Universities train fellowship of mine rescue teams
PITTSBURGH — Don Hager knows that not all of the students he trains on Virginia Tech's mine rescue team will follow his career path into a coal mine, especially as that industry lays off workers.
Those who do, though, could become the next generation of miners specially trained to deal with problems underground. Those who don't are learning valuable lessons, he said.
"It's a way to prepare future leaders ... for anything that might come down the road," said Hager, who spent 35 years working for Consol Energy Inc., including on the company's mine rescue teams, before retiring in 2012. He lives in Bluefield, West Virginia, and works with the Virginia Tech students as a volunteer.
Hager and a group of fellow industry veterans are forming a collegiate mine rescue association to formalize rules and relationships among the teams at Virginia Tech, West Virginia University and Penn State University, with the hope that other schools will join.
The association will establish rules and competitions separate from the professional gatherings that company- and government-run teams use to hone training and stay sharp between calls for response to emergencies.
"It's more hands-on learning than a classroom gives you," said Drew Mason, chief engineer at M Class Mining in Illinois who was captain of the Penn State team until he graduated in 2011.
Rescue teams are specially trained and certified to respond to fires, wall collapses, flooding, medical emergencies and other hazards underground.
Participating on the teams gives engineering and geology students experience outside the classroom that can help them get hired, or give them a leg up in industries.
"They're building mine rescue experience that's so valuable," said Ed Zeglen, chief mining engineer for Pennsylvania operations at Alpha Natural Resources, who coaches the Penn State team. Mason joined a professional rescue team at Peabody Energy a year out of college.
It ingrains in future workers a sense that safety always comes first, said Susan Bealko, corporate safety director for Maryland-based contractor GMS Mine Repair and a Penn State grad who helped establish the team there four years ago.
"Before they ever enter the mine, they're sold on safety," said Bealko of Valley Grove, West Virginia, who worked for Consol and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. "A safe coal miner is a productive coal miner, and that saves everyone money. Working safe is one of the ways we can keep our costs down."
That's important as coal companies deal with prices in Appalachia now at six-year lows. They are idling mines and have laid off an estimated 12,000 workers in West Virginia.
Industry veterans worry that will reduce the number of miners trained in rescue work, even though federal rules require teams to operate within an hour's drive of all active mines.
"As mines close, mine rescue teams go away," Zeglen said.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration is updating its list of rescue teams and could not say if the number has dropped since last year.
For participants, the benefits range from learning specialized skills under pressure to networking with people in a close-knit community, said Tom Rauch, who graduated from Penn State in 2013 and competed with the team.
"The brotherhood of the industry really comes out around mine rescue," said Rauch, a Peters native who is working in Calgary for Jacobs, an engineering and construction firm that works on mining and other projects.
Mine rescue put safety concerns at the forefront of his work, even though he does not work on a rescue team.
"Mine rescue gave me perspective on worst-case-scenario, the effort that must be put into every piece up to mine rescue," he said.
The team trainers are working with companies and participating schools to outfit students with equipment and coordinate schedules. Hager hopes to hold the first intercollegiate competition in the fall.
"We're at the starting line," he said.