Erika (Operator...: Welcome to the MSHA Norton District Stakeholder Conference Call. At this time 

all participants on a listen only mode. We will be conducting a question after 

session, after the presentation. Please locate the presentation materials on 

msha.gov, quarterly training calls and stakeholders meeting page, under training 

and education and dropdown menu. I'll now like to call meeting over to your 

host, Michael Colley, you may begin.

Michael Colley: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Michael Colley, Staff Assistant here in the 

Norton District. Thank you for participating. At this time, I'd like to turn it over 

to Benjamin Harding, District Manager here in the Norton District, Mr. Harding.

Benjamin Hardin...: Okay. Thanks Mike. Thanks everyone for participating today and taking your 

time, I know its valuable time and we appreciate you calling in. I'm the District 

Manager of Norton District. We cover all coal, and metal, non-metal operations 

in the whole state of Virginia, parts of Maryland, parts of West Virginia, eastern 

Kentucky, upper east Tennessee, and western North Carolina. We're kind of 

widespread. We have field offices in Norton, Virginia, Vansant, Virginia, 

Pikeville, Kentucky, and Staunton, Virginia.

First thing I want to do today is go over the most recent fatalities. As you know, 

last year, we had a pretty rough year with our number of fatals, and 

unfortunately this year we have started out with even a higher rate and nothing 

is more important to us, and I know nothing's more important to you than the 

safety of your miners. Our goal is just to have every miner return at the end of 

the shift, just the way they started at the beginning of the shift, go home safe to 

their families. I'm going to go through the fatal accidents that we've had so far 

in 2022. Once again, this information's on our web page, msha.gov, and as well 

as you can access it as they told you during the introduction. Just asking you to 

focus on these things, look towards the future. If we can learn from these things 

and prevent, we can't prevent these that have already occurred, but if we can 

learn something and prevent some down the road, then we will have been 

successful. I know that's our goal on a daily basis.

All of our inspectors and specialists is to reduce these fatal accidents and 

injuries. Since January 1st, we've lost 12 miners, six underground and six on the 

surface. The underground, there's been a fall of face rib, two falls of roof, one 

powered haulage, and two machinery accidents. On the surface, there's been a 

fall or a sliding material, two powered haulages, one machinery, and one slip or 

fall of person. As you know, we've had a powered haulage initiative going on for 

a good while, and we've been focused on powered haulage safety, powered 

haulage covers a lot of territory with vehicles, belts. There's a lot of different 

type things involved in powered haulage. It's been a focal point for the last year 

or so.

I'll go through these individually, January 7th, we had a machinery accident in an 

underground coal mine, continuous mining machine operator was in the red 

zone as we refer to it. He was pinned between the continuous mining machine 
and a coal rib. I think, if I remember some of the details, I think the miner was 

being moved, I don't think it was up in the face, but anyway, just in the red zone 

and just got pinched between the rib and the machine. We see a lot of those 

over the years. Proximity, devices, and avoidance of the red zone or what we 

recommend in that case. Also, on January 7th, we had a fall of roof in an 

underground metal mine, just a front end loader was operating underground, a 

large section of roof collapsed, and the machine had a cab and canopy, but it 

crushed it and resulted in fatal injuries.

January 11th, we had falling of material. On a surface coal mine, a large tree fell 

from the high wall, struck the cab, the pickup truck, and resulted in a fatal injury 

to the truck driver and serious injuries to the passengers, it was almost a double 

fatality. All I can say is our ground control plans and whatnot require that trees 

be removed for a certain distance from the edge of a high wall. Particularly this 

time of year, when you have freezing and thawing and that type of thing going 

on.

January 14th, we had a fall of person, underground coal mine, was on prep plant 

for an underground coal, it was actually on the surface. A contractor was 

replacing a belt roller on a belt inside the prep plant, fell approximately 27 feet 

down onto a concrete floor, resulted in fatal injuries. I do believe that fall 

protection was provided, but it wasn't being used. Is that correct, Mike? I think 

it is, but anyway, he was not tied off and he fell and resulted in fatal injuries.

On January 26th, we had a powered haulage accident at a surface metal, nonmetal mine, front end loader operator. The loader operator crawled up under a 

dump truck to try to help with some park brake repairs. The driver was not 

aware that he was under there, the truck moved and he was run over and fatally 

injured, basically a communication problem and blocking against motion 

situation.

January 28th, we had another powered haulage on the surface metal, nonmetal operation, a concrete truck driver was fatally injured when their truck 

they were operating turned over and it ejected them from the truck. Another 

minor in the truck was seriously injured. Seat belts were provided, but the driver 

was not wearing seat belt. As always, we encourage seat belt use and it's 

required.

February 14th, powered haulage accident in underground metal, non-metal job. 

A lube truck, service truck drove into an open stope and there was not a berm in 

place. I think she backed her truck in and it fell 60 feet down an open stope in 

the mine. That resulted in fatal injury.

February 28th had a machinery fatality in an underground coal mine. A 

contractor was tramming a single boom face drill to the surface. It was being 

removed from the mine, but once again, kind of was in a red zone. It wasn't a 

continuous miner, but got pinned between the machine and the coal rib. This 
type of machine's not currently provided with proximity detection, I don't think, 

or it wasn't at this month, but it would help prevent this type of accident.

On March 2nd, we had a fall of face or rib actually in an underground coal mine, 

a scoop operator was injured when a piece of rock from a brow fell and struck 

him, just a loose brow. March 4th, machinery accident as a surface metal mine, 

bulldozer was moving material on a steep slope and I guess lost their load in 

front of their blade or whatever, but anyway, went out of control and rolled 

down the slope and came to rest on the cab. I think, if I recall, the victim was 

wearing a seatbelt, but suffered fatal injuries anyway, I think that's the case. I 

don't have the full report in front of me.

March 20th, fall of roof, underground coal mine, just a roof fall in an area where 

a water line was being pulled back from a retreat mining section, pillar section, 

just a slip. March 22nd, we actually had a drowning accident at a surface metal, 

non-metal mine. Two miners used a boat, they went out to a float with a pump 

on it to reposition the pump. The platform had four floats and one of them had 

broken loose, when they stepped over out the boat onto the platform it rolled 

over and they both had on life jackets. One person escaped and the other 

person it caught a piece of the... I think a metal bolt caught their clothes and 

pulled them under water and they drowned.

That's a summary of what we've had so far. As you can see, it's hard to put a 

trend to these things, or they're just across the board, different things, but 

probably one trend is, equipment underground getting caught between the rib 

and the equipment and position of the operator. When you're tramming a 

machine is important. Going to read a few best practices for machinery that 

goes along with that. Always operate your equipment from safe locations, stay 

out the red zone, pinch points, turning radius, and areas close to the ribs, 

corners. Maintain any proximity detection systems in improved operating 

condition. 

Benjamin Hardin...: Always do the manufacturer's recommended static and dynamic test to assure 

your prop system is working properly and that it shuts down at a sufficient 

distance to protect miners where the miner wearable components in 

accordance with the manufacturer's recommendation so that warning lights and 

sounds can be seen and heard and develop and implement procedures for 

tramming, repositioning, cable handling, removing remote-controlled 

equipment safely and train all miners on the function of the proximity detection 

system.

Powered haulage, as you know, has been, we've had a lot of accidents in that 

category. A few of our best practices we recommend are to immediately 

remove equipment from service when safety defects are found, conduct 

adequate pre-operational checks, and weekly exams of equipment, and 

particularly pay attention to those pre-operational checks to make the repairs 

and get the equipment safe before people are operating, always maintain 
control and stay alert when operating equipment, maintain your haul roads free 

of water, mud, ice, other conditions that impact operator's ability to control 

their equipment, operate at speeds consistent with the conditions of the 

roadways and the weather and the visibility, never rely on regenerative braking 

as a substitute for keeping your primary brakes properly maintained if there are 

any regenerative or electric breaking system as a backup only.

That's the things that I have prepared for today. A few things that I'll mention 

that people are generally interested in, and they're not in the presentation, but 

we can give them to anybody that's interested. Most operators usually want to 

know where mg is in rule making. And I'll just give you a little summary. The 

safety program for surface mobile equipment related to power and haulage 

safety is still in the works. The comment period closed on, in November of 21. 

They reopened it in January and kept it through February 11th and it's closed 

again. And I guess a decision will be coming soon on that proposed regulation. 

You also have the exposure of underground miners to diesel exhaust, been in 

the federal register since 2016. The comment period closed in September of 

2020, but there hasn't been a final rule yet. The desirable silica or quartz rule is 

still ongoing.

And there hasn't been a final decision there either. As you know, a lot of people, 

I think it's geared towards matching up with OSHA's 50 milligram standard, but 

there hasn't been any movement to my knowledge on that. The part 18 testing 

of electric and motors permissibility of equipment comment period has been 

closed for over a year on that. But basically it is about probably lessening the 

restrictions for permissibility and accepting some of the international standards 

for intrinsic safety and that kind of thing. But nothing final has come on that. I 

think now, [inaudible 00:14:35] has a follow-up to our health regulation from 

several years ago. There was a study that was proposed after five years or 

whatever was [inaudible 00:03:47] and that is ongoing. We don't have the 

results of that yet. And starting this quarter and a half, we have a new safety 

initiative, basically it's called Take Time Save Lives.

You can go on the website and look at it, get all kinds of information. It includes 

safety information for power and haulage as we've spoken about already. Pillar 

initiative with guidance on preventing roof and red falls, fire suppression 

prevention guidance, and fatality updates are also available on that. But our 

inspectors will be looking at mobile equipment, pre-ops and condition, seatbelt 

usage, conveyor belt safety, and as always pillaring we usually visit any pillar 

section in a coal mine once a month. And we also are looking at the 

underground limestone, some of the large collapses that have occurred in those 

mines. We'll be taking a look at that along with tech support's help. That's what 

I know about that's ongoing rule-making wise and initiative wise. And with that 

said, I'll be available for questions at the end, I'll go ahead and turn the 

presentation over to Jason Lane. He's our Supervisory Electrical Engineer here in 

Norton district.
Possible Q&A Pa...: Thank you, Ben. Appreciate that. As being said, my name is Jason Lane. My 

official title here at the agency is Supervisory Electrical Engineer. I am over the 

Electrical Department, so you can absolutely reach out to me for any electrical 

questions you may have. But my purpose today is to present part 46 training 

plan. And basically just let the industry know that there is a template. There's a 

template available from the district to basically help you get started and help 

you develop that training plan. In your slide presentation, there's a slide, a third 

slide in with my contact information. And if you're interested in what I'm going 

to say today, that's going to be the most important slide.

If you want what I have, just shoot me an email and just ask if they can have 

that part 46 template and I will absolutely send it to you. If you want to call me, 

sure, you can call me, but I'm going to immediately ask for your email address 

and say, "I'm going to send it to you, then you read it, and then you've got 

questions give me a call back." I also have listed on this slide, Fred Martin. Fred 

Martin works for ESS, which is a division within educational field services.

Fred does really, really good work. He's very good to help mine out. These guys 

are going back out in the field as we're coming of this pandemic. His contact info 

was on here as well. If you think you could use some onsite to help with 

training, records training plans, training topics, Fred is a wonderful resource. 

And he and I are in agreement on almost every topic that comes up on training. 

So Fred does work for ESS, where I work directly for the district. Alright, scrolling 

on down...

... Just to give other options. There's actually three ways that I know that 

Emtrick can actually assist operators in developing a part 46 training plan.

There is a 67 page training plan starter kit that's available on our website and 

this is in the slides here. You can click on that link and it's okay. It's good 

information. But as I said, it is 67 pages long and I think that's awful wordy. 

There's a lot of white space in there and I just don't think it needs to be 67 

pages long. My second bullet here is actually I do really, really like this. This is a 

training plan compliance guide. If you do not have this, let me encourage you to 

go and download this. This is a PDF document. It's word searchable. This 

contains all the training regulations, all the policy that relates to those 

regulations, and also includes a question and answer and it very, very good. It 

includes scenarios. If you call me with a training question, this is usually the first 

place I go.

I always look for answers that are in writing first. I don't believe in making stuff 

up as you go. If the answer's already available, I'm going to give that to you. And 

I have probably shared this link with probably a couple dozen mine operators. 

As they've asked questions, I will shoot them the copy and paste the question 

answer that's most relevant to their question, shoot it to them and include this 

link here. So they can download that themselves that way you know where this 

information comes from. The easiest way for you to have it here in both, of the 
easiest way to locate this is in a Google search. If you'll just look for MSHA part 

46 and part 48 compliance guide, I just did this a few minutes ago. It's the first 

thing that pops up on a Google search and it's really good, it also includes that 

same starter kit.

That's one reason it's 288 pages long. It includes 67 pages of a starter kit. And 

then finally, the third way that I think the HC can assist you in development of a 

training plan is to contact us here in the district. I think every district probably 

develops a template to share with mine operators and as good practice. As 

MSHA, we're supposed to be the experts on regulation. So it's actually, it just 

makes logical sense that we would develop a template and help mine operators 

out rather than have each individual mine operator try to read through all the 

regulations themselves and start from a scratch, clean scratch of paper and 

develop this template or develop a plan. So again, if you're interested in what 

I'm going to present, please give me a call or email first. I'm going to have a next 

slide here says part 48 versus part 46. There's a couple of key differences, and 

I'm just going to hit the highlight here. Under part 48, which covers all coal 

mining and then underground mining of other types, new miner training 

experience, miner training, annual refresher. Those are your big three.

The law actually dictates what topics must be covered. The operator themselves 

really don't have discretion to pick and choose or do anything. The district 

manager does have the authority to require or allow additional topics, but that 

must be approved in their plan in the trans land. By contrast part 46 for new 

miner training, the law stipulates nine topics and the operator unilaterally add 

topics as necessary. For experienced miner training, the law stipulates eight 

topics. And again, the operator has that latitude to add additional topics and for 

annual refresher, really there's only two required topics that must be covered. 

And then the rest of it can be developed mine specific for your operation, which 

is a very good thing. And, of course we know that part 46 transplants are not 

approved or they do not have to be approved. I'll make one statement about 

that in a few moments. Scrolling down to the next page, I'm actually jump 

straight into the district's template. This is a 20 page document. The first 

Possible Q&A Pa...: ... pages are actually just instructions how to complete it, because there is a lot 

of ability to custom this to your mine operation. The law's vague in some areas, 

but it does mean more work as far as to develop this training plan.

The way that I did this on this first page, it's titled Part 46 Training Plan 

Instructions. If you look down to Item No. 1, it says the name, a production 

operator or independent contractor, mine name, the MSHA ID or independent 

number. I say, "Please complete the blanks on Page 1." I think I kept these in 

order. These numbered items are actually numbered, according to how the 

regulation says to develop a training plan.

If you were to scroll down just a couple of pages and go down to that Page 1, it's 

about four pages down, and it goes down and it's titled Training Plan for a 
Surface Mine, and you'll see a blank there for company name, mine name and 

MSHA ID number. Again, if you follow those instructions in order, it will tell you 

how out to develop this training plan and fill in the blanks. Scrolling back up to 

the instructions, then coming down one page, you'll see a cover page. It simply 

says, "Training Plan for 30 CFR Part 46 Surface Mines."

The next page would be like a cover letter, and I've got it highlighted in yellow. I 

think this is common knowledge, but if it's not, mine operators do have the right 

to request that their Part 46 training plan actually be approved. This may come 

up if you've got insurance or worker's comp or liability, and they're wanting you 

... to make sure you're in compliance with the law, they may ask you, "I want to 

see an approval letter from the district." Okay, you have that right to request 

your Part 46 training plan to be approved. One stipulation, the district does not 

approve that. That actually goes straight to EFS, and this is the correct address. 

If you did wish to have your Part 46 training plan approved, this is where that 

would go to.

Okay, scrolling on down to the next page, back to Page 1 of the training plan, 

again, this is fill-in-the-blank, and I'm not going to read everything. We simply 

don't have time, and I know that would get boring. What I do want to point out, 

again, this is a template. It provides a good format. Everything you need to 

develop a training plan is in here, as far as providing you space and blanks. You 

will have to fill in the blanks, but it's all here. I've highlighted in yellow the points 

I want to bring up.

Scrolling down to numbered Page 2, the title is General Descriptions. I've been 

dealing with training plans for over a decade, and I've pretty much heard it all, I 

think. Occasionally something will catch me off guard, but when I developed this 

template, I actually waited a couple years when I was into this position, and 

basically learned the ropes of training. After a couple years, I actually had pretty 

much heard all the questions, and they began to repeat. What I did is I put the 

most commonly asked questions here in the training plan, or the things that 

come up most often, or in particular, sometimes the things that get people in 

trouble.

Under Training Type in this highlighted section, I've actually put the definitions 

for a Miner, New Miner, Annual Refresher training, and all this is ... nothing's 

made up. It's either copied and pasted straight out of regulation or out of our 

policy. I've highlighted this definition of a miner here. The definition of a miner 

is an individual who has gained 12 months experience within 36 months. That's 

just, straight up, a definition.

That next parenthetical statement that I have is actually a copied out of a 

regulation as well, and it comes up especially in times like this. Usually when 

there's an upswing in mining, I'll get a call from a young guy, usually in his early 

twenties, saying, "Hey, I took that Miner class back a few years ago. I didn't get a 

job, but I've got a job lined up now. Is that training still good, or do I have to 
take it over again?" Well, the law actually addresses that very question in Part 

46 in particular, and what it says, very simply, is no, you don't have to take it 

again, but if that 36 months has elapsed, what you do have to have is four hours 

of training under New Miner training of those topics that's covered.

Again, that's a very common question. The reason I think I get asked that 

question, they may call a third-party contract trainer who makes his living 

providing training, and he'll ask the same question. That gentleman, a lot of 

times, is all too happy to say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, your training's run out. You need 

to get your 24 hours again, and I'm happy to provide that for you for a fee." I'd 

like to think there's not unscrupulous people out there taking advantage of 

sometimes a desperate situation, but the reality is there is.

That last sentence there in that same section says once a miner has received 

New Miner training under Part 46 or part 48, and has accumulated 12 months of 

mining experience within 36 months, they're a miner for the rest of their life. 

That actually does come up from time to time. I've actually talked to miners 

who've actually been out of the industry for decades, and something will 

happen in their life and they need to go back or want to go back to mining. 

They'll give me a call and say, "What do I need to do?" I was like, "Well, how 

long did you work in the mines?" He said, "Well, I was in there for five years." 

I'm like, "Well, you're still a miner. Nothing changed." That question does come 

up regularly.

Scrolling on down that same page, the next highlighted block, this question 

comes up quite a bit. There is no federal requirement for an out-of-work miner 

to maintain their Annual Refresher training. That does come up quite often. 

Now, there's some states that may have an individual requirement or a state 

requirement, but is not a federal requirement. Again, sometimes you get some 

unscrupulous third-party contract trainers that will say, "Oh, you've got to stay 

up to date on your annual refresh whether you're working or not," and by the 

federal law, that is not correct.

Another common question I get is about visitors to your mine site. The law or 

policy ... actually, I think this is actually the law ... actually stipulates seven 

specific cases that they're not really considered miners, they're considered 

visitors, in which case, you just provide them with site-specific hazard training. 

The question I get most often actually comes from ... you'd probably put them in 

the category of a scientific worker. Somebody will call me and say, "I'm doing 

environmental testing on water runoff," or something like that. I was like, "Well, 

okay. You're covered. I mean, you're not a miner. You're just visiting the site. 

That definitely is covered." That question comes up very often.

Scrolling on down here to the next full page, it's titled New Miner Training 

(Section 46.5). What I did, I actually went through the regulation again. What 

I'm trying to do is develop a format. You know, this is a template. You absolutely 

would have to modify it, I'm sure, but it gives you a good jumping-off point so 
you're not starting with a blank sheet of paper. I went through the law. This is 

copied and pasted straight out of the law. As I mentioned earlier, under New 

Miner Training, there is nine topics that must be covered, and they do fall into 

different categories. I just put it here in a good format. You can see that's 

divided up into two sections. The law's very clear. Seven topics must be given 

them before work is done, at least four hours, and then it says no later than 60 

days, these other topics must be covered.

What I have put in red ... and this is throughout the plan ... is probably 

something you'll have to change. I've got it broken up here that of the one, if 

you choose to give four hours initial training and put them to work, I'm saying 

that one hour under Item No. 1, one hour would be given initially, but you 

would total eight hours. That's how I've broken this up. I mean, you can change 

it, change those hours, or you may have a company policy that nobody goes to 

work until they receive the full 24 hours, in which case you actually may want to 

make that stipulation in your training plan.

If you look down at the bottom of the page, I have an underline that says, 

"Exceptions to New Miner Training Requirements." Again, these are questions 

that come up. These are either in the law or policy. Nothing was made up here. I 

just put that there for a quick reference where it's most applicable, under New 

Miner training. I've done that for each one of the major types of training.

Next page is Newly Hired Experienced Miner Training. You can see I've done the 

same thing, same format. I also have the exceptions down at the bottom of the 

page. Again, that's copy and paste either straight out of the law or policy, the 

same format there.

Scrolling on down to Annual Refresher, same format. If you'll remember back, I 

said that only two topics are required during Annual Refresher per the law. 

Everything else now comes from the mine operator. It's tailored to their specific 

needs. I did put in all the recommendations, again, just to provide a format. It's 

a jumping-off point, and this course is an Word document, easily modified. You 

can modify it for your specific operation.

Coming down to the next page is Task Training. Task Training, this template 

actually covers the most. I think it's four or five pages long, and being covered. I 

think it's 12 fatals we had already this year. I can tell you, I've done enough fatal 

investigations that we almost always write task training as one of the root 

causes of that. Through the years, I've actually kept on making the Task Training 

section of our template just a little bit longer, or breaking it up into smaller bits. 

Hopefully it can act as a guide to provide effective task training.

If you'll scroll down to Page 8, it's titled Listing of the Task Training Assignments. 

Under Part 46, you are required to list all the tasks that you would provide 

training at your operation. I gave again just a bunch of typical type of equipment 

that you would find at your typical mining operation. You absolutely can put a 
range of times for a task training. It all depends on the prior experience. Again, 

you have to modify this again. This is in red. I would expect you to modify these 

hours of training, but it gives you a jumping-off point of something to get 

started.

Scrolling down to the next page, the page titled New Task Training Continued, 

Outline of Task Training Procedures. I have highlighted here, this is actually one 

of the differences between Part 48 and Part 46. Under Part 48, there's actually a 

point of law that says task training will not be given during a production shift, or 

at least during a production shift when the production's not the primary goal of 

the exercise. In my template, I do not believe in sneaking things in or putting an 

additional burden on mine operators. It's pretty much a statement of what the 

law requires.

Here I said, "While training under close supervision may be done during 

production mode, emphasis should be placed on the training and not the 

production." I mean, I don't think it's realistic to have a new guy operating a 

piece of equipment and you're trying to set a production record. I mean, that's 

just not logical. Again, I didn't put any additional burden on 

Possible Q&A Pa...: ... great. I didn't try to sneak anything in here. Just highlighting that point. 

Scrolling down to the next page, and we're down to numbered page 10, the title 

here is New Task Training, Task Training Broken Down by Topics. And I want to 

tell you, to have an adequate training plan that meets the requirements, the 

regulation, these two pages I have here would not even be required at all. What 

I attempted to do is actually assist a trainer to know how do you break down 

task training? You can't just say we're going to operate a piece of equipment. 

That's too broad. You've got to be able to break it down to certain segments.

So if you read just how I have this broken down here, the first thing is health 

and safety aspects of the task. That's actually one of the requirements of the 

law, and you can see I've got it subdivided into the safety aspects and the health 

aspects. Coming down to the next topic, personal protective equipment. In my 

template, I used to have just a single sentence that no trainee will be instructed 

on the PPE to be used.

We actually had a very serious injury here in our district at a coal mine where a 

gentleman was wearing effectively a Kevlar sleeve on a roof bolter and got his 

sleeve wrapped up in the drill still rotating a piece of equipment. Well, the 

Kevlar didn't break, and actually the man lost his arm. It wrung his arm off. So I 

actually went through, and what I have written here actually came from OSHA. 

And there is limitations to protective equipment. Not only the limitations, but 

there are applications, and I do think that's important to cover with trainees.

Equipment inspection. It says, "How do you break down training?" You come on 

down to the next page, equipment operation. Equipment maintenance. Here, I 

put a sentence on that under equipment maintenance and license. So as part of 
the instruction, we will include the maintenance expectations for a miner versus 

repairs requiring a mechanic or electrician. Just because you're task-trained on a 

piece of equipment don't mean you can do everything. There's also going to be 

limitations.

I have a separate section here for walkout tagout procedures. We had a serious 

accident here in our district where, of all things, a member of management 

removed a lock from a piece of equipment and energized it, and there was three 

people working on the piece of equipment. And it was like, "Oh my goodness, 

why did you do that?" Well, they didn't have good communication. There wasn't 

good communication. This operator made no attempts to see why. He actually 

said, "I thought the lock was left on by the previous shift," and made no 

attempts to see why it was still on there. So here, the law actually does allow 

mine management to have someone remove the lock, but this actually 

stipulates just the best practice of how that should be done.

And finally, this was a common question about limited task training of miners. I 

got this question a lot. So what if. Now, if I say I've task trained somebody, but I 

really only task trained them to do one part, how do I do that as far as 

document? You just document what limitations. So it most often came up about 

mechanics or electricians who were just trained to move and provide general 

maintenance and not use it for production purposes.

And another instance was they had somewhere trained a security guard to go 

and start all the diesel equipment on cold mornings, let it warm up for about 30 

minutes before the day shift arrived. And that's absolutely legal. You just 

document the task training was limited to starting up the piece of equipment. 

There's nothing wrong with that. It just says how to document that.

All right, coming on down, I'm down to page 13. The title is Records of Training. 

Section 46.9, I have a highlighted section here. You are required to certify 

training records. Certifying means verifying by signature that the training listed 

on the written record was completed as indicated on the form. Part 46 requires 

that this certification be done by a person who is designated by the operator as 

responsible for the health and safety training at the mine and whose name 

appears on the training plan. Certifying is required after the completion of the 

training, such as the end of the 24 hours of new miner training.

We actually had, I think that was a fatal in our district, I think, two years ago 

where this situation came up where you had a technical violation, but the 

training records had been signed, but not by the appropriate person. And this is 

just a point of law, a technicality. So again, I put that in here just hopefully to 

clarify it.

And then to finish this template out, if you scroll on down to it's titled New 

Miner Training Record/Certificate, and these are samples of how to document 

training. I actually have a sample for each of the major trainings, new miner 
training. The next page is for newly hired, experienced miner training. The next 

page is for task training. The following page is for annual refresher training and 

finally site-specific hazard training. And to develop these templates for these 

certificates, I did use the 67-page starter kit, so that's where that came from. I 

tweaked it a little bit, but that did a good job on that.

So scrolling on down through here, I'm at the end of my presentation. It ends, 

again, with my contact info. If you're interested in what I presented here, please 

just shoot me an email. If you have specific questions about anything, please 

give me a call. This is my direct number. Also, if I am not available, Fred Martin, 

who works for EMSA through the EFS division, a wonderful resource of 

information, who is very good. And he is out in the field now. So again, if you 

would like him to come to your mine site and help with training, training records 

or any questions in general, give him a call. And with that then, I will turn it back 

to you.

Benjamin Hardin...: Okay. Thank you, Jason. I appreciate the presentation, and I'll tell everyone 

listening. Jason and Fred are the best on these training plans. They're wonderful 

sources of information. They can help you as you work on new plans for new 

operations or updating older plans for others. They're topnotch, so I encourage 

you to get in touch with them if you have any questions, and I am confident that 

they can help you. That probably is the end of our prepared topics. I guess we 

will open it up for questions, if there are any, at this point in time.

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

keypad now. An 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 zero on your phone now. One moment. Once again, if you would like to ask 

a question, please press star zero on your phones now. At this time, we have no 

questions.

Possible Q&A Pa...: Okay. Well, just once again, I'll thank everyone for taking the time to call in 

today. I just ask you to help us try to protect miners, send them home safely 

every day to their families. It's our goal. It's our mission, and I know it's your 

goal too, to take care of your people that work for you. I will just say we learn a 

lot from fatal accidents, but we lose a lot to learn those lessons. A lot of people 

have good safety programs, good ideas. I just ask you to share information, 

share with the inspectors and specialists, share with other companies. If you 

have an idea that works to take care of your miners, it'll probably help 

somebody else take care of theirs. And I just encourage people to do that. And 

once again, I thank everyone for their time.

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