Comment on Board begins review of mine equipment move rules

By Ken Ward Jr. Members of the state mine safety board struggled on Tuesday to begin a legislatively requested review of West Virginia's rules for the movement of underground coal-mining equipment.The state Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety spent much of its meeting discussing whether it should conduct the review, and trying to figure out how industry-backed changes to the state's safety law (SB357) passed this year affected an existing board rule and a longstanding court order about how that rule is enforced.Board members had asked during a previous meeting for a report from their lawyer on the issue, and then engaged in an extended discussion of the matter when the report from board attorney Nic Dalton appeared to conflict with what some board members believed and apparently with what the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training had been told by the governor's office."I'm really confused, to be honest with you, about the whole legal part of it," said Eugene White, director of the mine safety office and a nonvoting member of the board.At issue is language from the West Virginia Coal Association-backed "Coal Jobs and Safety Act of 2015," that regulates safety practices when underground mine operators are moving equipment from one mining location underground to another.Since the early 1970s, West Virginia law has said that, "when equipment is being transported or trammed, no person shall be permitted" farther inside the area of the mine than the equipment that is being moved.In 1978, government officials tried to read the prohibition to apply only in situations when "trolley wire," an energized bare electrical wire suspended from the mine roof, was present.