University Park, Pa. – Penn State's Miner Training Program has received a $135,000 Brookwood-Sago Mine Safety Grant from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor.
The grant, the largest of seven such grants totaling $500,000, will establish a program that will train 1,000 miners and 1,120 other individuals including trainers, supervisors, emergency services personnel and inspectors. The project will include both training materials and an interactive mine emergency simulation exercise.
The Brookwood-Sago Mine Safety Grants commemorate 13 men who died in two explosions at the Jim Walter Resources #5 Mine in Brookwood, Ala., in 2001 and 12 who died in an explosion at the Sago Mine in Buchannon, W.Va. in 2006. They will be offered annually to provide education and training for employers and miners, with a special emphasis on smaller mines. Several small Pennsylvania mines are collaborating with Penn State on the project, which will run through September 2008.
The Penn State program will include a "train the trainer" aimed at instructors. An instructor training manual will offer lesson outlines and plans for several mine emergency preparedness topics. The program also will target miners to enhance their ability to survive a mine emergency by successfully evacuating from the mine. A simulated mine emergency, a town hall meeting and a web cast archive of successful mine emergency response are part of the project.
The project director is Mark C. Radomsky, director and senior lecturer, Miner Training Program, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Penn State.