IMA-NA names mine safety award winners

Three companies and three individual mining operations received safety recognition awards from the Industrial Minerals Association – North America (IMA-NA).

Doug Smith, chairman at IMA-NA, and Mark Ellis, president of IMA-NA, presented the awards at the association’s virtual annual meeting. The safety recognition awards program is run in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

The IMA-NA Safety Achievement Award recognizes the best reportable injury rate for an individual IMA-NA member company by size category for the preceding calendar year. The award criteria evaluate a company’s safety performance at all of its mines.

Philadelphia-based Genesis Alkali won in the association’s large category (700,000 or more employee hours).

American Gilsonite Co. of Houston won in the medium category (fewer than 700,000 but more than 100,000 employee hours).

R.W. Sidley of Painesville, Ohio, received the award for the small category (fewer than 100,000 employee hours).

“MSHA and IMA-NA strive to help the industry achieve its ultimate goal – sending safe and healthy miners home to their families, every shift, every day,” Smith says. “We’re pleased to recognize IMA-NA member companies that have compiled excellent safety records and who serve as examples for other companies.”

Vanderbilt Minerals, in the small category, also operated all of its mines with zero injuries, although working fewer hours than the honoree. It will receive a certificate marking the achievement.

Also recognized are three individual IMA-NA-member mining operations for having the best reportable injury rate for 2019 in each size category. In every case, each mine had zero injuries, for a total injury rate of 0.00 per 200,000 employee work-hours.

KaMin’s Macon, Georgia, plant in Twiggs County, Georgia, won a safety recognition award in the large category.

US Silica’s Lovelock Plant in Pershing County, Nevada, received the award for the medium category.

R.W. Sidley’s Thompson Mine in Geauga County, Ohio, won in IMA-NA’s small category.

Forty-eight percent of all IMA-NA member company operations had zero injuries for 2019, although working fewer hours than the honorees.