Changes after mine death

NEW statewide guidelines have been issued 12 months after coronial recommendations over the death of Bowen Basin miner Paul Mcguire.

The father of two and experienced electrician was completing the routine task of calibrating gas sensors at Anglo American’s Grasstree mine when he was wrongly directed to a goaf area on May 6, 2014.

Mr Mcguire used a spanner to easily gain access to the lethal area via a partially sealed hatch, which had been barred shut with a single bolt, and died almost instantly after inhaling irrespirable air.

The tragedy occurred during sealing-up operations of the goaf area.

Barely one month before the 34-year-old’s death, another electrician had been tasked a similar job in the same location and noted the sensor was not there.

The inquest heard the sensor had been relocated in January 2014, but the system had never been updated, and as a result, Mr Mcguire had been given a job card with inaccurate information.

In his findings handed down in May 2020, Coroner David O’connell slammed the “grossly deficient” record keeping and questioned why “there were no warning signs or markings” in that area “to indicate the danger which lay beyond it”.

“I am left perplexed as to why such a dangerous location could not have simple warning signs attached on the face of the stopping man door and then on the sealed hatch,” Mr O’connell had said.

In 2016, Anglo American was fined $137,000 over Mr Mcguire’s death. A conviction was not recorded.

Since his death, hatch seal design has changed to a padlock and key system and warning sign installation.

In his findings, Mr O’connell recommended that the Department of Natural Resources, Mining and Energy establish a guideline for an appropriate hatch design, but that it was up to each mine to assess each individual circumstance in order to determine an appropriate design for their hatch seals.

Last week, the Mines Inspectorate issued statewide guidelines in line with those recommendations.

The guidelines include that mines must undertake a risk assessment of the seal and hatch seals, including all aspects of the life-cycle design, construction, operation and maintenance and risks associated with the potential for any persons entering or attempting to enter a hatch during sealingup operations.

It was accepted in the guidelines that each mine would have a unique combination of design requirements and durability hazards which needed to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

“Specific detailed inspection and access controls must be implemented during goaf purging operations as a clear danger exists that persons may inadvertently access the hatch seals because they are not fully sealed,” the guidelines state.

The guidelines also stipulate that unauthorised access to the seal and hatch should be restricted by a physical barricade and signs.