Ventilation on a Mine Site - Assessing the Dangers of Poor Ventilation
Contributor:
Mining IQ Editorial
Posted: 02/27/2011 12:00:00 AM EST | 0
Posted: 02/27/2011 12:00:00 AM EST | 0
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Each different mining environment presents its own unique challenges with regard to adequate ventilation; an essential component in ensuring the safety of a mine.
As the president of the Mine Ventilation Society of South Africa, Dr Bharath Belle, told Mining Weekly: "The management of significant health and safety hazards both on surface and underground mines is enacted by good ventilation engineering and, if people do not realise the importance of this discipline, no solutions for safety and health hazards can be found."
Inadequate ventilation has been named as a possible contributing factor in two of the major mining disasters to rock the industry in the past 12 months - Upper Big Branch and Pike River - and this means closer scrutiny is being placed on regulation in this area.
Upper Big Branch
On April 5th 2010 an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine, operated in West Virginia by Massey Energy, caused the death of 29 workers.
Kevin G Stricklin, coal administrator for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), commenting after a preliminary report into the incident was released, explained there are four critical practices needed to minimise the risk of explosion within an underground mining environment.
These are regular quality inspections, proper control of coal dust accumulations, the availability of water and maintaining an adequate air flow.
The report, compiled by the MSHA, suggested the company had made a number of failings within ventilation and the management of coal dust.
It claimed a spark from a shearer being used on the coal wall was likely to have ignited a small build up of methane gas, causing the explosion, adding the water sprayers which were supposed to have doused the flame were not working properly.
Adequate ventilation should both prevent a build up of methane and help disperse any coal dust acquisitions.
Regulatory Debate
Massey, however, debates the findings from the report, suggesting it was a large build up of natural gas which caused the blast.
"We likewise do not believe that coal dust played a meaningful role in the explosion," Shane Harvey, Massey Energy’s vice president and general counsel, said.
In June, before the publication of the report, it launched proceedings to sue the regulator, claiming MSHA had rejected plans from the company which would have improved safety within the mine.
The lawsuit said decisions about the best ventilation methods to use are better left in the hands of mining companies, which it says have the expertise to make the decisions.
"The goal of the lawsuit is pretty simple. It's to retain some control of the ventilation plans our mines operate under," Harvey said.
Pike River
Poor ventilation has also been named as a possible contributory factor in the explosion at Pike River mine in New Zealand, which claimed the lives of a further 29 miners.
Following the incident in November 2010, a number of workers were said to have come forward about the level of ventilation and the amount of gas it let build up.
Garry House, chair of the hazardous areas electrical co-ordination committee of Standards New Zealand, also told The Press that it was unusual a mine characterised as "gassy" would have internal ventilation provided by electric fans.
"Mining regulations suggest that mine exhaust fans should be external and that was internal. You have an electric motor with methane flowing over it. It's pretty basic," he said, adding it was possible there was a fault with the system which allowed the methane to reach dangerous levels.
However, Peter Whittall, chief executive of Pike River, maintains every safety precaution was taken to monitor the levels of methane in the mine and the necessary efforts were made in the early stages to establish how quickly the gas builds up.
Whittall said the mine had "more than enough" ventilation, but added: "On that day, was it preventable? Probably, and we may know what factors led to that eventually and therefore be able to prevent that same occurrence again."
The report into the reasons behind the blast will not be available until 2012, however the disaster has already pushed to the forefront the issue of how adequately ventilation systems within existing mining operations control the risk of explosion.
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