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MiningWeek Online
October 22, 2004 Volume 10, Issue 41
This Week's Issue:
NSC: Mining safety and health
‘has improved dramatically’
Safety and health in America’s mining industry “has improved dramatically,” according to the latest edition of the National Safety Facts, 2004 edition, published by the National Safety Council (NSC).
“In the early part of the 20th century, annual mining fatalities sometimes exceeded 3,500,” NSC notes. “For the past three years, mining fatalities have been at record low levels. In 2003, there were 56 mining fatalities – the lowest number ever recorded.”
NSC said the U.S. “has over 14,000 mines employing more than 300,000 workers. The nation’s 2,000 coal mines produce over 1 billion tons of coal per year. Metal and nonmetal mines extract close to 100 different mineral classifications with some type of mining occurring in every state.”
In terms of comparison with other industries, mining had the lowest total number of unintentional occupational injury fatalities in 2003. The ranking: Construction, 1060; Transportation and Public Utilities, 770; Agriculture, 710; Services, 550; Manufacturing, 490; Government, 420; Trade, 380; Mining, 120.
In terms of non-fatal occupational injuries and illness incidence rates, mining’s incidence rate was once again among the lowest of major industries for the year measured (2002):
| Industry | Total Recordable Cases (Incidence Rate) |
| Manufacturing | 7.2
| | Construction | 7.1
| | Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing | 6.4
| | Transportation & Public Utilities | 6.1
| | Wholesale & Retail Trade | 5.3
| | Private Sector Total | 5.3
| | Services | 4.6
| | MINING | 4.0
| | Finance, Insurance & Real Estate | 1.7 |
Source: National Safety Council, Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
NMA President and CEO Jack N. Gerard said the NSC statistics “are the latest evidence of the strong and determined commitment by mining companies, mineworkers and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to someday achieve our shared goal of zero injuries and fatalities. Our continued progress in this regard will be further enhanced by the alliance recently formed by NMA, MSHA and the Bituminous Coal Operators’ Association to dedicate additional resources toward this goal, and enhance the growing industry culture of injury prevention.”
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NMA: Encourage pro-mining vote to participate in election process
Due to early voting laws in some states, the election of 2004 is now underway, and nothing less than the future of the mining industry is at stake.
This is the moment for the mining industry to ask: “Have I done all I can?”
Only 11 days remain until Election Day and every single vote is important. NMA is asking you to redouble your efforts and encourage the pro-mining vote to participate in this election.
The candidates for president present a clear choice for our industry and our economic security. This year’s candidates have made mining and energy policy top priorities for their campaigns and have taken this message to the critical battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and West Virginia.
NMA is asking you to directly communicate with your colleagues, your families and friends, vendors and suppliers you know and share with them the critical need to get the pro-mining vote out this election year.
Here are some activities you can do in these final days of the election:
- Promote the use absentee ballots, voting by email and early voting in person;
- Encourage colleagues to take the message of voting in support of pro-mining candidates back to their friends and families;
- Organize a company wide Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) effort;
- Contact political organizations about volunteer opportunities with local campaigns;
- Discuss the election and mining issues in newsletters, emails, bulletin boards and letters;
- Publish and distribute voting records of elected officials;
- Visit www.minethevote.org for candidate information and materials.
It is not too late – you can still make an impact. With close elections becoming standard and with the mining industry concentrated in many of the battleground states - every vote will count. The future success of the mining industry demands that we do all we can to get the pro-mining vote to cast a ballot.
If you have questions, please contact NMA’s Marc Ross at (202) 463-2264 or mross@nma.org.
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Gerard: Kerry record shows consistent support for royalty on minerals
Responding to a campaign stopover in Elko, NV, this week by Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), NMA President and CEO Jack N. Gerard said Presidential Nominee John Kerry (D-MA) has “consistently” supported a royalty on minerals from public lands throughout his career and “emphatically” mentioned it during a major speech last April.
In the Elko stopover, Edwards said Kerry’s position was, “He will not impose a royalty tax on mining. He has never talked about it. He has never had any plans. He has never mentioned it.”
Responding to various inquiries about Mrs. Edwards’ remarks and in an effort to set the record straight, Gerard said the following:
“Sen. John Kerry emphatically supported a royalty on mining at a major policy address at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on April 7. In discussing how he would pay for discretionary proposals in his plan to cut the deficit, Sen. Kerry committed to ‘Collect royalties for mineral rights on federal lands,’ and cited $1 billion over 10 years. He added: ‘Today, mining companies buy up public lands for five dollars an acre . . . . If I’m elected president, those days will come to an end.’
“On Aug. 9 in a policy address at the Grand Canyon, Sen. Kerry promised to fund what he termed a “$600 million annual shortfall” in monies to the National Parks. The accompanying policy paper said Kerry/Edwards would “fully fund their plan by modernizing the sale of mineral rights.” They pointed to a royalty on minerals and compensation for the sale of public lands (which is currently prohibited by a congressionally imposed moratorium) as sources for the funds. Sen. Kerry’s campaign staff was quoted in Nevada papers as saying Kerry had not cemented his plan, but that an 8 percent royalty fee could generate $394 million over five years.
“Throughout his Senate career, Kerry has consistently called for a royalty on minerals from public lands. An impassioned statement on the Senate floor on July 20, 2000, is highlighted by the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and others in their “Green Scissors” report wherein they call for an 8 percent royalty on extraction of minerals from public lands. (PIRG estimates such a tax would raise $481 million over five years.)
“Mrs. Edwards seems to be one of the few supporters of John Kerry who does not know his position on a minerals mining royalty. Independents for John Kerry and the League of Conservations Voters, among others, all include Sen. Kerry’s commitment to a minerals royalty in their candidate materials.
“An analysis of the impact of an 8 percent royalty on minerals mining predicts a loss of between 18,000 and 44,000 jobs in mining states, according to research conducted by Coopers Lybrand. A fee of the magnitude endorsed by Sen. Kerry—whatever the mechanism—would impose a similar hardship on the industry and mining communities throughout the West,” Gerard concluded.
Mining is Nevada’s second largest industry. In 2003, the average annual pay for the state’s mineral industry employees was $63,059—the highest average of any employment sector in the state. Over 52,000 people are employed by Nevada mining operations and at related providers of goods and services to the industry. In 2003, Nevada’s mining industry paid nearly $39 million county and state income taxes; $18.5 million in property taxes and over $40 million in sales and use taxes.
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Administration supports coal use in regulatory approach
NMA last week said it applauded Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Mike Leavitt’s commitment to use all types of coal and clean coal technologies to preserve “our economic competitiveness and energy security.”
”We welcome EPA Administrator Leavitt’s affirmation that, “This administration will not discriminate against any coal type or region of the country,” in its formulation of the nation’s first-ever regulation of mercury emissions from coal based power plants, said NMA President and CEO Jack N. Gerard. “This is good news for the nation, America’s electricity consumers and for the hardworking men and women that produce the coal used in generating over half our country’s electricity needs.”
Gerard said Administrator Leavitt’s strong commitment to a set of power plant regulations that ensures “a level playing field for all types of coal and that stimulates innovation in new technologies” is clearly in the nation’s best interests and relies upon our proven ability to effectively employ technology to meet our environmental objectives while preserving our economic and national security and coal mining jobs around the country.
NMA’s statement came in response to a letter sent last week by Administrator Leavitt to Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell. In the Oct. 14 letter (also sent to the Pennsylvania Coal Association), Leavitt says the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) advocacy of a 90 to 95 percent mercury control from all coal types by 2008 would “cause significant disruptions in the nation’s coal markets.” A proposal similar to PA DEP’s was endorsed by some 40 members of the US Senate, including Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates John Kerry and John Edwards in an April 1, 2004 letter to EPA.
NMA supports EPA’s approach to further reduce emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide based on achievable technological advances. Based on economic and technical analyses, NMA finds the 90 to 95 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2008 called for in the PA DEP proposal and Senate letter is unachievable and would result in severe dislocations throughout our economy and in the loss of high-paying mining jobs across America.
For a copy of Administrator Leavitt’s letter, visit www.nma.org/pdf/rendell_letter_101504.pdf.
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Whisler to be honored at Mining Hall of Fame Banquet
The 22nd annual American Mining Hall of Fame Awards Banquet, sponsored by the Mining Foundation of the Southwest, will be held at the Westin La Paloma in Tucson, AZ, on Dec. 4, 2004, featuring this year’s inductee, J. Steven Whisler, chairman and CEO of Phelps Dodge Corp.
Whisler, who serves on NMA’s Board of Directors and was recently elected chairman of the Audit and Finance Committee, will be featured speaker at the banquet. The Hall of Fame will also induct Georges Ordonez and Frank W. Archibald as representatives of mining heritage. Ordonez was instrumental in the development of several copper districts in the southwest U.S. and also in the discovery of the copper porphyry belt in Puerto Rico. Archibald dedicated most of his professional life to Southern Peru Copper Corp.
Medals of Merit will be awarded to Dr. Joaquin Ruiz and Edward S. Frohling. Ruiz, a geologist, is the dean of the College of Science at the University of Arizona and has done extensive geochemical research on porphyry copper deposits. Frohling founded Mountain States Mineral Enterprises Inc., a major U.S. engineering and construction firm serving the mining industry.
The Industry Partnership Award will be presented to the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America. The organization of mining and metallurgical professionals is dedicated to promoting and improving understanding and appreciation of the role of the U.S. mining industry and focuses on mining, minerals and their uses, and related environmental issues and government policies.
Each year, one living inductee and up to two honorees from mining history are chosen by the Hall of Fame Committee and the Board of Governors of the Mining Foundation for their outstanding contributions to the mining industry. In 1989, the Medal of Merit was initiated to recognize outstanding individual technical and professional contribution to the mineral industry. In 1995, the Industry Partnership Award was created to recognize contributions made by companies, organizations or individuals in partnership with the mining industry.
Tickets for the event are available from Mining Foundation of the Southwest, 520-577-5719, or by e-mail to mfsw@dakotacom.net.
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Sixth Circuit strikes down remining, Western Alkaline Coal Mining regs
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a 2-1 decision, striking down both of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new 434 regulations (Remining and Western Alkaline Coal Mining).
The effect of the ruling is that the court invalidated the regulations contained in EPA’s final rule. They further remanded the rules to EPA with instructions for the agency to either withdraw the Final Rule or to issue a new rule that conforms with the opinion. However, EPA may seek to file a petition for rehearing and/or a rehearing en banc by the entire Sixth Circuit. If they are successful, the rule may remain in effect until the rehearing is decided.
Although the case, Citizens Coal Council and Kentucky Resources Council v. EPA, held that the Clean Water Act does not explicitly address whether the EPA has the power to create these new subcategories, the court struck down the rules because the majority believed they were promulgated “without observance of procedure required by law.”
Regarding remining, the court interpreted the CWA to require a sequential “five step process” that must be followed in precise order if EPA wants to create and implement effluent limitations. As the dissenting opinion explained, there is no “five step process” in the Clean Water Act – it was created by the judges from the statute’s various sections to form what they believe is a necessary procedure established by Congress. According to the majority, EPA “shirked” its duty under CWA § 304(b) to determine the degree of effluent reduction attainable. The court believed that the rule arbitrarily and capriciously defined the attainable reduction at zero.
The court also criticized EPA’s use of background conditions as effluent limits because the court believes that it results in different effluent limits at each site. The court noted that: “…setting background conditions as effluent limitations violates the text of the CWA and thus relies on an unreasonable reading of the statute.”
The Sixth Circuit also said that EPA failed to consider all of the factors the CWA requires it to consider, such as not including discussion on the age of the equipment and facilities, or on engineering aspects of the application of various types of control technologies. Consequently the court also struck down EPA’s decision to set Pollution Abatement Plans featuring best management practices as best practicable control technology (BPT), best conventional pollution control technology (BCT), and best available technology economically achievable (BAT) for the Coal Remining Subcategory.
Meanwhile, without a separate analysis, the court struck down the regulations implementing the Western Alkaline Coal Mining Subcategory for the same reasons it struck down the remining provisions. The court struck down the Western Alkaline Rule despite the fact that the rule, by definition, does not even apply in any of the States that make up the Sixth Circuit (Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee).
The court refused to strike down so-called Rahall permits that are issued by some States under the separate authority of 40 C.F.R. § 301(p). The court also upheld EPA on its commingling rule (40 C.F.R. § 434.61), which basically says that if different waste streams are combined, the most stringent limits will apply.
Circuit Judge Suhrheinrich wrote a spirited and scholarly dissent in this case. He noted the plaintiffs did not even argue in their briefs that EPA’s regulations were not made in observance of procedure required by law, much less that EPA failed to follow the steps created by the majority opinion. He also failed to see any five step process in the CWA, noting that the majority created a series of steps that EPA must follow regardless of the fact that such steps appear nowhere in the statutory language.
A third major point of Suhrheinrich’s dissent recognized that EPA’s ultimate goal was to use a specifically tailored and limited approach to improve water quality, because existing effluent limitations were not producing positive results when applied to remining. He also understood that EPA authorized use of BMPs because numeric effluent limitations are sometimes infeasible. Finally, the dissent said that the CWA does not require effluent limitation guidelines to have specific numerical limitations.
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Naccarati elected president of Phelps Dodge Mining Co.
Phelps Dodge (PD) Corp. said its directors elected David C. Naccarati as president of Phelps Dodge Mining Co. He will be responsible for all Phelps Dodge mining operations worldwide, reporting to PD President and Chief Operating Officer Timothy R. Snider, and will be a member of the corporation’s Senior Management Team.
Naccarati joined PD in 1974 as an engineer at the company’s copper operations in Tyrone, NM. He left the company in 1977 and held positions of increasing responsibility within the mining industry. In 1995, he rejoined PD as general manager of the Tyrone mine. Since that time, he has served as president of the company’s copper operations in Tyrone, its Candelaria copper operations in Chile and its copper operations in Morenci, AZ.
PD also announced H.M. “Red” Conger has been named to the position of senior vice president, South American Mining Operations and Development, Phelps Dodge Mining Co.
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Websites help in matching applicants, mining industry jobs
Applicants interested in finding mining industry jobs can visit at least two websites for assistance in finding a suitable match for their skills: the Department of Labor’s (DOL) “America’s Job Bank” website (www.ajb.org); and the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration’s (SME) MiningJobs.org.
DOL says AJB is the “biggest and busiest job market in cyberspace. Job seekers can post their resume where thousands of employers search every day, search for job openings automatically, and find their dream job fast. Businesses can post job listings in the nation’s largest online labor exchange, create customized job orders, and search resumes automatically to find the right people, right now.”
Guided by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (USDOL) vision for the America’s Labor Market Information System, the CareerOneStop is a collection of electronic tools managed as a federal-state partnership, and operated through grants to New York and Minnesota, in partnership with the other states and private sector organizations. This powerful suite of Web-based tools includes AJB, America’s Career InfoNet (ACINet) and America’s Service Locator (ASL). Each product offers a unique solution to the increasing demands of today’s labor market to meet the specialized needs of job seekers, businesses, and the workforce development community.
By entering “mining” as a keyword and selecting appropriate state criteria, applicants can view an extensive list of potential jobs, including the company offering the position, location, salary and when the job was posted or modified. A recent search in the “Construction & Extraction” category unveiled 14 pages of job openings, many of which were mining related. These included such positions as roof bolters, mine equipment operators, diesel mechanics, underground miners, scoop operators and many others.
Among the current job listings on the SME site are geology manager, mining engineer, metallurgical technician, environmental technician and plant maintenance planner. For SME members, the MiningJobs.org service is free; for non-members, a subscription can be obtained at a monthly cost. For more information, visit the SME website.
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Newsbits
Drummond Co. Inc. says Mike Zervos is leaving the company as president of mining to pursue other opportunities, and Mike Tracy will assume his duties on an interim basis. “Further clarification on the Mining Division organizational structure will be the subject of a future announcement,” the company said . . . . Barrick Gold Corp. announced several executive appointments, including: John McDonough as vice-president/Chile/Argentina; George Potter as vice-president, capital projects; and Ron Kettles as project director, Pascua-Lama . . . . Peabody Energy announced the following management changes at its Australian unit, Peabody Energy Australia Coal, in Queensland: Dr. Julie Beeby, general manager of planning and business development; Brian Davis, general manager of marketing; Paul Davis, general manager of open cut mining; Brett Purkiss, general manager of commercial; George Schuller, general manager of underground mining; and Alice Tharenos, director of finance . . . . The Mine Safety and Health Administration has announced a $1 million grant to Pennsylvania earmarked for assembling accurate digital mine maps. The federal agency is also contracting with Penn State University for $759,838 and D’Appolonia Engineering of Monroeville, PA, for $300,710 for projects involving the terrain around a mine . . . . Peabody Energy’s Mustang Energy Project has been selected to receive a grant from the Department of Energy under the second round of competition through the 10-year, $2 billion Clean Coal Power Initiative. The project is a commercial-scale demonstration of the “Airborne Process” scrubber, regeneration system and fertilizer production systems at the Mustang Energy Co.’s 300-megawatt coal-based Mustang Generating Station in Milan, NM . . . .The Office of Surface Mining and three other groups will jointly sponsor a national geospatial conference Dec. 7-9, 2004, in Atlanta, GA. For more information, contact Karen Pierson at 303-844-1400, extension 1487, or visit www.tips.osmre.gov/GeoSpatial/GeospatialConference2004.html . . . . The dramatic role a new P&H Mining Equipment 2800XPB mining shovel is playing in reviving the mining economy near Hibbing, MN, will be featured on the Discovery Channel’s series, “Extreme Engineering,” on Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. Central time. The 2.3 million pound shovel is not only huge, but also technologically advanced. P&H’s Mark Hardwick, vice president and managing director North America, said the Discovery Channel program “is a wonderful opportunity because it showcases not only the 2800XPB, but the hard working, dedicated people” who produce and operate the sophisticated machinery.
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