Particular attention has been paid lately to mining
safety in the wake of the two disasters in West Virginia in the last few weeks that have resulted in the
deaths of over a dozen miners. Most of the focus is on development and eventual legislation by Congress of
wireless communication systems and tracking devices so that if something does happen, responders will
have a fighting chance to talk with, and eventually rescue, trapped miners.
Of course, all of this talk and research has been too long in coming, and if attention had been paid to this issue even a few months before, these tragedies may have been avoided. In any event, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing next month to discuss mine safety procedures and enforcement measures and wireless devices will definitely be on the agenda.
In addition, it would be a good idea to bring mining company executives to this hearing and have them publicly commit to instituting wireless communications systems so there will some accountability, at least on the surface.
1. I keep hearing about all this wireless underground communication stuff. The physics dictate that radio isn't going to penetrate rock very well, and it's going to require lots of power to do much anyway.
We can't use lots of power to work with personal communicators, because that cooks humans. I think we all agree that's bad.
To me, most of this is the legislators trying to mandate that gravity falls up. Something that it doens't matter how many laws you pass, is not going to happen.
Posted at 12:03AM on Feb 17th 2006 by William C Bonner