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Post by dazbt on Oct 13, 2012 6:35:21 GMT -5
Commissioner for Mine Safety and Health Stewart Bell "He said some miners disabled underground methane monitors by either turning them off or putting plastic bags over them and that was not all.
"We caught a person smoking underground in a coal mine which is something unheard of; it's almost unbelievable," he said.
"The concerns that I have is that these incidents could be a pre-cursor to a mine explosion."
Mr Bell said in his work on the Pike River Commission he saw examples of a similar behaviour and a consequence he did not want repeated in Queensland.
Both the commissioner and minister said less experience workers - which grew the industry from 39,000 in 2009 to 58,000 in 2012, sometimes struggled with safety rules.
"There's no doubt that the increase in new miners, or greenskins as they're known, is a factor here," Mr Bell said.
"A lot of these people don't know what they don't know - they don't realise the risks."Wherever there is coal mining, coal miners will take short cuts and calculated (or otherwise) risks, it is all part of the game, always has been and always will be …………… I’m not saying that it should happen, but I am saying that it does happen, apparently even in the ‘world’s safest coalmines’ A bit naïve of the gentleman to put it down to ‘greenskins’ ……… methinks !! www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/qld-mines-minister-blames-accidents-on-stupidity/1580509/ |
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Post by John on Oct 13, 2012 7:30:58 GMT -5
Never heard of that term Daz, but Queensland has different mining laws than other states.
NSW's Mines Regulation Act was similar to the UK M&Q Act, even down to qualifications for Managers down to tradesmen.
The only place we had methane detectors was on longwall faces, other than methanometers, D6's carried by Deputy's.
Some collieries issued workmans safety lamps, like continuous miner drivers, usually gassy mines. Others automatic methane detectors they hung in the heading they were working in.
Usually you went through a month or so of "indoctination" whether you had worked in the industry or not, all treated the same.
On the south coast we had to attend a weeks training, both classroom and in the "yard" at the Joint Coal Boards rescue station playing with hose pipes pretending to put fires out and having a good time letting extinguishers off.
Classroom was teaching gasses found in the industry plus the CMRA, law.
At Angus Place it was all at the pit under the Fire/training/Safety Officer, old Fred, who had us doing similar pranks with fire fighting hoses in the pit yard.
It was classed as a serious offense to tamper with safety devices!!
We were told if you set a fire extinguisher off, to either bring it out and let someone know where it was from, or notify an official, no retribution would occur as long as you obeyed those instructions.
I once stopped our longwall producing due to the methane detector failure, both cables from the detector unit to the heads at the tailgate had faults on them.
To say I was popular was an understatement! BUT, the law said the face had to have an automatic contrivance for detecting methane, that when it detected 1.25% dropped the transformer circuit breakers.
I had a real "blue" with the Under Manager who did his best to over rule me and pressure me to turn a blind eye....Other than the face crew, I had no backing, neither the Deputy or my Leading hand would back me up. All I could do was state I'd be out the pit should he over rule me, get on the phone to the Manager, Electrical Engineer and District Inspector of Mines. He stormed off in a huff..... ;D
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Post by dazbt on Oct 13, 2012 8:16:47 GMT -5
Those examples are all well and good J, I'm absolutely sure that every-one-man-Jack of us can relate to having had 'adequate' Safety Training as well as being witness to the implementaion of safety measures even if not being directly responsible for initiating the 'stoppage' and rectification ............. but............ all of that doesn't take away the fact that the rules aren't always adhered to.
Who hasn't seen examples of safety devices deliberately, bridged, by-passed or ignored? ........... I would seriously doubt that anyone who has worked for any length of time on a coal face has never been in a situation where safety rules have been broken, primarily with the intention of producing coal.
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Post by John on Oct 13, 2012 9:31:41 GMT -5
Those examples are all well and good J, I'm absolutely sure that every-one-man-Jack of us can relate to having had 'adequate' Safety Training as well as being witness to the implementaion of safety measures even if not being directly responsible for initiating the 'stoppage' and rectification ............. but............ all of that doesn't take away the fact that the rules aren't always adhered to. Who hasn't seen examples of safety devices deliberately, bridged, by-passed or ignored? ........... I would seriously doubt that anyone who has worked for any length of time on a coal face has never been in a situation where safety rules have been broken, primarily with the intention of producing coal.
Then in my own job, fault finding with GEB doors open and defeating safety interlocks producing enough sparks to blow the pit up!! Which actually happened in a South Wales Colliery in the 60's on a plough face.
Most of the "problems" we broke the rules over, are long gone, haulage chains made redundant, automatic and manual AFC chain tensioners built into the drives, plenty of test facilities built into GEB's, list goes on.
I can only recall a couple of times I broke the rules over the last seven years in the industry, taking my camera underground with a flash to take photos of LW7 before it finished, and taking a battery powered soldering iron onto a face to carry out some urgent work inside the shearers control chamber.
I did break my engineers rules one evening as a Leading Hand, with not having a permit to work to carry out some urgent 11Kv repairs to a transformer. I fully expected to get my rear end well and truly kicked next morning, but the boss was in a good mood and never blinked an eyelid.
I think, no I know a lot has changed with equipment and there shouldn't be any need to break the rules we broke years back, any electrician worth his salt has no need to have any equipment door open and power on, in fact he'd be really stupid with today's voltages anyway!!
Even conveyors don't need "staking" these days to join them after a repair, just drop the loop takeoff and throw as much slack as needed then haul enough with a Turfer to join the two ends up. |
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Post by dazbt on Oct 13, 2012 11:20:19 GMT -5
2007 Ulyanovskaya Mine Russia ……… 108 dead (including a mate of mine Ian Robertson, ex Anderson Strathclyde.) Methane monitoring equipment deliberately miss-calibrated.
2010 Upper Big Branch Mine USA ………. 29 dead. Known high levels of Methane ignored, inadequate ventilation, methane monitors had previously been bridged to prevent machine stoppage, dust suppression not adequate.
2010 Pike River Mine …………. 29 dead, reports of smoking, methane monitors being defeated.
2012 Queensland, smoking, defeating methane monitors.
all reasonably up-to-date examples of methane detectors being deliberately defeated and that's just 4 of the well publicised incidents ............... I wonder how common these types of events really are even in these enlightened times.
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Post by John on Oct 13, 2012 13:09:26 GMT -5
Like I stated, I was in that position Daz, I stood my ground, some things I can go along with but not that. I was losing bonus too, so I had an incentive to over ride the methane monitor.
It happened a short while after we had restarted cutting coal after a major mid face roof problem had stood us for many weeks too, we had the Manager down most shifts checking on progress and I recall the Deputy putting the question to the Manager about can we cut coal if the monitor fails, using a D6 and oil lamp.
"Funny you should bring that up" he said, "I asked that very same question of the District Mines Inspector on his visit a couple of weeks back, and he said absolutely not, the law requires an automatic contrivance"
So I had plenty of ammunition had my leading hand decided to over ride me.
Ironically the Deputy decided to lose his backbone over that issue and kept his trap shut!! All he could do was nod.
When I got to the surface at the end of the shift the surface electrician said to me "What you been up to Pom, the UM stormed into his office and was muttering effin pommies, effin pommies"
He also told me he spent the rest of the shift with his head in the Coal Mines Regulation Act... Never heard anymore about that, and I stayed as the longwall electrician right up until I took my long service leave, so Management accepted I was 100% right and left it at that so as not to create any problems... ;D
Don't get me wrong, I didn't derive any pleasure in losing all that production, I felt it in next weeks pay packet with lost bonus, but safety and my life are worth more than a few bucks in my pay.
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Post by dazbt on Oct 13, 2012 13:23:44 GMT -5
From what I remember the UBB investigation revealed that it was within the WV legislation to run machines with hand held monitoring after the onboard monitors failed and were bridged out ............ but witnesses stated that this was never done and the legislation used as a loophole to allow continued production.
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Post by John on Oct 13, 2012 15:24:27 GMT -5
From what I remember the UBB investigation revealed that it was within the WV legislation to run machines with hand held monitoring after the onboard monitors failed and were bridged out ............ but witnesses stated that this was never done and the legislation used as a loophole to allow continued production.
Angus Place fan was in the "bush" about a mile from the drifts and whenever we had a good thunderstorm it would blow out the remote diode in the control circuits in the drift winch room. So it was replace the diode, then over to the fan house to restart the fan..Something we didn't take lightly at night!!!! We had feral pigs around there, and they are just as dangerous as Bengal tigers. |
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