The safety record of the solid mineral mining and milling industries in 1971 was 342 fatal and 23,530 nonfatal injuries at respective frequency rates of 0.44 and 30.59 per million man-hours and at a severity rate of 4,056 days lost or charged per million man-hours for all injuries. One major disaster (a single accident which results in the death of five or more persons) occurred during 1971 in the solid mineral mining industries when seven men were killed by hydrogen sulfide gas in the Barnett Complex mine, Ozark-Mahoning Co., a fluorspar mine near Rosiclare, Ill. In 1970, there also was one major disaster, a coaldust explosion which claimed 38 lives in the interconnected Nos. 15 and 16 mines, Finley Coal Co., a bituminous coal operation near Hyden, Ky.

This total experience covers an aggregate worktime of 769.1 million man-hours accumulated by an average of 379,500 men working on 248 active days at mineral mining and milling operations extracting minerals in solid form. Data are included on underground, open-pit, dredging, hydraulicking, and all other operations within the preceding limitations. Milling or cleaning and associated surface shop and yard activities at such operations also are included.

The coverage of the 1971 injury and worktime data, as indicated by the foregoing definitions and the changed title of this chapter, was limited to those mineral fuel and mineral mining and processing establishments covered by the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (30 U.S.C. *21) and the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act (30 U.S.C. 732). The limited coverage was required by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (Public Law 91-596), which became

effective April 28, 1971. As a result, the Bureau of Mines ceased collection of injury and worktime data on the oil and natural gas, sulfur, salt and other saline minerals obtained from wells or by evaporation, coke, primary nonferrous reduction and refining, and the slag industries. These responsibilities were transferred to the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 1970 and earlier years, the data on the aforementioned industries had been considered part of and included in the total figures for the mineral industries. Annual injury and worktime statistics on these industries are available in earlier Minerals Yearbooks or in other Bureau of Mines' reports; for example, such data on the coke industry started in 1916 and those on the oil and gas industries in 1942.

The 1971 data on the mineral industry subgroups in this chapter are comparable with those for earlier years except in the nonmetal mining group. In this latter subgroup, coverage was reduced in some of the component industries, as detailed later in the text.

Mine Safety Legislation and Regulations. -Federal activities under the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 (30 U.S.C. 821) continued to accelerate through 1971.2 The number of mine inspectors, engineers, specialists, and aides in the field totaled 1,055 at the end of 1971 compared with 564 at the close of 1970. During 1971 more than 26,500 health and safety inspections of coal operations were made; 1,847 roof-control and 1,625 ventilation-dust control plans were approved, and more than one-third-million coal-dust samples were

1 Statistician (General), Health and Safety.

2 Department of the Interior: Moving Forward in Coal Mine Health and Safety. 1971 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 84 pp.

processed. Noise surveys covering nearly 23,000 miners revealed that less than 5 percent were subjected to the excessive noise levels established by the standard. Dust control measures by the industry were effective, and at the end of 1971 more than 90 percent of the underground mining sections were in compliance with the standard of not more than 3.0 milligrams of respirable dust per cubic meter of air.

Title IV of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 established coal workers' pneumoconiosis (black lung) as a compensable occupational disease and provided for monthly benefit payments to coal miners totally disabled from pneumoconiosis and to widows and dependents of miners who died from the disease. From the start of the program up to the end of 1971, a total of 347,700 3 claims had been filed and of these 322,500 had been processed. Of the claims completed by December 31, 1971, 159,500 were allowances (88,100 miners and 71,400 widows) and 163,000 were denials (125,000 miners and 38,000 widows). By the end of the year, 9,900 allowances (7,200 miners and 2,700 widows) had been terminated. The total cumulative Federal disbursements since enactment of the program to the end of 1971 were $532.6 million, and current monthly recurring payments at the end of the year were $28.0 million.

Activities under the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act (30 U.S.C. 732) were increased through 1971. A total of 8,457 inspections, comprising 5,174 regular and 3,283 spot inspections, of metal,

nonmetal, stone, and sand and gravel operations were made during the year. In 1970 a total of 2,088 inspections were made. In addition, 74 special surveys, concerned mainly with radiation, dust, and noise problems in mine and mill environments, were conducted in 1971. State plan agreements provide for enforcement of the act by State agencies. Of the four agreements in effect at the end of 1971, those with the States of Arizona and Colorado were effective throughout the year and those with California and New York became effective during July and August.

Scope of Report.-The statistics in this chapter comprise the disabling injury and work experience of all personnel engaged in production, exploration, development, maintenance, repair, and force-account construction work, including supervisory and technical personnel and working partners, at solid mineral-producing and -processing establishments in the United States. Data concerning officeworkers are excluded.

The coverage of the industries is complete. All injury rates are calculated from unrounded data, and in some instances the rates cannot be reproduced from rounded data shown in the tables. Most of the information was reported by the producer or operator, but to obtain complete coverage it was necessary to estimate some worktime data for nonreporting plants with information from other sources. Injury experience for these nonreporters was not estimated but was projected from the aggregate injury experience of reporters in the same industry.

METAL MINES AND MILLS Overall injury experience at metal mines and mills during 1971 was 56 fatal and 3,815 nonfatal injuries at respective frequency rates of 0.37 and 24.88 per million man-hours; the severity rate was 3,241 days lost or charged per million man-hours. These injuries occurred during a total worktime of 153.3 million man-hours at metal mines and mills during the year. All measures of injury experience at metal mines (table 1) were better than in 1970, but at metal mills (table 2) the fatality record worsened to a total of nine workdeaths, which resulted in an increased in

jury-severity rate for 1971. The 1971 record for nonfatal injuries at metal mills was better than that of 1970.

At copper mines, the totals of 12 fatal and 1,070 nonfatal injuries were, respectively, one less and 56 more than in 1970. The increased number of injuries coupled with the decreased worktime in 1971 resulted in a worsening of injury frequency to 25.34 per million man-hours. In copper

3 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Social Security Administration. Second Annual Report to Congress on the Administration of Part B of Title IV of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. June 1972, 25 pp.

mills, six fatal injuries, four more than in 1970, and 210 nonfatal injuries in 1971 resulted in a frequency rate of 13.09 for all injuries in 1971. Owing to the larger fatality total, the injury-severity rate of 2,736 was 61 percent higher than in 1970.

All general measures of injury-experience at gold-silver mines in 1971 were better than in 1970. The lower numbers of both fatal and nonfatal injuries resulted in better frequency and severity rates in 1971. There were no fatalities at gold-silver mills in either 1970 or 1971, but an increased number of nonfatal injuries in 1971 caused an increase in both the injury-frequency and severity rates.

The safety record at iron mines in 1971 was improved sharply in all measures of injury experience. The totals of three fatal and 430 nonfatal injuries were, respectively, five and 105 less than in 1970. In iron mills, the two fatal and 150 nonfatal injuries were, respectively, two and 12 less than in 1970. However, the overall injury-frequency rate at the mills in 1971 was slightly higher and the severity rate was only slightly lower than in 1970, owing to the reduced total man-hours of exposure in the current year.

Fatality experience at lead-zinc mines worsened in 1971 and was principally responsible for the increased severity rate for all injuries. However, the total of 895 nonfatal injuries was 177 less than in 1970 and resulted in an overall frequency rate of 62.15, 10 percent better than in 1970. The safety record at lead-zinc mills showed similar trends in 1971 with worsened fatality but better nonfatal injury experience.

Although the total number of injuries at uranium mines was higher in 1971, the frequency rate of 31.09 was slightly better than in 1970 owing to the increased worktime. However, work fatalities were lower in 1971 and resulted in an improved severity rate. At uranium mills, the absence of fatalities and the reduction in nonfatal injuries in 1971 resulted in frequency and severity rates of 9.96 and 403, respectively, both markedly better than in 1970.

At miscellaneous metal (bauxite, mercury, titanium, tungsten, etc.) mines, the four fatal and 235 nonfatal injuries resulted in overall injury rates of 37.60 for frequency and 5,386 for severity. All general measures of injury experience at miscellaneous metal

mills were sharply better in 1971 than in 1970.

NONMETAL MINES AND MILLS

The safety record at all nonmetal (except stone, and sand and gravel) mining operations producing solid minerals in 1971 was 24 fatal and 2,310 nonfatal injuries at respective frequency rates of 0.28 and 27.39 per million man-hours and a severity rate of 2,989 days lost or charged per million man-hours. A major disaster in April killed seven men in the Barnett Complex mine, a fluorspar operation (miscellaneous nonmetal group) of the Ozark-Mahoning Co., near Rosiclare, Ill. The men died from exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas which was released from pressurized water entering the underground workings through an exploratory drill hole. The last previous major disaster in nonmetal mining occurred in 1968, when a shaft fire in a Louisiana salt mine killed 21 men. Injury experience on nonmetal mines is listed by industry subgroups in table 3 and on nonmetal mills in table 4.

These overall data are not comparable to those for earlier years owing to the transfer to the Department of Labor of data-collection responsibilities for information on operations which produce minerals in liquid form from wells or by solar evaporation. Such operations include those producing sulfur by the Frasch process, salt by solution mining or solar evaporation, sodium and potassium compounds from dry lake beds, and others. The aforementioned transfer has affected comparability of the data for 1971 with those for previous years in varying degrees on the following subgroups of nonmetal industries: Potash, salt, sulfur, and miscellaneous. Comparability of the 1971 data on the miscellaneous nonmetal group was affected further by the inclusion of the injury and worktime data on the peat industry for the first time. In years prior to 1971 such data had been treated separately, as listed in table 8. This inclusion resulted from an administrative action which placed peat operations under the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act.

At clay-shale mines, each general measure of injury experience in 1971 was better than in 1970. However, the opposite was