One Hundred Years of Federal Mining Safety and Health Research

Note that at this time a great deal of the research program was still directed at prevention and
response to coal mine explosions and fires. The allocation of the $28.4 million of research funds
in 1973 was as follows:
• Fire and explosion prevention—$5.0 million.
• Methane control—$2.6 million.
• Survival and rescue—$1.2 million.
• Industrial-type hazards—$5.3 million.
• Ground control—$5.9 million.
• Advanced mining systems—$3.7 million.
• Health—$4.7 million.
In 1973, the Bureau increased its efforts to transfer the results of health and safety research
directly to the mining industry. In that year, the Bureau held five Open Industry Briefings in
mining areas to communicate research results, as well as four seminars on specific safety
technologies. The Bureau also initiated a new publication series called Technology News. These
were concise descriptions of individual technology developments printed on a single sheet of
paper. They were intended to provide timely information of the latest technologies in the mining
industry.
The Annual Progress Report of the Bureau of Mines for Fiscal Year 1973 [USBM, 1973] appears
to have been the last annual fiscal year report by the Bureau, ending a series that had begun with
the establishment of the Bureau in 1910. This report mentioned several other publications that
also reported on the Bureau’s work, and these publications appeared to replace the fiscal year
annual report after 1973. These other publications included:
• “Mining and Minerals Policy 1973,” an annual report under the Minerals Policy Act of
1970.
• “Research 72,” a new annual report series on all Bureau research programs.
• “Administration of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act,” an annual report to
Congress on progress under the 1969 Coal Mine Act, and also a similar report to
Congress for the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act of 1966.
The 1973 report continued to classify safety-related research under three separate sections:
Mining Research, Explosives and Explosions Research, and Health and Safety Research. The
Mining Research program of the Bureau had been conducted for many years prior to the 1969
Coal Act. Most of the work classified then as mining research was in the fields of rock
mechanics, blasting theory and practice, mine waste disposal, ground support, drilling, rock
fragmentation, materials handling, methane control, and acid mine water control. Note that most
of this Bureau mining research was related to miner safety, even though it was often justified as
also increasing mining efficiency or productivity.
The 1973 report cited the previous accomplishments for Mining Research as follows:
Pit slope stability studies which established the maximum stable angle of open-pit mine
slopes, blasting studies which established the well-accepted theory of reflection breakage,
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