Mining safety measure advances
HARRISBURG – State Sen. Richard Kasunic recalled Tuesday the dread that he felt as he prepared to walk into a Somerset County fire hall in July 2002 to face the families of nine miners trapped 240 feet underground at the Quecreek Mine. “What do you say?” Kasunic remembered thinking to himself.
Luckily, he added, a local pastor walked into the fire hall along with him and found words of comfort for the families who didn’t know if they would ever see the miners again.
“He said, ‘Join me in prayer,'” Kasunic said of the pastor.
The men and women who haul bituminous coal from the ground in Somerset, Fayette and other counties in Pennsylvania could soon have more than prayers to keep them safe underground.
The Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee on Tuesday approved legislation that would rewrite the state’s mine safety laws for the first time since 1961.
Kasunic, D-Dunbar, is the prime sponsor of the bill that would set up a seven-member Mine Safety Board, increase fines on operators of mines where accidents occur and mandate underground safety shelters miners could use during cave-ins.
The board would be able to keep up with changes in mining and create new safety regulations.
“By requiring reasonable precautions, removing guesswork and giving this proposed mine safety board greater oversight and input, I am confident this legislation would help us craft the best possible precautions against future mine tragedies,” Kasunic said.
He expects a full Senate vote on the bill later this month or in early February.
Clemmy Allen, a United Mine Workers of America special coordinator, said in a phone interview after the vote that provisions requiring better communications systems that would be accessible to miners underground was one of the key features of the bill.
“We are all happy that everybody could sit down and talk about this stuff as gentlemen with the interest of the miners as the main concern,” he said of the lengthy negotiations involved in crafting the bill.
Kasunic said some details still need to be worked out, including whether miners who accompany safety inspectors during visits to mine sites should be paid for that time and how far the track that transports miners should be from their worksites.
The Senate action came more than five years after the miraculous rescue of nine miners trapped after they accidentally drilled into an abandoned mine at Quecreek Mine in Somerset County. The mine is in Kasunic’s 32nd District.