Citations Vacated for Coal Mine Operator in Dozer Incident Involving Gas Pipeline

The Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission affirmed an ALJ ruling to vacate proposed penalties for a large surface coal mine operator stemming from an explosion in which the operator of a bulldozer ruptured a gas line and was killed in West Virginia in January 2006.  The proposed penalties were assessed for failing to adequately comply with the requirement of 30 C.F.R. § 77.1713(a) to examine active work areas each shift for hazardous conditions.

The Review Commission concluded that the area in which the bulldozer incident occurred was beyond the “active working area” as required by the regulation.  The Review Commission did not define “active working area,” which is not defined in the applicable statute or regulations, but indicated that even if using the Secretary of Labor’s suggested broad definition (“all areas where reasonably foreseeable that miners will work or travel when carrying out their work-related tasks”), the mine operator in this case had no reason to anticipate that the dozer worker would reach the area where the gas line was present because it was well beyond the area of his work assignment (i.e., 265 vertical feet and given that the dozer could not move straight uphill, approximately 500 feet beyond).  Accordingly, even if the pipeline was not sufficiently marked in the area where the incident occurred, the mine operator could not be in violation of this particular regulation because it imposed a duty to detect and correct hazardous conditions in on-shift inspections only in the “active working area” of the job.

It is important to specifically identify and define the geographical area where any job is to be performed and to take steps to ensure that shift inspections occur of those areas as well as any other areas where it is foreseeable that miners will work or travel.