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Mining Extension Department Receives McCann Award

The Mining Extension Department recently won an award for its excellent training programs for coal miners, but WVU students sometimes benefit too. Seen here, WVU safety management students experience a simulated mine emergency in Mining Extension's new mobile training unit.

The Department of Mining Extension, under the direction of Jim Dean, recently received the Pittsburgh Coal Mining Institute of America's (PCMIA) Stephen McCann Award for Excellence in Education.

In making the award, PCMIA noted that the department provides an important and unique service to coal operators through its extensive training programs for new and experienced miners. They applauded the program's mobility, facilitating onsite training even in very remote locations, making it much easier for mine operators to obtain training for their employees.

PCMIA gives the McCann award each year to an individual who has made exemplary contributions to mineral education in an academic or industrial environment.

This year marked the fifth time faculty members from our College have received this distinction. Past winners include Syd S. Peng, Christopher J. Bise, A. Wahab Khair, and Keith A. Heasley. This year also marked the first time that a group -- the entire Mining Extension Department -- rather than an individual, received the award.

The Mining Extension Department has been providing training for the coal industry since 1913 and trains more than 5,000 new and experienced miners each year. Training takes place all over the region as well as at the department's Dolls Run headquarters near Morgantown.

"Our mission has always been to provide coal miners with the training they need to get a job and to work safely," said Dean. "Specific training needs have changed over time as industry needs have evolved."

The newest tool in the department's training arsenal arrived last year, when the department outfitted a special trailer for training miners in the use of self-contained-self-rescuers (SCSRs), devices that assist them in breathing in a fire or smoke emergency.

Prior to the Sago disaster, explained Dean, SCSR training took place mainly in classrooms. Regulations adopted after Sago require that training take place in an environment closer to an actual mine emergency, with smoke and heat.

The department's trailer is outfitted with compartments constructed to simulate mine entries, theatrical smoke to simulate a smoke-filled environment, a heater, and a lifeline similar to the ones that miners use. The trailer is the only unit of its kind in West Virginia, and Mining Extension staff are taking it all over the region, training more than 2,200 miners in 2008.

Students in the master's program in safety management got to experience the training last fall, when the Mining Extension Department brought the trailer to campus on the Friday before Thanksgiving.

"Once the door to the trailer was shut, it was so dark that you couldn't see the hand in front of your face," said one of the students. "We had to figure out how to get the SCSRs on, navigate our way through the smoke, and even crawl through a man-door that was only 16 inches off the floor."

"Everyone who works in a mine, or in any similar setting, should experience this kind of training," said Dean. "It prepares you for an emergency in a way that no classroom training can."

In addition to SCSR training, the department offers many other classes for new and experienced miners. Among them is a new continuing education class for mine foremen, and the department is also working to develop a Mine Rescue, and Fire Brigade facility, set to open in July 2009. The facility will provide high quality training for the entire north central region, including West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

For more information, click here, or call the Department of Mining Extension at (304) 293-4211.

01/05/2009