Operator (Erika...: Welcome to the MSHA stakeholder conference call. At this time, all participants 

are on a listen only mode. We will be conducting a question answer session 

after the presentation. I'll now turn the meeting over to your host. Assistant 

Secretary Williamson, you may begin.

Assistant Secre...: Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. I'm going to take a few minutes and just 

walk us through the agenda real quick and then turn it over and we'll quickly 

just jump into the presentation. I'm going to do a few introductory remarks and 

then followed by... We're going to do a review of fatalities since the last 

stakeholder meeting, which we normally do, which will be led by Marcus Smith 

and then one of the areas we're going to cover during that discussion relates to 

fall protection and then we're going to have a presentation specific to fall 

protection from Ben Gandy from technical support at MSHA. Then we're going 

to do something a little different this time and Greg Meikle from the MSHA 

Enforcement Health Division is also going to do a presentation on health 

hazards.

And then I'm going to take a few minutes just to talk about some health 

initiatives and some different things that we've been doing, and then as always, 

we're going to reserve time for questions. I just want to take a couple minutes 

at the top and I'll just say thank you to everyone that's on the line and look 

forward to the discussion today and the questions and just a couple things I 

wanted to cover real quick. First, just as a reminder, the presentation that we're 

going through today for both the fatality review, fall protection and the health 

hazards information is online so you can access it there and follow along.

A couple other things I just wanted to say real quick too is probably a lot of you 

know, it's October and at the end of the month on the 30th will be Mine Rescue 

Day, and I recently had the privilege and really enjoyed the opportunity to 

participate and attend both the national and the international Mine Rescue 

competition and it was a great experience for me. I took a lot away from both of 

those events and just really appreciate everyone, a lot of work both at MSHA 

and Industry and Labor and I met some people like state grantees. A lot of 

different people play a role in supporting Mine Rescue, so just really want to 

thank everyone that's on the line that does that, and I would be remiss if I also 

didn't note that our MSHA team did very well at the international competition 

and won first place.

We're very proud of them and not only do we have some pictures of them in 

our conference room that we're in today, but we've also recognized some of our 

previous MSHA mine rescue teams, including our previous International Mine 

Rescue Competition champion, so we have the pictures hanging up on the wall 

here, so we're very proud of both MSHA and everyone else's participation and 

support of Mine Rescue. I just wanted to say that at the beginning, and with 

that, I'll go ahead and turn things over to Marcus. Walk us through the review of 

the fatalities.
Marcus Smith: Thank you, Chris. As Chris said, my name is Marcus Smith, I'm the Chief of 

Accident Investigations in the MSHA Office of Enforcement. Today I'm going to 

be talking about fatal accidents, like it's already been mentioned, that have 

occurred since the last stakeholder meeting. Last stakeholder meeting occurred 

on June the 28th of this year. We've had 10 fatal accidents since our last 

stakeholder meeting. In this time period, the first of those 10 fatalities occurred 

on July 21st and the last one occurred three days ago on October the 17th. In 

the presentation, I'm going to discuss some stats, go over some of the fatal 

accidents that occurred out of the 10, some of those fatal accidents. As Chris 

mentioned, we're going to focus on fall protection hazards, fall protection 

enforcement actions, because we want to highlight that in this stakeholder 

presentation.

So moving to slide two in the presentation, you'll see a pie chart that, at the 

heading, there's the accident classifications. You'll note that the top 

classification in this time period has been accidents classified as machinery 

accidents, 4 of the 10, and the once again, you see the slice of the pie there for 

slip or fall of person accident, that being one. That would be the fatality of that 

occurred just recently on October the 17th. Moving to slide three, we see this 

slide for a number of mine employees and we'll note here that half of the 10 

fatalities occurred at mines that have 19 or less employees.

Now the next two slides, slides four and five, deal with experience at the mine 

and experience at the activity. We always like to really focus on these two 

metrics because it causes us to think about training, it causes us to think about 

making sure miners are properly trained before they are introduced into the 

mine environment or before they're assigned certain tasks at the mine. We 

always highlight especially one year or less, or as you can see here, if we look at 

two years or less on this slide, that accounts for half of the fatalities in this time 

period.

One year or less being four and we go to two years or less, that is 5 of the 10 

fatalities. Training in the mine environment, 30 CFR parts 46, part 48, all of 

those things are very, very important to follow. Those standards are very 

prescriptive in terms of what miners need to receive to know and to understand 

the unique challenges at the mine and to be prepared to work in the mine 

environment. Moving to slide five, as I mentioned, experience at the activity, 

and one year or less, 3 of the 10, and two years or less, 4. Task training 

immediately comes to mind when we think about experience at the activity. We 

will need to make sure that miners are adequately and fully and properly task 

trained. Task trained.

Okay, we'll go move to slide number six. We see that this slide deals with mine 

employees and contractors and we've only had one contractor fatality in this 

time period. Most of the fatalities occurred to miners that were employees of 

the mine operator. Okay, so now on slide seven, I'm going to begin talking about 

a few of the 10 fatalities, and we selected these fatalities because we see the 

issues that come up in these fatalities quite often in various fatalities.
This first fatality that I'm going to talk about was classified as a machinery 

fatality. That was our top category in this time period. At Giant Cement in South 

Carolina on July the 21st, a miner received fatal injuries when his right arm 

became entangled in an auger conveyor or a screw conveyor. Let's talk about 

best practices to prevent this type of fatality. It's important when you deal with 

screw conveyors, auger conveyors, that the covers over those conveyors have to 

be secure and in place during normal operations. Very, very important. Secure 

covers in place during normal operation.

It's important to keep tools, clothing, body parts away from moving conveyors. 

Something that we've talked about in past stakeholder meetings, lock out and 

tagging out, de-energize, lock out, tag out and block machinery against 

hazardous motion before performing repairs or maintenance, and we should 

never work on a moving conveyor. We also talk a lot in the past about 

examinations. Examinations of work areas, examinations of equipment. So very, 

very important. That's one of the key ways that miners are kept safe in the work 

environment is through proper examinations. Upon complete and thorough 

examinations, we should report hazards to miners and assure hazards are 

corrected and recorded.

Moving on to slide nine, this was a powered haulage fatality, and as you know, 

in times past, we've talked a lot about powered haulage. Powered haulage has 

been a classification that we've had several fatalities. The Tunnel Ridge Mine in 

West Virginia on August the 17th, a general inside laborer died when he was 

caught between a supply car and its coupler. He was sitting on a supply car, 

which was coupled to a locomotive that was parked in the track spur that you 

can see on that slide. There was another locomotive coming in and the switch 

was thrown for the spur, so the locomotive went into the spur and hit the other 

parked locomotive.

After that impact, the victim was knocked off the supply car and fatal injuries 

occurred because of that accident. If we go now to slide 10, best practices when 

we talk about traveling on track, maintaining track, we need to ensure that the 

switches are in the proper position for the direction of travel and that the 

latches are in contact with the rail. Sometimes, you got to make sure that even 

with the switch is thrown, that that switch has done its job and the rail is in the 

proper position. Miner should be in a safe location away from parked 

equipment parked in a spur when you have equipment passing on the main line. 

Communication. Anytime we talk about power haulage, communication always 

comes up. That's very, very important to prevent powered haulage type of 

fatalities. Miners need to communicate their location and the intended 

movements, and when we're dealing with switches, it's a best practice to 

communicate the switch orientation with the dispatcher.

Moving on to slide 11, we also have several engulfment fatalities. In Nevada on 

September the 28th, a miner died when he was engulfed beneath several feet 

of material when the stockpile that you see there on the slide collapsed. The 

miner was trying to remove a blockage and that happens so many times in these 
engulfment type of fatality. There's an attempt to remove a blockage and 

somebody gets into an area where they should not be, where there's hazards 

from material and then that material collapses onto the miner. That's what 

happened in this fatality.

Moving on to slide 12, mechanical clearing devices are important and if those 

can be installed, those are very good and they can help prevent miners from 

being exposed from falling or sliding material. It's really important to have 

proper procedures. When blockages occur, have proper procedures and make 

everybody's properly trained and knows how to follow those proper procedures 

to safely clear blockages so that miners are not exposed to that danger of sliding 

material. Then it's always important to just remove the hazard. If we can trim 

those over-steepened, soft pile faces to the angle of repose, that removes the 

hazard.

As I mentioned before, we had a fatality on October the 17th in Oklahoma, and 

in that fatality, we don't have that slide in the slide deck because that one just 

occurred, but a miner fell approximately 100 feet and was fatally injured in that 

fall. Now I'm going to talk about some near misses as we move to slide 13. 

These near misses are also going to deal with fall-related injuries. On July the 

25th in Colorado, a miner was at a preparation plant and fell 35 feet and 

suffered a broken leg and the miner was not wearing fall protection.

Moving to slide 15 on September the ninth in Kansas, at the Monarch Cement 

Company, a contract truck driver was attempting to close the hatch on top of 

his trailer when he fell approximately 10 feet to the ground, and we've had 

these accidents before as well. The truck drivers attempting to access to hatch 

on top of the trailer. The driver was not wearing fall protection. This driver was 

admitted to the hospital with broken ribs and other injuries, so these accidents, 

we call them near misses. You could also call them near fatalities, but this just 

highlights just some other things that are occurring in the mining industry.

Moving to slide 16, we wanted to talk a little bit about some enforcement 

actions, some fall-protection related issuances, and we wanted to mention that 

MSHA has issued 150 imminent danger orders related to fall hazards between 

January 21 and September of this year, so an imminent danger order is issued 

when an inspector is doing an inspection and notices an imminent danger and 

issues an order to protect miners. 150 imminent danger orders related to fall 

hazards were issued in that time period, January of '21, September of this year, 

and there were issues because miners were working where there was danger 

from falling and they did not have fall protection.

We listed here on this slide three of the most common violations, and we 

mentioned this previously. Truck drivers climbing on top of their vehicles, 

mechanics working on equipment and plant workers climbing on equipment, 

and some of these, as we say below, involve supervisors and because the 

imminent danger order was issued, those supervisors were ordered down from 

those dangerous locations. Moving now to slide 17, in addition to imminent 
danger orders, you can see standards here in the 30 CFR that address fall 

protection requirements. We have 56. 15005, 57.15005 at metal and non-metal 

mines, and then at coal mines, 77.1710 (g) and both of those deal with safety 

belts and lines, fall protection that's required where there's a danger of falling.

As we see at the top of that slide, mine operators and independent contractors 

must always comply with these standards. 392 times MSHA has cited these 

standards in the same timeframe that we issue those imminent danger orders. 

These are 392 other issuances... Citation orders from January of last year to 

September of this year because MSHA inspectors found violations of these 

mandatory standards. At this time, I'm going to introduce Ben Gandy from tech 

support and he's going to go further into the discussion of fall protection. Ben?

Ben Gandy: Thank you, Marcus. This is Ben Gandy and I'm a general engineer in MSHA 

technical support located in Triadelphia, West Virginia. Today, I'll be discussing 

fall protection and associated best practices. Please refer to slide number 19 if 

you're following the presentation online. Historically, slips and falls account for 

one of the leading classifications for injuries within the mining industry. This is 

nearly a quarter of all nonfatal days lost or NFDL injuries. Over 12% of NFDL 

injuries result from miners falling from an elevated surface.

So far in 2022, there have been 315 NFDL injuries and three fatalities where 

miners fell from a height. On slide number 20, as you can see by looking at the 

chart, slip and fall fatalities continue to occur within the mining industry. Mine 

operators are encouraged to conduct risk assessments, control hazards, and 

increase training and education efforts regarding the proper use of personal 

protective equipment. On slide 21, in order to understand risks and hazards and 

control hazards, it is important to know what the contributing factors are to the 

slip and fall of person fatalities and injuries. They can be summarized as follows; 

not providing or maintaining safe access in plants or surface facilities, not 

providing 

Ben Gandy: Maintaining safe access on mobile equipment. For example, while conducting 

maintenance and truck tarping, getting on and off [inaudible] equipment or 

mounting and dismounting equipment and improperly wearing or not wearing 

fall protection. Slide 22. There are five basic elements to risk and hazard 

identification and mitigation that can assist mine operators in preventing falls in 

the workplace. The first is understanding and complying with regulatory 

requirements contained in Title 30 CFR. MSHA frequently receives fall 

protection requirement questions from contractors who work at sites regulated 

by MSHA and OSHA. Complying with OSHA regulations contained in Title 29 CFR 

will assure you meet MSHA requirements. Company policies should also be 

developed to enhance regulatory requirements.

The second part is identifying hazards. A well conceived fall protection program 

begins with identification of fall hazards in the workplace. Evaluate tasks that 

are likely to cause harm or injury and evaluate the risk associated with each 

hazard. The third basic element is hazard mitigation. After hazards are 
identified, mine operators should specify how to deal with each hazard by 

outlining what fall protective measures are to be used, how they are to be used 

and who is responsible for overall supervision and training. Ideally, it is best to 

eliminate the hazard. When this is not possible, other measures such as the 

wearing of fall protection equipment, enhance worker safety. The fourth item is 

products selection. Mine operators must know the types of fall protection 

products that are available and decide which would be the most suitable for the 

workplace. And lastly, it is essential that persons are properly trained to 

recognize potential fall hazards, evaluate and control each hazards, learn 

examination and maintenance procedures, select appropriate products for the 

task and properly wear fall protection equipment, including size, fit, and 

adjustment.

On slide 23. When considering the hierarchy of accident prevention, it is best to 

eliminate the hazard when identified. For example, perhaps the cover is 

installed over an opening located on an elevated platform. Engineering and 

administrative controls are also effective in preventing falls in the workplace. 

These may include installing barriers, safe access, stairs instead of ladders, just 

to name a few. Another effective measure is assuring miners have the necessary 

personal protective equipment to safely conduct a task. Properly worn fall 

protections does not remove the hazard, but can aid in preventing miners from 

contacting lower levels when working in elevated areas. There are three basic 

parts of protection equipment: anchorage, body wear and connecting devices. 

Anchorage is commonly referred to as the tile point.

These locations should be easily accessible and be high enough for a worker to 

avoid contact with a lower level should a fall occur. Body wear. This is a personal 

protective equipment worn by the worker. For example, a full body harness. A 

full body harness is designed to hold the wear upright in the event of a fall. The 

full body harness should fit snug, so that will distribute forces generated during 

a fall across the person's body evenly reducing the potential for serious injury. 

Lastly is connecting devices. Always know your fall distance and be sure to 

select the proper equipment to meet the fall clearance requirements. 

Connecting devices may consist of shock absorbing lanyards or position 

restricting lifelines. Slide 24. With the winter months approaching snow, ice, 

mud and rain can create slippery conditions on travel ways such as stairs, 

ladders, and other walking surfaces. Be especially mindful of hazards associated 

with falls while getting on and off mobile equipment and tarping trucks. Be sure 

to train miners on how to safely conduct examinations and remove hazardous 

conditions.

On slide 25, we'll discuss fall protection best practices. Number one, train 

miners to recognize fall hazards in a chore that safe work procedures are 

discussed and established. Number two, always use fall protection equipment 

and safety belts with lines when working at height in near openings where there 

is a danger of falling. Number three, have properly designed gates, safety 

change, handrails, guards and the short covers are securely in place at openings 

through which persons may fall. Number four, always use the three points of 
contact method. Be sure to maintain contact with the equipment by using either 

two hands and one foot or one hand and two feet when mounting and 

dismounting equipment. Number five, use automatic parts of point systems to 

prevent miners from working from heights. And lastly, number six, provide, use 

and maintain safe truck hatch access facilities. I'll now turn this over to Greg

Meikle. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Hello, my name is Greg Meikle. I'm the Chief Division of Health in Enforcement 

for the Mine Safety and Health Administration in the national office. Some of 

you may know me, some of you may not know me. And my contact information 

is on our website. Today, I intend to call attention to our silica initiative, which is 

one of our initiatives because it's of interest to all of our stakeholders, 

everybody on this call. It in involves all of our miners that are at risk of over 

exposure to silica and respirable silica dust. At our website, you can go to our 

initiative. And in a nutshell, what the initiative wants to do is call attention and 

push resources toward resolving the issue of overexposure to silica by our 

miners.

And there's elements of that, and you can read them, but we wish to call 

attention to the ones that are at risk and have been identified through our 

sampling. Bullet number one, as you can see, would be placing mines on a 103 

eye spot inspection for repeated overexposure when that's warranted. To 

increase our sampling at those activities at your mines and that involve high risk 

activity in making sure that we do our monitoring and do our sampling in order 

to know what is working, what is not working and correct it to where we can 

protect miners. For overexposures that we identify, there's going to be some 

requirements for us to correct those and to get compliance. You can read those, 

but again, I'm here to call some attention to the activities that everybody on the 

call is involved in and have a stake of.

We have on our website, not only the silica initiative link, but we also have a 

number of things. We've got the miner health matters and there will be, if not 

already, a health alert aimed at respirable [inaudible] silica. And by placing this 

in the slide, we can look at some of the elements. But the point is those 

elements you can read. At the bottom of the slide, there's a link and that link 

goes to the NIOSH website that will allow you to access their published 

information concerning control of respirable dust in both coal and metal/nonmetal mines. Those controls have been tried, they have been tested, they have 

been peer reviewed and they have been published. That link I'll reference in 

later slides, but the information on our website, including the miner app, is 

making you available to the resources. And of course, my contacts are on the 

website.

You can call me at any time. I return calls. Not always immediately, but I will 

return your call. And I also return emails. Next slide, please. This past chart is 

information that has been a publicly presented before and it represents the 

calendar year 2021 samples that MSHA took in coal mines that were greater 

than a hundred micrograms of silica exposure. The point in going over the 
details of how many and where they were and everything, the point of this slide 

is to say, "Okay, these occupations that you see here are occupations that are at 

higher risk." We know that that's a part of our regulations. Next side, please. 

And we have, again, analyzed the data up through third quarter for counter year 

for 2022. And it is no surprise those same occupations are involved. What we 

know is where controls need to be applied because those activities and those 

occupations haven't changed over the years.

We continue to do that analysis to make sure, but those controls and those 

occupations and activities are connecting the dots back to that stuff that is 

published and known to work and have been tested. Next slide. Those be best 

practices as published in the NIOCHE control of silica or respirable dust in the 

coal mining industry, for those occupations that we found, there are six of them. 

We read through those and picked out two. It doesn't represent a 

comprehensive list, but we picked out two of the controls that are being most 

utilized and effective for each one of the occupations. And as an example, I'll go 

over the continuous monitoring machine operator. Water spray systems at the 

cutting drum or boom that both in volume and in location and increased face 

ventilation. Now obviously, there's multitudes of permutations of different 

controls that are published. The prick is to pick the ones that are best suited for 

your mining conditions, your mining practices, and people in order for them to 

be effective in protecting those miners. And you can go down the list, but these 

are straight from the best practices as published. Next slide.

This slide represents the citations issued and gone through termination in coal 

mining for those up through the third quarter of this year. And how do they 

correspond to the best practices that are published? Again, going to the 

continuous miner machine operator, a mining machine operator, water and 

ventilation or combination of ventilation and water was the first two or the 

highest percentage of those that were utilized to abate the conditions and 

practices causing citations thus far this year. That corresponds well with those 

that are in the best practices. And you can go down through there. High wall 

drill operator, increased maintenance. I want to say a little bit about that. We 

had as general classifications, enclosed cab or filtration systems. And most of 

our high wall drills, they have environmental cabs or enclosed cabs. The 

problem thus far this year has been maintaining those cabs. As you can see, the 

category of increased maintenance means that the remediation for the 

conditions and practices [inaudible] goes overexposed exposures was to 

maintain what they had on the machine.

And then, work practices that would include individuals doing things as a part of 

their routine activities. And that would include miners getting out of those 

enclosed cabs to do various activities. And when that can't be done safely, it 

needs to be limited. Next slide, please. And then, we go to the metal and nonmetal mines for calendar year 2021. That same ideology was for this slide. These 

occupations over the years have not varied much. They jog in position, but the 

top activities and occupations involved in overexposures are still at the top. 

Next slide. We did another analysis of the data this year and found that to hold 
true. You can look at those, stone cutters, crusher operators, baggers, those 

occupations or those activities in our stakeholders, in our mining operations 

that are at the higher risk of overexposure and they have been issued more 

citations for being overexposed this year. Therefore, where should we focus our 

resources? Where should we look? Next slide. Best practices in controlling dust 

in the metal and non-metal mining industry lists the controls and best practices.

And this is the NIOCHE publication. These things been peer reviewed and 

published and we picked out, again, not a comprehensive list, but two for each 

one of these occupations and activities. And for instance, stone cutting and 

polishing, wet cutting when it's possible. Local exhaust ventilation at the work 

workstation or in the area. And as you can read down through here, these 

things are in those publications. The suggestion is these work, but you need to 

tailor these best practices for your mine and your mine activities in order to 

maintain to compliance. That's the key. And we can go over water that's already 

under the bridge or we can get proactive. And that's the activity we need to do. 

When we're trying to call attention to silica dust, and I use this in [inaudible] 

speeches at the mine. The NIOCHE doctors and those that are on the medical 

end would contend that silica dust can be up to 20 times more toxic than other 

dust.

In my [inaudible] speech, I would say if you're in the coal mine, what your father 

or grandfather got in a 40 to 45 year career, you get in two years. You'll have it 

before you know it. It doesn't take that long. And at some of the levels we're 

seeing on overexposures, we've got to get proactive if we're going to protect 

miners. We did an analysis of what controls have been involved in the 

abatements of these citations thus far this year. For stone cutting, an example 

was in closed cab filtration systems and use of water. And use of water was the 

number one. I've personally witnessed one mine visit, the use of water. And we 

understand that once the respirable dust gets liberated into the mine 

atmosphere, we have to take a little bit more effort to protect miners. The 

moral of that story is prevention is less expensive than cure. We can go down 

through these, but these also followed pretty closely to those best practices 

that have been published. We have those things.

But before we can implement those, we have to have awareness of what is 

working and what is not working, who is being overexposed. I can't emphasize 

enough that our regulations require us to know that we're compliant. Our 

sampling programs are abatements. We utilize sampling. We utilize those in 

order for us to understand where we have to do better. One other note, or a 

couple notes on this abatement measures for the dust in metal and non-metal 

mines thus far this year. During debatement and issuance of the citation, 82% of 

the citations that were issued were issued at mines that did not have respiratory 

protection plans that were compliant in place and/or had plans in place, but was 

not following those plans and implementing those plans. That's a high 

percentage that needs to change. And we're all involved in this. We don't want 

to have to use these, we want our controls to work. But I can tell you this, I've 
got a lot of insurance and every one of those insurance policies I have, I don't 

want to have to use them. I have them just in case. 

Speaker 1: I would encourage mine operators, miners, everybody involved, have that 

respiratory protection, utilize it, because this silica dust is toxic. One other 

aspect I want to call attention to, and it's somewhat timely, is to our effort and 

our initiative on part 90 miners. Now, if for the metal and non-metal, you may 

not know about part 90, but part 90 is a co-regulation that is intended to 

protect miners that has already been identified through medical monitoring of 

evidence that they have coal workers' pneumoconiosis. The link at the top, at 

the bullet, is to our part 90 coal miners in our initiatives on Part 90. I wanted to 

call attention to the mining community that, during the pandemic, the medical 

monitoring was suspended by NIOSH and many of the hospitals and clinics and 

even the mobile van unit for the coal workers health surveillance program. They 

have resumed.

But one thing during that timeframe that we have identified is that we all 

understand baby boomers are retiring now and they're being replaced. And the 

requirement under 3CFR 90.100C makes it mandatory for miners, new to the 

industry, to be given a medical monitoring within 30 days of their employment 

into the coal mining industry. So I'm reminding you that now we're through the 

pandemic and that they're doing chest x-rays and spirometry and those new 

symptoms assessment and occupational history surveys. When you have new 

miners coming into the industry, they have to get that medical monitoring 

within 30 days of that employment. And that's a baseline. It includes not only 

the initial, but also a three year follow up. And if that three year follow up or 

initial has evidence of pneumoconiosis, then a second follow up after two years. 

So five years after the initial. If anyone has any questions concerning that, I'd be 

glad to answer them. But that's what I have today. And again, if I'm new to you, 

I hope I helped.

Assistant Secre...: Thank you, Greg. This is Secretary Williamson again. I just want to take a few 

minutes and kind of try to bring everything together and talk a little bit about... 

So we walked through some fatalities, some best practices. We focused on fall 

protection and did a little bit of a deeper dive there. Sort of new to the 

stakeholder meeting, Greg just had his presentation on some health hazards

and really focused in on silica as a hazard that we're looking at better protecting 

miners in. So one of the things we recently did at MSHA, a few weeks ago, was 

kicked off a miner health campaign, which we were calling Miner Health 

Matters. So part of the thinking behind that is, and it's reflected in the 

stakeholder meeting, is that both MSHA's name and its mission makes clear that 

protecting both miner safety and health must be a priority.

And as Marcus did, not only today, but he does on all the stakeholder calls, he 

goes through. And in his presentation, there are pictures. There's a description 

of what happens. People follow along. So on the safety side, you see an accident 

or you see a near miss. And it's a visible, tangible event that immediately 

captures your attention. Or even if you're not there present to see it, you can 
walk through the slides and you can get a pretty good feeling of what happened. 

And it immediately draws your attention and you focus on safety. And then, 

there's the best practices and those are things you can implement to protect 

miners, to prevent those things from reoccurring.

And we take our work very seriously on the safety side, and we'll continue to do 

so. But on the health side, health hazards are harder to identify. They're harder 

to analyze. They're harder to correct. Some of the worst occupational illnesses, 

that we just talked about, silicosis, coal workers' pneumoconiosis, so black lung 

disease, cancers, all these different things, all these different occupational 

illnesses that miners develop, by being overexposed beyond a, what I'll call, a 

healthy limit over a period of time, that's how miners get sick. Those health 

hazards are much harder to identify and address. So part of the thinking behind 

this campaign and knowing that we need to focus on those things and that we 

know enough about them to protect miners from them and that it requires a 

little bit of heightened vigilance is that making sure that miner's health is 

considered equally as important as miner safety.

Both are incredibly important and both an important part of our mission. And 

we're going to do the work at this agency to protect both miner safety and their 

health. So that's part of the idea behind the campaign. Another part of it, and 

Greg just talked a little bit about, medical screening, at least on the coal side. 

And there's a whole program that exists, for numbers of years there. And NIOSH 

runs its coal worker surveillance program and that's well established and that's 

out there. But what I would say as part of this broader miners health campaign 

that we have, that encapsulates all the health work that we're doing, including 

all the work we're doing to better protect miners from silica is that's both coal 

and metal, non-metal. And I think the point that I'm about to make is equally 

applied to both, even though there is an existing system in coal for this, is that 

it's incredibly important for miners, no matter what the commodity is they're 

mining, to make sure that they have an awareness about their health.

Because if you don't know what your health is, you can't take any action to try 

to better protect yourself. You can't make decisions, you can't make all those 

important decisions, that health is a big part of our life. It's a big part of our 

wellbeing. It affects our families. It affects us personally. All those personal 

things that are involved in, I guess, just being a person. It's things that you 

discuss with your families. If you don't have that, at least, information about 

what your health is, whether you go see your own personal doctor, you 

participate in a surveillance program, like what NIOSH has, it doesn't matter 

what that avenue is for you to do that, it's incredibly important for miners to 

have an awareness of what their health is.

So that's a part of this campaign too. And the thought behind it. And part of 

what we did, in terms of rolling it out. And Greg alluded to part 90 and I'm just 

going to take a few minutes and talk about an initiative that we're doing as part 

of this health campaign, focused on part 90, which is a longstanding existing 
program. But it's also a program that we know, both from our internal data and 

that it's historically been underutilized.

And I think it's even the numbers are even lower now, because of COVID. We 

had a lot of part 90 miners drop out or drop out of the workforce, because of 

COVID, which makes sense. Because if you've already been diagnosed with a 

pneumoconiosis and you have an underlying lung or health condition, you could 

see how a miner would not want to jeopardize their health, by potentially going 

and working in that environment. But we know that the program is 

underutilized. And for those of you that are on the call or may not be familiar 

with it, just in a nutshell, under existing, and if you want to learn more, we have 

a website that's got a lot more information on it. But in a nutshell, part 90, and 

it's part 90, because it's 30CFR part 90, it's also referred to as Transfer Rights. 

And under existing law, coal miners, who, unfortunately, have already 

developed a pneumoconiosis, whether that's coal workers' pneumoconiosis, 

silicosis, a form of pneumoconiosis, and they've already been diagnosed, and 

this is a program too that we share with NIOSH.

So I should also make that clear. NIOSH does the health evaluation and 

determination. And then, once a miner wants to exercise these rights, that's the 

part of the program that we have. So if unfortunately a miner's already 

developed a pneumoconiosis, they could exercise these rights and they can 

continue working, if they want to, in, what I'll call, a healthier, more protective 

environment. And there's more specifics to that, but it's a less dusty 

environment, essentially. It's a lower standard than what applies elsewhere in 

the mine. And so, what we know, right now, in terms of the current picture, is 

there's an increase in cases of pneumoconiosis. Not only is there more cases in 

pneumoconiosis, we're seeing more severe forms in pneumoconiosis, like 

progressive massive fibrosis. And we're seeing it in younger and less 

experienced miners. And I think Greg made the point earlier about how much 

more toxic silica is.

And you think about it in terms of the latency period and how long it takes 

previous generations of miners, how long it took to work in a mine environment 

to develop black lung disease. And you think about it from that standpoint, now 

you add on top of more exposure to silica, you're going to get sick. You can 

potentially get sick a lot quicker in those environments than maybe even existed 

before. So you got younger miners that are getting it, less experienced miners 

that are getting sick. And the way that I think about this, coming from the 

community that I come from, and having a young family myself, there might be 

miners that are out there, I can't tell you the exact number of them or what the 

total population is, but they, unfortunately, might have already gotten sick. 

They might have young children. They may have other people that they have to 

support financially.

They may have an inability to move or change in careers. They may not have 

anywhere near comparable employment opportunities. And a lot of people, as 

you all know so well, just enjoy the profession of mining. They have a family 
history of it. It's incredibly important to them. Some of them see it as a patriotic 

duty. It does not matter, whatever that circumstance is, whether it's economic 

or whatever that personal decision, if a coal miner has unfortunately already 

gotten sick, what part 90 does is, if you need to remain employed, it allows 

them to do that. And they're not going to get better, because pneumoconiosis is 

a progressive illness. There is no cure for it. You're going to get worse over time. 

But we know how you get worse, quicker. It's from being exposed to higher 

levels of coal dust and silica. So if you need, whatever the reason, you make the 

decision that you need to continue working, part 90, at least, lets you have the 

opportunity to exercise that right, to stay employed, and to do so with at least 

slowing down the progression of your illness.

In that healthier, less dusty environment, at least the progression of your illness 

is going to be slowed down. And that's why it's such an important right. And so, 

basically, I ask my team to take a look into the issue, in terms of we know it's 

underutilized and we know that there's a growing population out there. So what 

can we do? And I'll just quickly walk through it real quick and I want to make 

sure we save appropriate time for questions. But we look at it, in terms of three 

primary areas that we're working on right now to better improve the program, 

that will hopefully make it easier for people to participate, if they want to. It's 

always a personal choice and the decision that the miner makes with his or her 

family. But so, the first question is a question of awareness. Do coal miners 

actually know that this right exists? How many of them do? We know that there 

are more and more newer, inexperienced miners joining the workforce.

How many of them even know about that? That that right exists? So some of 

the ways we're trying to address that issue is we've developed part 90 

education and training materials. They're pretty extensive. They're on our 

website. We've partnered with NIOSH to improve and streamline the 

communications that both of us have with coal miners about this program, to 

address both the awareness and, what I'll call, the second issue, accessibility. 

Say, you know about the program. But you're talking about two different 

government agencies and forms and all those things that go into just going 

through the process. Well, so we created a new landing page on our website. 

And I think Greg had it up earlier, it's www.msha.gov/part90. It's a nowhere on 

the internet. Before this, was there just a place where someone wanted to know 

about part 90 or the steps to go through the process of getting a medical 

evaluation to invoking the right? That did not exist.

Well, it does now. And if miners have heard about the program and they want 

to learn more, there's a place where they can do that. And those education and 

training materials live there as well. And there's pretty what I think is great flow 

chart that walks you through the entire process. So here's the last piece of this. 

So you're a miner who knows about the program, you know how to go through 

the program. Fortunately, as I said, you've already been diagnosed and you've 

already developed a pneumoconiosis. So you're weighing, "do I exercise this 

right, given my situation, because I need or want to continue to remain 

employed in the coal mining industry?" Well the third piece of that is providing 
assurance. So making sure that that miner knows that he or she can exercise 

that right, without fear of retaliation or discrimination. And we hope that they 

can and do exercise those rights and that never becomes a problem. That 

they're able to transfer, or their existing mine environment is made to come in 

compliance with that 0.5 standard, that applies to part 90 miners.

But unfortunately, if that happens, giving miners assurance that they can 

exercise those rights and know that there's an agency that, if they file a 

discrimination complaint, under 105C, we'll investigate it and if that it has merit, 

then there's an agency out there that'll do everything we can to make sure that

miner's right's restored. And that the big part of that too is knowing that you 

can exercise this right. You're not going to get reduced pay or have any effect at 

all to any of your existing benefits. You just get to work in a healthier, better 

environment. And we're going to continue to have conversations about both 

miner rights and just the part 90 program in general, when inspectors and our 

ESFMS personnel go to mine sites. And we're going to talk to miners and we're 

going to continue to work with NIOSH and everyone else to try to improve the 

program.

Because if you've already gotten sick, it's a very powerful existing right, if you've 

already gotten sick, that allows you to remain employed, if you choose to 

exercise it. So we're going to continue working on it, but those are a few steps 

that we've already taken to improve what we think are improvements to the 

part 90 program. And we'll keep thinking about it and trying to work with NIOSH 

to do that. And I'll just lastly mention too, for those of you that don't know, we 

just developed and introduced a miner safety and health app. It's already gotten 

some really great feedback. We're continuing to work on it and make even more 

improvements to it. But if you haven't already, I would encourage you to 

download it and check it out. Let us know if you have any feedback or thoughts 

about it. It's available for both Android and iPhone and we're really proud of it.

And we think it's an incredibly important tool that allows direct communication 

with miners and a great education and training tool. There's health information, 

there's safety information, there's miners' rights information. And if a miner 

needs to, basically can make a hazard complaint by just a couple push of the 

buttons from the app and call it in, if they need to. So just wanted to flag 

everyone's attention that that resource is now out there and exists, and 

encourage you to download it, take a look. And if you have feedback on it, we'd 

welcome hearing about it. So I guess, with that, we'll go to questions.

Operator (Erika...: If you would like to ask a question, please press star zero on your telephone 

head now and operator will take your name and place you into the queue in the 

order received. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 

one on your phone now. Our first question comes from Diane Hale, please state 

your question.

Various Q&A Par...: Good morning, everyone. Okay, so my question is, I've been asked, for a couple 

of my mining clients, I provide respiratory [inaudible] testing and respiratory 
detection. We have downloaded the ANSI Z88 standard. I've gone through that. 

I've got the 1969 one. I heard in the meeting you talk specifically about miners 

need to have spirometry. I would love to find, where is it either in the MSHA 

regulations, a letter of interpretation, a policy statement, or in one of those 

fancy [inaudible] standards? Where is it listed that they are required to have this 

spirometry, that additional medical? I know a lot of mines do it, but I'd being 

asked, why do we need to have it, if they're young and they're healthy and 

they're not over 45 or 50? Which is, according to, I think, the American Thoracic 

Society, under one of the appendices, I cannot find where that is. And does it 

even exist? And if so, where 

Speaker 2: Diane, are your clients...?

Patricia Silvey: Copy that. Diane? Are your clients metal/nonmetal?

Various Q&A Par...: Metal/nonmetal? Yes, there's no coal mines that I'm aware of on the west 

coast, that I go to.

Patricia Silvey: Right. I didn't know where you were. I thought you were on the west coast 

when you said good morning. But in any event, when we were given the 

presentation earlier on health, Fred Nichols, and he was uniquely talking about 

the coal standard. There is no, and you did exactly right when you said you 

downloaded the acid 1969 standard. That's what you were supposed to do 

because that's what we incorporate by reference in the metal/nonmetal health 

standard, 56, 57, 5005. Right now there is no requirement for spirometry. And 

in a word, that's the end of the answer to your question. I don't need to 

pontificate and go on, and on, and on because you asked one question, that's 

the answer to your question.

Various Q&A Par...: And thank you so much. I wish I had asked this three months ago because I went 

down trying to find, where's this document? Because everybody was saying one 

thing and I know the mines want to hold their workers to a higher standard, and 

track their health and safety. I get it. But I'd like to see where is it in the 

regulations or the standards? So thank you very much, that was my question.

Patricia Silvey: Okay. You're welcome.

Assistant Secre...: Yeah. And I'm just the Assistant Secretary Williamson. I'm just going to add just 

a quick point on it though to part of the question, is the idea of whether it's in 

coal or metal/nonmetal, whether it's mandatory under a reg or whether it's 

voluntary under just as a good practice. The point I made earlier about how 

important it is for miners to maintain and have an awareness to their health. I 

think the idea and the importance of the initial screening when you enter the 

workforce is you have a baseline. That way, if you ever get an additional follow 

up or you have an additional examination, you have a baseline of what your 

health was when you entered employment. That way you can kind of look back 

five years, and you can look back and see what happened. That's the 
importance of getting the initial, whether it's on coal as a function of a 

mandatory reg, or it's just a voluntary thing on the metal/nonmetal side. That's 

the importance of having the baseline screening at the beginning of entering 

mining employment.

Various Q&A Par...: I get that, but I deal with mostly contractor employees that are there for a week 

or two, and then they're probably not going back to that mine site. What you 

just said almost makes it a policy by MSHA, which means now I have to tell my 

clients, "MSHA just said in a conference call, 'We want you to track the health 

and safety of the miners, and we want you to go a little bit above and beyond.'" 

Which a lot of my clients, some of them will do it, but I like to be able to back 

that up for them because it comes down to, yes, they want to be protecting the 

miners.

I'm giving them the best respiratory protection program training, how to 

maintain their respirators I can, and what the hazards are. But then have them 

go spend all this extra money for spirometry for a couple week program, that's 

where I get a lot of pushback. But I wanted to be able to back up with what does 

MSHA require? As opposed to miners that are going to stay at the mine and 

work multiple years. That's where I'm coming from, from these contractors.

Assistant Secre...: Well, fair enough, I'll just leave it at this. I cannot tell you one way or another 

how to advise your clients, but there's a difference between what is required in 

a regulation, and what is the best practice. We just clearly talked, and told you 

what is required under coal and what is not required, but may be a good 

suggestion, or a good best practice, or a good piece of medical advice, for lack of 

a better word. I can't tell you one way or another how to advise your clients, but 

what we've discussed and what is very clear, is there are requirements under 

coal and there are not the same requirements under existing law in metal, nonmetal, but, it may or may not be a best practice or there is value in having 

medical information. I'll just kind of leave it at that.

Various Q&A Par...: Okay. I appreciate that, thank you.

Assistant Secre...: Thank you.

Operator (Erika...: Our next question comes from John Sefnock. Please state your question.

John Toopnock: Yes, good afternoon MSHA team. This is John Toopnock, New Jersey State 

Grants. Thank you, Assistant Secretary Williamson, Ms. Silvey, and Greg 

[inaudible] tram.

Various Q&A Par...: Thank you

John Toopnock: Always like to see you the first time in six years. Well, we haven't been there in 

two years. Anyway, thank you Craig, for the review on the silica, the new 

enforcement initiative. Of course, that's being part 46 where sand and gravel 
and quarries up north. So that's been my focus during part 46, annual refresher 

as well as new miner training. And appreciate, reiterate how silica is 20 times 

more toxic than the coal dust, but that is of course the focus has been for my six 

years while I've been state grants.

MY question is this. Okay, so we have both concrete, as well as asphalt facilities, 

located on some of our mines. There is a inter-agency agreement between 

Department of Labor, OSHA, and MSHA. It's old. I don't have in front of me right 

now, but it's many years old. So my question is, is that agreement, is it still in 

place? And what are the plans, and what are MSHA's requirements under that 

current initiative? Thank you.

Patricia Silvey: It's still in place. It's 1980 or 1981.

John Toopnock: Thank you. I knew it was very old, Ms Silvey. Thank you.

Patricia Silvey: But it's not that old, it's all in your perspective. So don't get it twisted.

John Toopnock: Okay, roger.

Patricia Silvey: I was here at MSHA when it was put in place, so anyway, is in place.

Brian: Yeah, nothing's changed. This is Brian, from the last meeting. Nothing changed, 

for them or you.

John Toopnock: Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

Operator (Erika...: Our next question comes from Jim London. Please state your question.

Jim London: Hello, my name is Jim London. I represent work for WVU, West Virginia 

University in Morgantown, West Virginia. I am the electrical instructor. I do coal 

miner retraining, apprentice, high voltage training for coal miners here in the 

area, and I came in late the call, and I apologize for that. Was there any 

discussion which has already happened that I may have missed concerning the 

fatality down at Coalberg Tunnel in Kanawha County, West Virginia back on 

September 1st?

Various Q&A Par...: No, we didn't discuss that.

Patricia Silvey: No, there was no discussion of that, and I think we saw the question that came 

in on that. Was that your question? You just gave yourself away.

Jim London: That is my question.

Patricia Silvey: Okay. I figured it.
It's number 13. Okay, no, there was no discussion of that question. You gave the 

date as September 1st, we are in the process of doing the fatality report and I 

will say on behalf of Mr. Williamson, I hope trying to get it out as accurately and 

as timely as we can. We understand the importance of that for our own staff, as 

well as for the mining industry, both labor and industry. And that is about, we 

are going to get that fatality report out. It will include what causes, as well as 

corrective actions that we think are appropriate to address the root causes. And 

that answers your question I think maybe in an obtuse way, but I think it 

answers your question.

Jim London: Well, I guess what I'm understanding you to say then is that once the 

investigation is complete, and the report is filed, and the root cause analysis is 

performed, then MSHA may make recommendations on actions to prevent 

further such types of fatalities. Is that correct?

Patricia Silvey: Correct, absolutely, you got it a hundred percent right.

Jim London: I know these things are hard to predict. Do you have any timeline on when this 

report might come out?

Patricia Silvey: We going to do it as, and it's not meant to be a bureaucratic answer, we're 

going to do it as quickly as we can. Some of them happen to be a little bit more 

complicated than others, both factually and otherwise. But we are going to try 

to do it as quickly as we can and to get to that question that ask about the ones

for the four over that are from 21, we are almost ready to release those in the 

next several weeks or so.

Jim London: Okay, well thank you very much. I'll look forward to seeing your report and the 

recommendations in that report, and perhaps I'll have a follow up question for 

you at the next stakeholder meeting.

Patricia Silvey: I'm sure with the great University of WVU you will, but that's fine too.

Jim London: Okay, well, thank you very much.

Patricia Silvey: Okay, thank you

Operator (Erika...: Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star zero on your 

telephone keypad, now. Our next question comes from Robert Weston. Please 

state your question.

Scott Johnson: Good afternoon, Assistant Secretary Williamson. Good afternoon, Pat. Again,

my name is Scott Johnson. Pat, I'm led to believe by your mention of a list that 

perhaps my question's already on said list, but if not, I've just been doing some 

light reading in the unified agenda on alyra. It looks like the first time we've 

addressed the possibility of rewriting the silica rule for metal/nonmetal was in 

2003. And then our most current information, this notice for public rule making 
was listed anyways in September of 22. So my question is just simply, and 

granted it's only been since 2003, do we have concrete or even plastic idea of 

what this new, I assume will be a new rule would look like? Is it going to be out 

for public comment, something we can put our eyes to, and help our 

stakeholders see where we're going? Just purely from a regulatory standpoint. I 

know we have the best practices out there and we have all sorts of information, 

and we're certainly encouraging folks to follow that. But from a what we have to 

do question, from a regulatory standpoint can anyone speak to where we're at 

with that?

Assistant Secre...: Sure. This is Assistant Secretary Williamson, and I will say first and foremost, 

that we are actively working on a notice of proposed rule making that will better 

protect miners from silica. I can't tell you when it's coming out, but it will come 

out and the regulated community and everyone that's on this call will have the 

opportunity that you just talked about in terms of being able to provide 

comment, and we welcome that comment. That's the whole point of the 

regulatory process is, we're going to put out what we think is a improved 

mandatory health standard that's going to better protect miners from exposure 

to silica. We talked a lot about the dangers of silica and what can happen to 

miners if they have repeated over exposures at certain levels. I can't really give 

you, that's the regulatory process. We will be transparent and we will cross 

every tee, dot every I, and go through the process in the way that we have to do 

that, and welcome all the input and comments. That's about really all I can say, 

but we're working very hard on that.

That's one of the top priorities at MSHA right now. The last point I'll just make is 

that right now in this country, there's only one worker population that does not 

have a certain level of protection when it comes to silica, and that is miners. 

Right now, under our existing standards, the permissible exposure limit is 

double what every other worker in this country has. So, I just want to put that 

out there, and people know that that's the reality. But we're working very hard 

on an improved health standard that we think will make a difference, and we'll 

definitely better protect miners. Related to that, I won't get into all the 

information because we talked about the last stakeholder call, and Greg 

mentioned a little bit earlier in his presentation, but that's a complex health 

rule.

But we're also taking all the measures Greg put up on the screens on our 

website under our silicon enforcement initiative to better protect miners now 

even under the existing standards. So I'll just kind of leave it at that, but I 

appreciate your question, appreciate your interest, and what we're going to do 

in that space. I know there's a lot of people that have interest in it, so hopefully 

maybe I answered a few questions with this answer, but that's about all we can 

say at this point. But, we're working very hard and want to get it out there so 

you all can see it and give us a comment and we'll go from there.

Thank you.
Operator (Erika...: Our next question comes from David Blitzer, please state your question.

David Schweitze...: Yes, thank you. My name name's David Schweitzer. Thank you Assistant 

Secretary, Ms. Silvy Young. I did submit a question in writing, but I'm happy to 

state it here. Calling in the metal/nonmetal dust, but not silica, we have seen 

and heard of in recent weeks or months, MSHA's use of real time Particulate 

MAT monitors being used during inspections. The question that I have been 

asked to submit is, does MSHA have an intention to use those monitors for 

enforcement actions?

Patricia Silvey: Can you clarify what you said? Real time Particular? Say that again?

David Schweitze...: Yes, Miss Silvey, these monitors that are handheld, basically, and give a reading 

of dust particulate in real time.

Patricia Silvey: For silica?

David Schweitze...: Pardon me?

Patricia Silvey: Is it the silica?

David Schweitze...: No, ma'am, not for silica.

Patricia Silvey: Not for silica. What is he talking about?

Assistant Secre...: Do you know what they're measuring? I guess that would beDavid Schweitze...: Oh, I'm sorry, in the lime industry. Calcium dust.

Patricia Silvey: I don't know what he's talking about. Do you know whatVarious Q&A Par...: We have to check into that.

Patricia Silvey: I think you need to set up, be very specific about your particular incident, about 

where this device is being used. Let us know. I'll be honest with you, I'm not 

familiar with what you are asking.

David Schweitze...: Okay.

Various Q&A Par...: Can you send your question to either me, Mr. Williamson, or Greg Nickel, or 

Amanda [inaudible] or Cam Watkins. Even enforcement, that's an enforcement 

question. So what, between the five of us, you can send it to either one, it 

doesn't matter. Then we'll have your information and we'll be able to properly 

answer you.

David Schweitze...: That's great, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Patricia Silvey: All right, thank you.

Operator (Erika...: Once again to ask a question, please press star one on your phone now. At this 

time, we have no further questions.

Assistant Secre...: All right, well, I just want to take a couple minutes to thank everyone for joining 

us and I think we had a good discussion that covered a lot of ground, both in 

safety and in health, and really appreciate the dialogue and the interest and 

hopefully there was a lot of good information that we were able to share that 

will help all of us do what we all want to do is protect miner's safety and health. 

Miners can go home to their families and their communities every day, both 

safe and healthy. That's why we all do the work we do, and just really 

appreciate coming on the call today. We'll have another one soon. Thank you.

Patricia Silvey: Thank you.

Operator (Erika...: This concludes today's meeting. Thank you for attending.