The Mine Safety and Health Administration will award up to $1 million in new grants for education and training programs to help identify, avoid, and prevent unsafe working conditions at mines in the United States as part of a plan in place since 2006.

The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 established the Brookwood-Sago Safety Grants Program to promote mine safety in honor of 13 miners who died at the Jim Walter Resource Inc.’s No. 5 Mine in Brookwood, Alabama, in 2001, and 12 miners who died in 2006 after an explosion at the Wolf Run Mining Company’s Sago Mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia. 

Grant recipients are to develop education and training programs on safety and health for mine operators and miners, with special emphasis on programs that target workers at small mines.

Each grant recipient will receive at least $50,000, with a maximum individual award of $250,000. MSHA may fund these grants incrementally based on milestones and availability of funds.

Last year, MSHA awarded $1 million in grants to six organizations, including the University of Arizona, West Virginia University, the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, the Virginia Department of Mines, Mineral and Energy, the Colorado School of Mines, and the Rend Lake College.

West Virginia University had received $171,805 in funding to develop and implement enhanced and realistic mine rescue training exercises that combine the efforts and abilities of a mine rescue team and fire brigade responding to a simulated coal mine fire emergency and locating missing personnel.

The Colorado School of Mines in Golden received $240,024 last year to provide quality training to mine rescue teams, focusing on enhancing the knowledge and skills for mine rescue teams and incident command staff in the areas of technical rescue, communications, and decision making during mine emergencies.

Applications must be submitted by March 24, 2017.