MSHA to award $1 million in grants for mine safety training

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has announced the availability of $1 million for training or training materials to support mine rescue or mine emergency preparedness in underground mines. MSHA will evaluate applications and then award Brookwood-Sago mine safety grants in individual grants of at least $50,000 and up to $250,000.

For award consideration, applicants must be a public or private nonprofit 501(c) (3) organization to be eligible. Interested parties must submit their applications electronically at www.grants.gov by Aug. 29, 2015. If online application poses a hardship, MSHA will provide assistance to help applicants with their online submission.

Established by a provision in the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006, the Brookwood-Sago grants program is now in its 9th year. The grants honor the 25 men who died in two mine disasters: the first, at the Jim Walter Resources #5 mine in Brookwood, Ala., where two explosions in 2001 killed 13 men and at the Sago Mine in Buchannon, W.Va., where 12 died in a 2006 explosion.