NIOSH Mining Group
June 23, 2025 - Below is a message from Wes Kenneweg, President, National Mine Rescue Association:
As you may know, there has been a recent reduction in force at NIOSH, particularly in the NIOSH Mining Program- a program devoted to the health and safety of our Nation’s miners.
With a history steeped in mining safety going back more than 100 years, the NIOSH Mining Program has worked tirelessly to make the mining industry a safer environment. Their research has improved mining ground control, fire and explosion prevention, mining ventilation, mining dust control, human factors, mine rescue, hearing loss prevention, and countless other areas. Day after day, NIOSH employees in Pittsburgh and Spokane have utilized the first-class laboratory facilities, experimental mines, and relationships built through years of trust at active mines to perform their research and disseminate to the mining community at large, mining labor partners, and outside stakeholders.
Mining is one of the key backbone industries in the US. The brave men and women who have elected this as a career take numerous risks day in and day out to ensure that our country has the minerals that it needs to function. In many cases, these can be the 2nd, 3rd and 4th generational miners. The profession has always had an aspect of danger, but with safety focused research, first by the Bureau of Mines, and now at NIOSH, it has been made safer.
The NIOSH Mining Researchers have worked to offer their time and expertise at mine rescue contests, visited mine sites to give presentations, offer new training tools such as virtual reality mine rescue training, and showed where improvements can be made in practice. They have provided services to the mining industry to evaluate mining ventilation and fire prevention, testing ground control methods using a one-of-a-kind mine roof simulator, and mine rescue/refuge alternative testing and research. These are people who have traveled to the mines to help improve safety, attended NMRA meetings and mine rescue events to present past research and collaborate on future program focus.
NMRA recently celebrated their 100-year anniversary in November 2024. NIOSH Mining research celebrated 100 years of mining in 2010. With the support of this community, both organizations can work towards 150 years. The NMRA supports the NIOSH Mining Group and their efforts to continue working for safer mines.
Wes Kenneweg,
President,
NMRA
412-996-5915