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The 65-page document said that MSHA did not perform the necessary review of 107 of the nation鈥檚 731 underground operations during the fiscal year 2006.
The US suffered a string of deadly accidents during the year, including Crandall Canyon in August, and reported a total of 47 fatalities during the period.
鈥淸Coal Mine Safety and Health] could not provide adequate assurance that some critical inspection activities required by MSHA policy were performed during regular safety and health inspections because 15 percent of the critical inspection activities we reviewed were not documented," the report stated.
鈥淭his occurred because CMS&H did not require inspectors to document all critical inspection activities performed and field office supervisors to document their conclusions regarding the thoroughness of the overall inspections."
It also looked at the inspection of the Crandall Canyon mine, where six died in August, and noted some inspection records were dated four months prior to when the inspection actually started. While all seven checks were completed, it "could not provide adequate assurance that all critical activities were performed during these inspections".
鈥淔urther, one inspection was found to be incomplete and unsatisfactory by the field office supervisor, one lacked required documentation, and one contained misdated documents for critical inspection activities, which MSHA could not explain," it said.
The records also addressed a "requirement for the inspector to evaluate the roof control plan" but noted that "the inspector could not explain why the forms were dated before the inspection period".
According to the DOL, the missing and "misstated" inspections were part of a twofold problem at the agency. First, it said, "decreasing inspection resources during a period of increasing mining activity made it more difficult to complete the required inspections".
Additionally, it said, MSHA management "did not place adequate emphasis on ensuring the inspections were completed and the reported completion rate was accurate," adding that the inspector staff numbers assigned to the 11 districts across the country were not "commensurate with the mine activity at the districts, and management's monitoring of inspection completions was not effective".
The report noted an 18% reduction in inspectors, from 605 in 2002 to 496 in 2006. The decline was despite a 9% increase in underground mining.
MSHA assistant secretary Richard Stickler made a statement challenging the results Friday.
鈥淵our final report fails to acknowledge that the majority (70 percent) of incomplete mandatory inspections determined during your audit period were at mines that were either non-producing, inactive, intermittent, or abandoned during the inspection period," Stickler said in a letter to the inspector general obtained by the Associated Press.
鈥淔or inspections not completed at inactive or abandoned mines, miners were not placed at risk to hazardous conditions."
He also responded to the report statement that 21 chosen active mine inspections reflected that, of 68 selected inspection activities tested, 15% were not documented as having been performed because "management did not require inspectors to document all critical inspection activities performed", the news service reported.
Specifically, he said that his inspectors should be spending their work time "identifying and abating hazards as a result of inspections rather than documentation and paperwork."
The full report can be viewed at http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/reports/oa/2008/05-08-001-06-001.
