Bill Text: WV SB487 | 2011 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Increasing required amount of noncombustible material in certain coal mines

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2011-02-10 - To Energy, Industry and Mining [SB487 Detail]

Download: West_Virginia-2011-SB487-Introduced.html

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Senate Bill No. 487
(By Senators Palumbo and Kessler (Acting President))
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[Introduced February 10, 2011; referred to the Committee on Energy, Industry and Mining; and then to the Committee on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §22A-2-24 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to increasing from sixty-five percent to eighty percent the required amount of noncombustible material in certain underground coal mines to be consistent with federal requirements.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §22A-2-24 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 2. UNDERGROUND MINES.

COAL DUST AND ROCK DUST

§22A-2-24. Control of coal dust; rock dusting.
(a) In all mines, dangerous accumulations of fine, dry coal and coal dust shall be removed from the mine, and all dry and dusty operating sections and haulageways and conveyors and back entries shall be rock dusted or dust allayed by such other methods as may be approved by the director.
(b) All mines or locations in mines that are too wet or too high in incombustible content for a coal dust explosion to initiate or propagate are not required to be rock dusted during the time any of these conditions prevail. Coal dust and other dust in suspension in unusual quantities shall be allayed by sprinkling or other dust allaying devices.
(c) In all dry and dusty mines or sections thereof, rock dust shall be applied and maintained upon the roof, floor and sides of all operating sections, haulageways and parallel entries connected thereto by open crosscuts. Back entries shall be rock dusted. Rock dust shall be so applied to include the last open crosscut of rooms and entries, and to within forty feet of faces. Rock dust shall be maintained in such quantity that the incombustible content of the mine dust that could initiate or propagate an explosion shall may not be less than sixty-five eighty percent. but the The incombustible content of mine dust in return entries shall also not be less than be equal to or greater than eighty percent.
(d) Rock dust shall may not contain more than five percent by volume of quartz or free silica particles and shall be pulverized so that one hundred percent will pass through a twenty mesh screen and seventy percent or more will pass through a two hundred mesh screen.


NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to increase from sixty-five percent to eighty percent the required amount of noncombustible material in certain underground coal mines to be consistent with federal requirements.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.