Page 15 - Advances In Productive, Safe, and Responsible Coal Mining

2 Advances in Productive, Safe, and Responsible Coal Mining

membership in maintaining a strong commitment to “continuing the extraordinary
progress that [has been] made in recent decades, with technological advancements that
minimize mining’s impact on the environment” [4].
Relationships between productivity, safety, and environmental responsibility are
difficult to quantify; however, one does not need mathematical proof when common
sense and gut feeling confirm that definite correlations exist. Even the untrained (with
respect to mining) mainstream media can pick up on it, as illustrated by the following
excerpts from a 2010 New York Times article [5] (company names have been
removed at the authors’ discretion):

Coal mining carries inherent risks, but [a history of] numerous and very public vio-
lations and fatalities at [one] mine may leave the impression that all mines are run
this way… They [are] not. A comparison [of] safety practices [at the mine with the
long history of violations and fatalities] and those of other operators in the coal indus-
try shows sharp differences… And the attention to safety — or the lack of it — has …
measurable results: Compared with the industry average, workers [at mines with
fewer violations] spent much less time away from work because of injury [i.e., are
more productive]; workers [at mines with more violations] spent significantly more
[time away from work; i.e., are less productive].

A coal mining company’s profitability is in large measure determined by what its
customers are willing to pay for the product it mines. Customers are generally elec-
tricity generators, many of which are either publicly traded companies or municipal
utilities. These organizations are under close scrutiny by investors, regulators, com-
munities in which they operate, and the public in general. Furthermore, mining com-
panies are in constant competition with other mining companies and other industries
for potential employees. All of these entities look at the coal mining company’s safety
and environmental records as indicators of the stewardship it maintains for its
employees, the responsibility it takes for the environment, and the relationship it
has with the surrounding community. Consequently, effective health, safety, and envi-
ronmental programs and procedures can improve mine productivity and thereby busi-
ness profitability [2].

1.2 Statistical comparison of safety versus productivity

In the United States, MSHA regulations require all coal mines to regularly report pro-
duction; employment; and accidents, injuries, and illnesses [6]. This information is
readily available on MSHA’s website [7]. The authors initially attempted to validate
the hypothesis “the safest mines are the most productive mines” by analyzing safety
and productivity data over a period of years; however, the volume of data is so massive
that statistical interpretation is akin to an amateur stargazer identifying constellations
in the night sky.
Due to time constraints for publishing this book, rather than continuing to work on
digesting a massive amount of data, it was decided to limit our analysis to data from
one calendar year for the top 25 producing coal mines in the United States. For each