The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is making up to $400,000 in funding available to support training for preventing unsafe working conditions at US mines.
The grants, available through the Brookwood-Sago grant programme, focus on powered haulage safety emergency prevention and preparedness, examinations of working places at metal and non-metal mines, or other programs to prevent unsafe conditions in and around mines.
MSHA says the funding will enable grant recipients to develop training materials, provide mine safety training or educational programmes, recruit mine operators and miners for the training as well as conduct and evaluate the training. The association will give special emphasis to programmes and materials that target miners at smaller mines, including training miners and employers about the new agency standards, high-risk activities or hazards identified by MSHA.
The programme was established by the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006. It promotes mine safety in honour of the 25 miners who died in 2001 in Brookwood, Alabama, at the Jim Walter Resources #5 mine, and in 2006 in Buckhannon, West Virginia, at the Sago Mine.
Grant applications can be submitted online before 9 June. MSHA will award grants on or before 30 September.
