Grant funding available from MSHA

The Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA) is making available up to $400,000 in funding through its Brookwood-Sago grant program, which supports education and training to identify, avoid and prevent unsafe working conditions in and around the nation’s mines.

Brookwood-Sago grants focus on powered haulage safety, such as increasing seat belt use, improving conveyor belt safety and reducing vehicle-on-vehicle collisions. In addition, the grants assist in emergency prevention and preparedness, workplace examinations and other programs to prevent unsafe working conditions.

Funding will enable grant recipients to develop training materials, provide mine safety training or educational programs, recruit mine operators and miners for training, and conduct and evaluate training. MSHA will give special emphasis to materials and programs at smaller mines, including training miners and employees about high-risk activities,MSHA-identified hazards and new agency standards.

Grant applications can be submitted here. The closing date for applications is June 9, and MSHA will award grants on or before Sept. 30.

The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act established the Brookwood-Sago grants program in 2006 to promote mine safety and honor the 25 miners who died in 2001 in Brookwood, Alabama, at the Jim Walter Resources No. 5 mine, as well as in 2006 at the Sago Mine in Buckhannon, West Virginia.