As the Pike River Recovery Agency inches closer to entering the abandoned Pike River mine drift, it remains unclear as to the standards that are being followed to manage safety risks.
The New Zealand government has nominally partnered in the development of many mining, electrical and hazardous area joint standards with Australia over the years, but when it comes to applying them to gaseous coal mines in New Zealand, the government’s performance has been poor, says electrical inspector Garry House.
House is the only Kiwi active on the committees that develop these mining standards and has been for many years. He says these standards tap into the best expertise in the world, and standards that address working safely in explosive atmospheres are even more relevant to rescues and coal mine recoveries because the mining standards themselves do not permit work to be carried out in explosive atmospheres.
“This limits mining expertise to working only in safe atmospheres, so the expertise that can best guide a mine recovery has to come from standards-based competence developed above ground where work is carried out in environments where an ignition source could prove fatal.”
House says he wrote the AOP procedures for hot-entry work into a joint standard and they have since been taken up worldwide.
“Top hazardous area experts are trained to go into an unsafe atmosphere and start work safely, while miners are trained to stop work and come out when it’s unsafe.”
Because Australian State mining regulators serve on the award-winning EL-023 committee, ElectroLink asked the chair, Tim Webster, if the Pike River Recovery Agency had sought the advice of this committee as to which standards are applicable for a safe re-entry. ElectroLink also asked if the agency had sought the committee’s advice on relevant competencies for personnel who might be employed to carry out the re-entry.
Webster has passed these queries to Standards Australia for a response. Committee member, Garry House, says the committee has discussed the proposed Pike River re-entry informally and he is not aware of any approach from the Pike River Recovery Agency.