MSHA launched an online tool, the S&S Rate Calculator, to enable mine operators who implement a corrective-action program to determine if their mine is successfully reducing its significant and substantial (S&S) violations.
According to MSHA, the S&S Rate Calculator is an enhancement to the two-year-old Pattern of Violations (POV) Monitoring Tool, which allows users to measure a mine’s performance against MSHA’s specific screening criteria for violations. The S&S Rate Calculator allows users to determine a mine’s rate of S&S violations for any specific date range. Users need the mine’s seven-digit identification number to find data.
“It is the mine operator’s responsibility to track its violation and injury histories to determine whether it needs to take action to comply with mine safety laws, protect miners and not trigger a POV notice,” says Joe Main, assistant secretary of labor for MSHA. “Operators who implement a corrective action program can use this tool, which complements the POV-monitoring tool, to track their progress and make sure a corrective-action program is effectively addressing the mine’s S&S rate.”
According to a press release, MSHA published a final rule in January revising the POV regulation. The rule provides mine operators who may be approaching POV status the opportunity to implement a corrective action program, and MSHA may consider a mine operator’s effective implementation of an MSHA-approved corrective action program as a mitigating circumstance in its POV review.
