clean engines, ventilation, environmental cabs, work practices, after filters and alternative fuels.  Additionally, some mines were replacing diesel powered equipment with electric powered mining equipment. 
		What is your mine doing or not doing in these areas as far as the knowledge that you have?
		MR. SHOREY:  They're doing several of these things.  And they're also -- there's also things in the work for other things to come on line.  Of course, you've got the engines that we've ordered and installed, Tier I, Tier II; emissions testing; of course, the respirator program; the ventilation upgrades.  Our mine is a narrow vein mine, so space within the mine is extremely difficult.  Cabs are tough.  They're just tough to get engineered to where you can put them on the equipment and make it work without causing another hazard to the employee that's operating them because they're pretty bulky.  They start to bulk up the equipment a lot.
		There's some alternative mining styles that are starting to come up in the plan that are also going to have an impact on the DPMs, I believe.  I didn't hear Steve talk about it earlier, but I believe that it probably is going to have an impact and that's dealing with the slusher stopes (Phonetic) that we're going to be bringing on line because a lot of that is going to be dealing with electrical engines versus conventional diesel engines in the stopes, mucking.  So that's going to have an impact.
		The Almac (Phonetic) mining is going to have an impact, I believe, because it's going to reduce some of the -- it's going to shift the workforce from more muck hauling to a different style.  So I think that's going to have an impact.
		Some of those things are things that are still out there.  They're not done yet.  Maintenance.  There's some things there that are just, like I said, they're going to be in effect.  They're putting in a brand new preventive maintenance program dealing with -- well, dealing with just that.  Instead of putting out fires or letting things build up or whatever, scheduling this stuff out before it goes bad, replacing it, things like that.
		Let's see.  That's about it.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Let's talk next about unnecessarily idling of diesel equipment and what's the situation in your mine?
		MR. SHOREY:  Like I said, we have practices in place right now where -- and it has caused a problem actually on the surface because in Montana, as you know, and in a lot of these places, you know you have winters, so if you're not idling the equipment it causes problems.  It's a lot easier to leave it idling on the surface and keeping it warm.  So it has created a little bit of a problem there, but the employees are being instructed in at least that capacity to not idle the equipment.  Don't leave the equipment idling when you're going to go in to eat lunch, for example.  Turn it off.  Make sure you turn it off if you're going to go down to the drift and you're going to have a pass down with one of the other employees.  Turn if off, versus letting it sit there.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  As far as the preventive maintenance program at the plant, what's the quality of that?  Is diesel equipment well maintained?  Describe the program?
		MR. SHOREY:  That's kind of a two -- a double-edged sword dealing with the maintenance.  They've got a program that's coming in.  They're just putting it in.  So I can't really speak to that on preventive maintenance.  I can tell you that the emphasis on changing filters, making sure injectors are changed out or that they're calibrated correctly, so you're not getting that unburned fuel, that red mist in a work area.  I've seen some pretty nasty stuff, you know.  You go in there and your eyes are burning and your throat burns and you're wondering how in the world that guy on the mucker is even making it.
		Those things are kind of -- you know, they've changed that.  So that's not in existence at Stillwater.  I don't know about other places, but at Stillwater because there's been a lot of emphasis on changing filters and making sure those things are done.
		But they're just now going to be moving into a new PM program where they're going to, like I said, running computerized testing dealing with the Detroit engines that they put in, so that they'll actually know when these spikes are starting to occur and they can correct them before it gets into a range where it's problematic.
		So I'm excited about it, but I can't really -- I can't beat the band too hard here because it's not in effect.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  As far as dialogue at the plant, does the mine operator regularly discuss diesel issues with you, with the Local?
		MR. SHOREY:  And as a matter of fact, I'd like to have Mike speak on this because he's been attending more of the DPM meetings than I have.  I've attended a couple, but basically it's a think tank.
		MR. SIMPSON:  Yes, as was referred to earlier in this conversation, we have -- they have DPM meetings, minimum of once a month and as much as twice in one month.  And any and all issues regarding DPM is discussed at these meetings.  And again, like I said earlier, that information is provided not only to me at the time of the meeting, but any and all notes afterwards are forwarded to me by the person that chairs that particular meeting and then that information is passed on to Mr. Shorey, as I stated before.
		And a lot of these things -- you know, one of the things that we discussed was in regards to a little bit of a question prior to this one was the idling of equipment because of the temperatures, especially here about two or three weeks ago when it was pretty cold.  And being a part of that group and being able to understand the challenges presented all different entities in that meeting, as a worker, as a mine operator, and as a mechanic, underground operator mechanic, what was -- what's become an issue because of where we're trying to get to is -- you've got these filters that you guys keep talking about, the ones that you regenerate and the ones that you change out.  Well, if you leave this equipment idling on the surface, it just fries them, which of course, we found out.
		So you've got some challenges there, but this kind of stuff, that comes up which is I'm going to call it a plus, wherein they're talking about ideas to prevent things or to make things better, but things like this come up and my participation, I'm able to bring that information to the employees that maybe don't understand why they're spending a half a day trying to get this equipment started.  But it all revolves around what we're talking about today.
		In any case, I guess that was a bit of a drawn-out answer.  Yes, they do provide that and discuss that with me and Mr. Shorey when he's available.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  We'll address respiratory protection next.  Does the company have a written respiratory protection program?
		MR. SHOREY:  They do.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Has the local been provided with a copy?
		MR. SHOREY:  I have.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Does the mine provide medical evaluations for miners required to wear respirators?
		MR. SHOREY:  They do.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Would you describe that, describe the program?
		MR. SHOREY:  Well, it's actually not new.  I mean one of the other companies was alluding to the fact that this is good business practice and I think that it is.  I mean it's something that's been going on at Stillwater for a little while now.  They just finished up with fit testing.  Everyone, I think that's done because we have to upgrade that all the time.
		We have yet to run into an issue of dealing with an individual that didn't pass, but I have been reassured through talks with the human resource manager that if that situation was to arise, that every effort would be made to ensure the individual would be moved into another capacity within that department.  If that was impossible, that we could work something out, if we can, to get them put into a different position.  
		Of course, as a last resort, if the individual is maximum medically improved and there isn't anything that we can do dealing with either through medications or what have you, that we'd have to look at it from that point then.  But the effort, the hand has been offered for us to do things prior to that.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Could you elaborate a little more on the medical evaluation, who does it?  Is that a subcontractor or what's the situation there?
		MR. SHOREY:  Well, I'm pretty sure in -- I don't want to pick on Buck back there, but I'm pretty sure that's a joint effort between the industrial hygienist and Med Corps which we have paramedics that are on the property that would actually determine rather the individual was medically sound or not.
		The industrial hygienist would be doing the fit tests, the smoke and so on and so forth to see if that person was able to be fitted, was -- and then to determine if they were -- if they had the lung capacity to wear it and it's typical of a lot of what we've heard in that it would be rare, not impossible or not unheard of, I should say, but it would be rare that an individual be required to be in a situation where you have to wear that the entire shift because of the way things move around in the mine.  But it's possible.  If they had a problem, they would be expected to report that.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Who is Med Corps so that they fully understand that?
		MR. SHOREY:  Med Corps is a contractor and they are paramedics that have got a medical facility on site and they basically -- they don't diagnose.  What they do is -- if somebody has got an issue dealing with an ailment or an injury, they determine rather the individual is at a point where they need to be transported.  If they do, then they transport them.  And they can also prescribe medications.  They can -- I think prescribe is probably the wrong word.  They can administer medications, injections, things like that.
		They're at a level like let's say an R.N., I think or somewhere around in there.
		MR. SIMPSON:  The standard for the paramedic is I think nationwide, is the same.  They're qualified to do -- push drugs, they call it, in instances where they need them and those who are familiar with that type of certification would understand.  I am an EMTB myself and the mine has about 40 to 50 of us that also do some of the transporting and what not at that time, unless the injury or illness indicates that the level of care needs to be greater, at which point the paramedic has to go on the journey in order to facilitate meds.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  The last item is medical evaluation, transfer and earnings protection.  Is that actually reflected in the company's written respiratory protection program or is that in your collective bargaining contract?
		MR. SHOREY:  That would be an agreement between the local and the human resource department on behalf of the company, dealing with the process that we would deal with that.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Basically a verbal agreement?
		MR. SHOREY:  Yes.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay.  Are miners given periodic breaks from wearing respirators without relying on job rotation?  As is there any formalized system for doing that or part of a written program?
		MR. SHOREY:  I'm sorry, say that again?
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Miners given breaks from wearing respirators, let's say a full 8-hour day, give us a description of what respirators workers wear in the mine and for what duration of time they're expected to wear respirators. I understand you have 10-hour shifts.
		MR. SHOREY:  Let's say -- well, there's several different shifts, but let's say you had 10-hour shift because that's what the miners run.  And I'm talking about walk breakers. I'm not talking about the general classification of an individual on the mine property.  So you've got a miner that's got a 10-hour shift.  So he could do an 8-hour run in a respirator, if he was in an area that warranted that.  I would think that outside of the lunch that they're entitled which is a half an hour and then a couple of breaks, I believe that if they were breaking to get off from the respirator, that that wouldn't be much of an issue unless it started to get into the way of a production round or what have you.
		I don't know that the company would actually have a problem with the individual, but they would be questioning his ability to function within that respirator.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay, as far as what type of respirators do they primarily rely on, the negative pressure respirator or powered air purifying respirators?
		MR. SHOREY:  Negative pressure.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Elaborate on that for me as far as number of miners, approximate number of miners that --
		MR. SHOREY:  That might be forced --
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Yes.  Currently on respirators.
		MR. SHOREY:  Oh boy, I don't know.  I don't know how many would be at this time.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay, very good.  Has the mine site conducted any training for miners concerning diesel exhaust, formal training programs?  If so, describe.
		MR. SHOREY:  You know, I would have to say that that hasn't been hit on very much.  I mean, like I said, there's been some talk about the idling, things like that, but there isn't -- there hasn't been a whole lot of emphasis dealing with labor, taking an approach to this DPM versus -- and I'm talking about the actual workers versus  management coming down with policy to go ahead and try to manipulate the outcome on the reachings.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Final items dealing with MSHA.  What has been your overall experience with MSHA, MSHA inspectors, etcetera. at your site?
		MR. SHOREY:  You know, I'm going to -- I wanted to say that MSHA, like I said, when I first took this job five years ago, I mean we're talking about a big difference between 115, 120 citations a quarter down this last quarter we had 24, which most of them were fire extinguishers.  I mean and that's been a joint effort from a lot of different people to get from there to where we are. 
		I can also remember -- well, we just got most improved mine here not too long ago, so I mean we're making a lot of progress, but I can remember when I first came in, like I said, going into areas where it's not just the exhaust, but that the engine wasn't running right and firing right, and so you actually had diesel, raw diesel fumes in the air.  And that's not -- that's just not good to work in.  I don't care what anybody says about what they think the diesel particulate is.  I can't imagine that that's good for you.
		And there's been a huge change from that to what it is right now.
		I guess my big -- and I want to thank MSHA for helping us to get to where we're at.  My deal is is that I guess I wonder if the standard is 400, why there's areas that are being allowed to run at a lot more than that, without being cited. 
		And I mean if there's a problem on being able to make the citation stick because of the way the system is set up, maybe that needs to be revisited, but not so much at Stillwater, but there's definitely some readings that I'm looking at over at East Boulder that are concerning to me.  Over a thousand on the reading, that's an area that needs to be addressed.  And there are several of them.  So I mean I'm going to be looking at that myself because this is new information that I just got from MSHA inspectors doing their testing at Stillwater here recently in 2005.  So I mean I'm going to have to look at it, but I'd like to see some enforcement.  If that's what it's going to be, I'd like to see it enforced.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  Okay, that concludes our remarks.  We thank you very much for the opportunity to testify.  We'd be happy to take any questions.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Any questions?  George.
		MR. SASEEN:  You mentioned about the preventive maintenance program, testing the engines.  Can you elaborate on -- I don't know if it's under an SOP, but how often those engines are brought in and what's your experience with seeing them brought in for testing?
		MR. SHOREY:  Well, I can't speak to what -- because like I said, in my opinion, they're a PM program that they had because this is just now coming into effect.  They made the schedule changes, so on and so forth.  They're going to be on a 28-day cycle and at that time it will be a 24 hour -- from what I understand a 24-hour service and that will be from stem to stern so to speak.  And during that process there will be -- they will be run through the computer and analyzed on what those peaks are and lows.  And then if there's any major issues, then they'll be tagged and they'll be put out on the BL line.  If they can run with the issue and be safe, then they'll be rescheduled later on for the remainder of work.
		But that's what's coming -- what it's been, I think to be honest with you, what it's been has been -- it's been scheduled to some degree to go ahead and try to, in my opinion. to try to go ahead and understand what's affecting what dealing with DPMs.  Okay?  Does that make sense?
		Tracking certain equipment to go ahead and figure out what the DPM readings would be, I think has been more of the emphasis versus being incorporated in part of the preventive maintenance program.
		MR. SASEEN:  Will this be every piece of equipment that will come under this new program?
		MR. SHOREY:  Yes.
		MR. SASEEN:  And will it be brought into the shop and be performed?
		MR. SHOREY:  Yes.  It will all be on a 28-day cycle, rotation.  And so that's the number that I got.  They can do it with all the equipment we have on a 28-day rotation.  They can get every piece in there to get it looked at and to do the testing and stuff, my understanding.
		MR. SASEEN:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Jim?
		MR. PETRIE:  You had mentioned a concern about MSHA enforcement and I was just wondering is this primarily recent sampling that has been done?
		MR. SHOREY:  It's recent, 2005, the latter part of 2005, when the testing was done.
		MR. PETRIE:  What we need to do and before issuing a citation is we need to determine if the company has utilized all feasible controls before we can issue a citation.  So perhaps we're going through that process right now, particularly in light of all the efforts that Stillwater has made to try and reduce diesel particulate levels.  It may take a little while to do that.
		MR. SHOREY:  Sure.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Doris?
		MS. GREEN:  Yes.  I just wanted to get, make sure I understand the current state right now is that you don't have as part of your contract or as part of a written agreement with the Local and with the miners, something that would cover the situation if a miner were not able to wear respiratory protection, in other words, your understanding is that's something you would have to work out, but that's not currently part of a written agreement?
		MR. SHOREY:  The comment that was made to me was -- I shouldn't say it was just to me.  It was actually in the setting of a MUC meeting which is a Management Union Committee Meeting in front of the entire Workers Committee and the management team.  So I mean yeah, you could say it's a verbal and probably if I wasn't working on 15 MOUs right now, I probably would be working on that one too.  But you know what I mean.  It's definitely something that needs to be put in writing, so that we know, if something like that was to happen, because there's other complications dealing with the unionized site.  So you take a guy from one of the areas.  
		I also have the issue of dealing with seniority positions, classifications, all these other kinds of things.  So if we're going to circumvent some of that, then we need to do it through a Memorandum of Understanding outside of the collective bargaining agreement.
		But as of right now, there is no specific language in the CBA.
		MS. GREEN:  Okay.  And also you said your miners had been fit tested for the negative pressure.  Could you tell me has there been any experience with the powered air supplies?
		MR. SHOREY:  It was like a -- I can't remember.  It might have been Mike Crum.  I can't remember, but one of the other mines talked about it earlier.  It's the same with us.  Only in a very limited capacity and we're talking about welders, you know things like that.  But not dealing with the regular mining workforce, no.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Jim?
		MR. PETRIE:  You mentioned that Med Corps does your medical evaluations.  Do you know if there's a certified health professional physician or someone that oversees those medical evaluations or are they just done by the EMTs that are on the site?
		MR. SHOREY:  Well, when we were talking about dealing with respirators, to be honest with you and this is going to be - -this would be a point of contention between I think the Union and the company if you did ever run into an issue dealing with that is that pre-existing condition versus workman's comp.  Do you see what I mean?
		And so I think that you would probably have a pulmonary physician outside of Med Corps.  Med Corps could make the initial determination that yes, the individual is having breathing problems dealing with -- they probably wouldn't even limit it down.  I doubt that they would even say respirator.  They would probably say he has some kind of pulmonary problem that needs to be looked at.  And then it would be moved on to a physician for him to go ahead and make that decision.  They don't have that kind of a level of medical authority.  In short, just to make the call is what they would do and they'd send them to somebody else.
		MR. PETRIE:  Thank you.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  It says a paramedic too, which is quite a bit above an EMT status.
		MR. PETRIE:  Okay.
		MR. ORTLIEB:  There's definitely a difference in medical training there.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  Mr. Wood testified earlier that there's been a variety of particulate filters being installed on various machines over the last several years.  Have you heard from your -- from the miners yourselves, do they like them on, don't like them on, see a big difference when they're operating a machine, with or without a filter?  Any insight into that personal --
		MR. SHOREY:  That particular system isn't real well received.  Well, it depends on which kind.  But the filter that actually attaches to the back of the exhaust, there's been complaints about smell.  There's been complaints about power, those kinds of things.  The company has a problem with them working correctly.  I mean that's not my forte, so I couldn't tell you exactly, chemically, why things don't work the way that they're supposed to.
		But they're not real well received.  I think that the porcelain regen canisters are probably a little better.  Yeah, the scrubbers, they're kind of harder to maintain.  It would be nice to have a quick fix that you could slap on and off.  We just haven't been able to find anything that will work that way.  But that's been the biggest complaints.
		MR. SIMPSON:  Yes, I think what needs to be recognized also, in regards to filtration systems on these exhausts is that typically they're doing that and upgrade of ventilation, making -- setting up a better plan for distributing the -- I should say deploying their crews, whether it's muck haul, the trucks or miners and stuff like that.  So to put it on one thing is difficult, especially for me or Brad, because we're not trained in that specific field.  
		MR. SASEEN:  Do you know if the miners who operate those machines with filters have been trained to know when the maintenance is needed on those ceramic filters?
		MR. SHOREY:  If they get one of those filters, then they're trying to go ahead and isolate individuals in the areas that will be working with them to know when the optimal horse power and all this other kind of stuff.  The problem is is that the work force moves, kind of -- it kind of sways here and there and so it's kind of hard at any given time to figure out -- it's not like a factory job in that somebody punches in, goes to the area, designated area, works the shift, punches out.  You know what I mean?  It just doesn't work that way.
		I think that's probably the biggest problem that we'd have, but there has been some attempts to generalize that in safety meetings and say you know, this is probably the best way to do this or do that, to make them run better.
		MR. SIMPSON:  And I believe they do have some indicator on some of the specific equipment.  That I'm not aware of, you know, I couldn't give you an exact type, but I know that they do have some that have warning lights on them and those operators have been trained to recognize that as an indication that it needs to be -- I don't know, because I've never run them, but something else needs to be done, whatever that would be.
		As far as the other filters, the interchangeable filters, I operated -- I've only been in this position for just over a year, so I'm familiar with some of the challenges that we've gone through over the last few years there and when your mucker starts running crappy, you go get a filter.  I mean it's pretty simple.  Insofar as training, it's common sense in that respect, to the changeable filters, not the ceramic ones.
		MR. SASEEN:  You mean that's when it starts running --
		MR. SIMPSON:  You start to lose power.
		MR. SASEEN:  And then you change the filter?
		MR. SIMPSON:  Because typically what's going to happen, at least in my own personal experience, what's going to happen after that is it's going to start getting smokey and then it's really going to get underpowered and obviously needs to be fixed.
		MR. SASEEN:  Do you think that's some of the miners complaints that they do start smoking because they're not being changed routinely?
		MR. SIMPSON:  No, I think it's in different directions, but not specific to that, no.  I think it's from other reasons.
		MR. SASEEN:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you, gentlemen.  Thank you very much.
		We have one more scheduled speaker and we'll entertain anyone else who would like to speak.  I think what we'll do before we do the last speaker is we'll take a five minute break and then we'll come back.
		(Off the record.)
		MR. SEXAUER:  Back on the record.  Our last scheduled speaker is Brent Chamberlain.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Good afternoon.  My name is Brent Chamberlain.  I'm the manager of Human Resources and Safety for Queenstake Resources who is the owner and operator of the Jarrett Canyon Property and with me I have Mr. Shane Owen who is our industrial hygienist for Queenstake and we appreciate the opportunity to come and discuss --
		MR. SEXAUER:  Will you spell your names please?
		MR. OWEN:  Shane Owen, O-W-E-N.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you.
		MR. OWEN:  You're welcome.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this proposed final rule with you.  We have been here, done this before for a long period of time, like some of the other commenters have said and you know, there has been some progress made, although in a lot of areas, there's still a lot of progress to be made, a long ways to go before we get there.
		We share MSHA's goal of providing a safe and healthful work environment for our miners and with this in mine, we have participated and continue to participate with the Agency throughout this process.  We are -- we will be a participate for the -- or with the metal and nonmetal DPM partnership for extensive studies at one of our mines, beginning in earnest, hopefully in February or so.  That process has already yielded some good ideas and some good things that we can benefit from and we will continue to work on those lines.
		We will provide written comments by the close of the public comment period.  We're not prepared to do that today, but we will provide some information and be willing to answer questions.
		To start off with, I'd like to say that like most of the other presenters here, we don't believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence of a correlation between DPM at any specific level and a resultant health effect.  We therefore maintain that this rulemaking process in the proposed final rule is premature and perhaps unjustified.  Upon completion of scientific studies of the correlation between diesel exposure and human health effects, rulemaking may then be appropriate.
		However, as stated, we are moving on a train and we'll continue to be participants and work towards the best end that we can.  We have implemented a number of changes at our mine, a number of -- tried a number of things to try to reduce our DPM exposure with a fair amount of success in that we have gone from our averages when we were part of the 31 mine study, some of our numbers were as high as 1200 and 800 were numbers that we had, something in that range.
		With the efforts that we have taken to date, we are generally in compliance with the interim standard, sometimes a bit below that, occasionally just slightly above that, so we have seen a better than halving of our total DPM within our mines as a result of these efforts.  These efforts have included improvements in ventilation and maintenance, installing cleaner burning engines and the installation of some operator cabs.
		We have been largely unsuccessful in the use of filters at this point in time, although we have attempted to use several of those.  And again, probably the most significant effort will be these efforts that we're doing with the partnership study that we'll be undergoing as we use our mine to test a number of these things in an actual in-mine setting, unlike the Stillwater study that was ISO testing, whatever testing is done there will be an actual production setting and should provide value to us as well as to the industry and we'll certainly share all that information with the partnership members.
		As far as the final PEL, since we can't achieve that at this point in time under any circumstances, we cannot see ourselves getting to the 160, we've done about all that we can do in many of these areas.  There's a few yet to test.  So we maintain that the best approach to this would be in conjunction with the proposed implementation period over five years as been proposed by the Agency.  We support that as being a better, certainly a better solution than immediate implementation of the final PEL which was originally intended.  
		You know, many mines in this country are going to be -- would be unable to comply at that point.  But what we would recommend is that at each -- prior to the step down of 50 micrograms each year, that there be a review on what has progressed as far as technology, the feasibility and availability, these various technologies.  And before a standard is lowered, we really need to determine can the majority of mines get there?  
		If you create a standard that requires -- that continues to step down the level, the limit to the ultimate PEL and then increasing number of mines are forced to go through the special extension process, that's not good regulation.  The regulation should allow mines to apply the technology and to get there, so whether this period takes five years which maybe it does.  Maybe it takes six or seven years, I don't know, but I think each and every year before there's a change made in that year or from that year's limit to another lower level, we should review where were at as an industry and what's available to that the standard is based -- the lowering of the level is based upon some sound basis rather than an arbitrary number.
		We have used respirators for a number of reasons in the past and we have a respiratory program.  And can discuss some of the conditions of that, if you would care to later on.  However, we found that to be fairly successful and unless there's a lot of technology changes between now and 2007, we will be requiring a substantial number of our miners to wear respirators, the way it currently seems.
		Now it's possible that we will make the progress we need to between now and then.  We just don't know.  Unfortunately, it's based upon technology to a large degree is not available or applied in our circumstance.
		Some of the -- in response to some of the issues that the Agency was looking for information on, while we maintain in principle that a miner should not lose his ability to earn a living if he is unable to wear a respirator and would do everything within our reasonable power to transfer a minor if he were unable to wear a respirator, I think the language there has to be very carefully constructed because the way it is currently constructed it could easily be open to a lot of abuse and so there needs to be proper checks and balances to be sure that it is done properly, for the right reasons, the right medical certification and those things and that the transfer is one that makes sense.
		One of the issues that is of great concern is is if the rule were to require a guaranteed transfer to a lesser job at an equal pay, it could become an incentive for some employees to try to go that way to sort of finish out a career perhaps as to do it at a lesser job at the same rate of pay and that creates some real hardship and difficulties with the work force, with the employee relations within a workforce.  So those are not, I don't know what the answers are to be honest with you, but those are difficult questions that must be addressed.  Just wholesale transfer whenever someone is deemed medically unable to wear a respirator at the exact same pay is not necessarily the right answer.
		Having said that, our experience indicates that it probably is not going to happen very often.  We have had not as a result of DPM, but for other agents, other things, we have had perhaps two cases that I can think of in the past 10 or so years where an employee was unable to wear a negative pressure respirator.  We pursued finding powered respirators for them in each of those cases and then subsequent to that the conditions change which brings me to another point on the transfer and that I think if a transfer guarantee is there or transfer rights, an employee needs to take a reasonable effort on his or her part to make themselves available to wear a respirator again if they can.  In some cases, it may be taking medication, but an employer should not be required to transfer an employee when that employee is not making a good-faith effort to make themselves able to wear a negative pressure or a positive pressure respirator.  So that needs to be part of the language that's incorporated in that, I believe.
		Another factor is the conversion factor of 1.3.  It really doesn't work at our mines.  I would propose that as opposed to a hard factor of conversion from TC to EC, through the sampling process, you will have both numbers anyway.  You will have a TC and an EC number and I think we continue to do the same thing that we're currently doing, which is compare the TC, use the equivalent standard of 400 stepping down to 160, if it ultimately goes that direction.  
		The conversion rate that's proposed for EC and then hold an operator to whichever standard is the appropriate of those two, but I think we're finding as an industry that there probably isn't a hard and fast number that can be used to equitably convert TC to EC and I think the approach may be to discontinue to use both numbers as has been done over the past year or two.
		That concludes my comments.  We're certainly -- we welcome any questions that you may have.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Deborah?
		MS. GREEN:  I'm sorry, Deborah Green.  Are you planning to submit any written comments to us?  And the reason I'm asking is in reference to the issue about medical evaluation and transfer, you talked about the good-faith efforts of the employee that that needs to be a part of the consideration.  Is it possible that you could give us some language that could help to guide us exactly what you're talking about?  That was a little confusing for me.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  I would be happy to provide some language on that in our written comments which we will provide.
		MS. GREEN:  Thank you.  One other point that I should make for the record is when you are providing your written comments, you might want to take a look -- it's included in the preamble to the September proposed rule, but you might want to take a look at 101(a)(7) under the statute in the Mine Act and the specificity of how the Secretary, when she is considering medical transfer, how she is pretty much locked in for purposes of retaining the pay compensation of the miner's previous job when they're initially transferred.
		Why don't you take a look at that and give us some comments and reference to that, please.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  I have looked at that briefly and I think there probably are some ways that still stay -- and I understand what you're saying.  It's very specific on the language there.  However, I think there may be some ways to construct language that would accommodate that.  We'll give that a stab.
		MS. GREEN:  This is what I'm interesting in seeing.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Okay.
		MS. GREEN:  So we can fully consider the comment.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Yes, thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  Brent, you say you've been unsuccessful with filters.  Can you elaborate on which filters you've tried and possibly what your experience has been?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  We have tried filters from three different manufacturers with roughly the same result.  I think what we're learning is that the filters, for one thing they are designed and when you go to a manufacturer and give them specifications, including the engine temperature the exhaust temperatures, the profile on everything, they will design a filter for you to use.  
		I think that there is an understating of the filter capacity that's required to handle an engine that's operating at 6,000 to 7,000 feet elevation.  I think these things are basically, the calculations, I think, really must be done at sea level because what we're finding is is that the filters are not capable of handling the loading that they get. 
		We have some of the problems or same problems that have been mentioned by some of the other presenters that the engine profiles through our operating procedure, we are operating cycles, duty cycles, doesn't render a lot of our pieces of equipment suitable for passive regeneration.  What we did through the process is even though we were purchasing passive filters, we purchased an off-board regenerating oven and we tried doing that, tried regenerating our passive filters and the result is not very good either because they're loading too quickly.
		Part of the problem that we have is we're operating fairly large equipment and fairly small openings.  This has been mentioned by at least one other presenter too is the dimensions and these filters are already at a size that have to fit outside of the engine compartment.  They're already too big to fit in the engine compartment.  They're sitting on top and when you start double stacking these things which is what it appears that we will have to do, because of the size constraints of ceramics at least, you get beyond a certain size and they tend to be too fragile.  So you're paralleling more than one filter and you're ending up with something that is very big and very vulnerable to damage sitting on the space that's available.  
		So I think the answer -- the problems have been undersize of filter surface area, but I don't know that there's a good solution to that.  We're still -- we've tried some unsuccessfully.  We just recently had a -- NIOSH came out and tested a brand new filter on a brand new engine with us and one of the things we learned is is that some of these filters require a break-in period and actually they perform better after they've been broken in and off the shelf and that's one of the things that we learned.  But we still were in a situation of under-filtering and I don't know that we -- I don't know what the right answer there is, because of size constraints, etcetera.
		MR. SASEEN:  Thanks.
		MR. POMROY:  Bill Pomroy.  I've seen your equipment inventories, but I can't remember, are you mostly using Tier I and Tier II compliant engines as opposed to MSHA-approved engines?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Yes, we are -- all of our production equipment is Tier I and Tier II.  A lot of it is going to Tier II.  We have -- we've replaced since June, for example, we've replaced 15 engines.  Those are starting to become some Tier III equivalents.  I don't know if they have the Tier III, but they're Mercedes and all of our production equipment have a minimum of a Tier II engine as far as an electronic engine, etcetera.
		MR. POMROY:  When you had some of those less than satisfactory experiences with the filters, was that with Tier I or Tier II engines, do you recall?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  It's been a little bit of both because we started this process about four years ago when we purchased our first filter, about four years ago and that was a Tier I.  And we most recently tried them on the Tier IIs and the results haven't been substantially different, but I think it's because there's just been too far of a mismatch on filter capacity.  And I don't know that I -- certainly, I don't fully understand.  I'm not sure that everybody fully understands the differences that you run into when you take an engine and then underrate it because of elevation and then add into other things.  You tend to be running at capacity with this engine and we tend to be overloading.  I think that's it.  Under normal duty cycle, we may be okay, but there are large engines running at capacity and therefore I think they just put out a little bit more than the filters are able to handle.
		MR. POMROY:  You mentioned cabs as one of your strategies, but you didn't go into much elaboration on that.  Are you still pursuing that rebuilding of some of your older haulage trucks with homemade cabs on them?   
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Yes.
		MR. POMROY:  How is that project working?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  It's working very well, actually.  We're doing these self-designed cabs for about half the price of what you can purchase one off the shelf, but it requires the complete -- you have to frame off to do it.  And so we're doing them as we're going through major rebuilds.  
		We have about a third of our production fleet, as I recall, done at this point in time and when we buy new equipment, we're buying it with cabs and it's a two-year schedule.  It's about two more years, as I recall, to get everything cabbed up on our production equipment.
		MR. POMROY:  Have you done any DPM sampling inside and outside the cab just so you have some idea of how efficient the cab filtration systems are in reducing DPM exposures inside?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Limited.  We have actually done some other testing too.  We've done some total dust and noise which they're very effective in that and -- but the answer is yes, they are effective in reducing it well below the current standard.  I can't quote a number for you right now, but they are effective in reducing DPM certainly.
		MR. POMROY:  How about on your loaders and jammers?  Any of those pieces of equipment have cabs?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Yes, that's included.  We have about as many.  We probably have more loaders done than I have trucks, actually.
		MR. POMROY:  All different manufacturers?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Yes.
		MR. POMROY:  Of equipment?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Yes.
		MR. POMROY:  I think that's it.
		MR. SASEEN:  You mentioned deration of the engines.  Are they -- I mean have you -- are most machines derated for altitude as far as reducing the fuel rates?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  I think what happens and I'm not a mechanic, so somebody -- Skinner or somebody back there could straighten me out, but when you take an engine, an electronically-controlled engine, it will automatically adjust for the elevation, but you also lose power in doing so and that's the derating I'm referring to.
		MR. SASEEN:  Okay.
		MR. SEXAUER:  I just have one more question here.  I have a note down here.  Just so I'm understanding you correctly, you had said that with respect to a conversion factor between total carbon and elemental carbon that you don't think there is a universal factor and that you'd like to see enforcement on the basis of either total carbon or elemental carbon, is that correct?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Well, actually, you know the interim standard of what's been happening, what was happening is that you had collected total carbon and then if it was in excess, the PEL or the limit at that time, and do the conversion and see if the elemental carbon was over, I maintain that that's the way to go forward, because I don't think that you'll ever find -- my experience in looking at our numbers, and our mines are different.  
		Each mine, we have three operating mines and they each are different as far as the conversion.  It works differently depending, I think, on the level and what the total amount collected and other things.  So in my mind, my recommendation is is keep doing what we were doing.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Just to clarify, that was the procedure that MSHA was using for enforcement sampling between July of 2002 and June of 2005?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  That is correct.  And then basically you are, in fact, truing it up for each mine.  You're using whichever number yields the best result and there would have to be some discussion exactly what that is, but the lower of the two, predictably.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you.  Jim?
		MR. PETRIE:  Do you have any experience in using alternate fuels?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  We have tested fuel additives.  I call them snake oils, none with any great success.  It is our intent to test biodiesel with this as part of the NIOSH study.  This has been underway for some time and the anticipation of this and so we've held off on doing that.  However, we are going to run into some of the same problems that have been discussed up to this point in time.  It's very cold and a good period of time during the year that make it very difficult to -- I'm afraid we may have gelling of the product before we get it on site.  All of our fuel is stored on surface.  None is underground.  
		It's conceivable that we could heat the tanks on the surface, but it's not conceivable to heat the transport trucks and those kinds of things.  So I'm not -- I don't know that we've solved all the answers and I can't answer where the closest distributor -- we've looked at it a little bit.  We're looking at doing it as actually for a number of reasons, biodiesel.  
		We've even considered -- it's going to sound crazy, but one of our guys is even looking at importing from South America because it's a lot less expensive there and then you pay your shipping and whatever, but the bottom line is is there isn't a good source yet locally.  We don't have a source near, anywhere near there that we could be buying bio in any kind of a quantity that could be required.  
		I think it's possible that if that turns to be the solution and all the mines there start to go that direction, I'm hoping somebody will step in and come up with a reliable source, but right now if I were to go there, I couldn't do it anyway.  I don't know of a source.
		MR. PETRIE:  And I don't think you mentioned it, but at what frequency do you conduct your medical evaluations?  Is it annual?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  What we do is we do pre-employment or pre-employment is not the right term, but pardon me, we do it prior to placement for all of our underground employees.  Actually, our mill employees also and we do both medical exam and spirometry and then what we do is we do an annual fit test, bring everybody back through and fit test them to determine that they're still getting a good fit with the particular respirator and that's the respirator they're assigned to wear.
		At that time, if there's an issue, generally, you identify it then.  If there's any other medical things that go on over the course of the year or a period of time -- we don't currently have a medical re-examination annually or otherwise.   I think the current system works just fine because we are seeing each employee every year and going through that fit testing process and if there's any problems, they're very quick to point that out to you.  It could be an effective and reasonable alternative to a medical exam where you get the same results if you put them through a quantitative fit test every year, which is what we do.
		MR. PETRIE:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Anything else?  Doris?
		MS. CASH:  Yes.  You mentioned that you had looked at ventilation maintenance using cleaner engines, cabs and haven't had a lot of success with the filters.  I'm wondering will you be including in your written comments any information for us on what changes were actually made from where you were at the beginning of this with the ventilation and what types of changes were made, same sort of thing with maintenance?  Did you institute a complete new preventive maintenance program?  Was it tweaking what was in place?  What type of changes were made for each of these?  And what you've seen success with.  
		Somebody said their filters hadn't been that successful, but if you can tell us on what types of equipment and in what instances or situations you found, if your ventilation changes were effective, what that type of situation was.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Yes, I will try to detail something there in the comments that we have.  Just as a very quick summary, with ventilation, we're limited by the capacity that we can intake through our portals.  So we don't really have the ability of substantially increasing them.  I mean we've put additional vent raises in as mining develops and expands and you do that, but it's not resulted in a net substantial improvement and the amount of air in any particular area, the ventilation changes that we have been able to make is just our mine is very dynamic in that we are typically -- well, we may only be actively mining in say three or four headings at any one time, we typically have maybe 15 or so active headings that are available.  It's located -- it's moving air to where you need it.  
		Sometimes people get a little careless and don't use the air in the best way.  So it's been more of an education.  We still have a ways to go in that one.  I've got to tell you that's not an easy battle, because every individual, miner and supervisor and everybody that's involved in it has to do it right for things to work right.
		Probably the biggest single factor has been maintenance changes and how we do maintenance. We've taken a good mechanic and dedicated him to BPM testing and so he's doing sampling on telepipe sampling on all of our equipment on a regular basis and determining when adjustments are needed, those kinds of things.
		We're also learning that that's -- we're not perfect there yet either.  One of the challenges is finding skilled mechanics.  We lost one of our top people here just recently.  There's so much competition out there for people and that set us back a little bit.  We're retraining some people.  I mean that's a real challenge that we have to accept is that there's a real people shortage, particularly in underground mining, hard rock mining these days and finding skilled people is not easy.  
		So we have a ways to go, but I'm convinced that the -- like some of the other commenters, very difficult to say this specific thing was the result in our substantial improvement, but I think that maintenance has probably been the biggest single -- improvements in maintenance and we still have a ways to go there.
		I will incorporate something in our comments there.
		MR. SEXAUER:  George?
		MR. SASEEN:  What's the altitude at the mine?
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Well, it would vary from about 65 to about 7500 feet from the different mines elevation.
		MR. SASEEN:  Okay.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Thank you, gentlemen.
		MR. CHAMBERLAIN:  Thank you.
		MR. SEXAUER:  Is there anyone else in the audience who would care to address the group?
		Okay, there being no other speakers, then this hearing is adjourned.
		(Whereupon, the public hearing was concluded.)


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