2019 Conference Presentations

Darren Marinoff
Principal Consultant – Occupational Hygiene, Greencap

The high-risk nature of the Mining and Resources industry prescribes multiple layers of safety requirements that workers need to undertake to access a site and carry out specific works safely.

Greencap’s depth of experience in occupational health and safety within the Mining and Resources Industry includes the organisation’s engagement by the South Australian Mining and Quarrying Health and Safety Committee to undertake Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS) monitoring at various mines and quarries throughout South Australia as part of their Health Surveillance Program. This project alone saw over 1,000 personal and static monitoring samples collected throughout 2016 to 2018.

This presentation will first give background information on the hazards of RCS dust and the risks of exposure. Analysis of the data collected from the monitoring programs will be presented with a focus on elevated exposures relating to Similar Exposure Groups, operational locations and mined/quarried products. Discussion will be presented on observations of existing controls and their effectiveness together with use of respiratory protective devices and a fit testing program conducted during the third year of the program.

Greg Manthey
Inspector of Mines – Occupational Hygiene, Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy

Effectively controlling worker exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS) in mineral mines and quarries (MMQ) is an ongoing challenge. Increasing cases of mine dust lung disease show this has not yet been met.

RCS can cause silicosis, lung cancer, chronic bronchitis and emphysema after prolonged exposure. Acute silicosis can result after very high, short term exposure as tragically seen in the manufactured stone industry.

The MMQ sector has nearly 1400 operational sites employing approximately 12,800 workers, many of them at elevated risk from RCS exposures.

The 2017 introduction of the Guideline for the Management of Respirable Crystalline Silica in Mineral Mines and Quarries (QGL02) provided the industry with structures to address RCS exposure. Barriers to effective implementation include:

• limited understanding of the hazard,
• difficulty implementing effective dust control,
• limited number of Occupational Hygienists,
• monitoring costs,
• a generally poor understanding of QGL02.

DNRME’s compliance monitoring program continues the Inspectorate’s close engagement with the sector, ensuring SSE’s understand QGL02 and comply with their obligations including risk evaluation, exposure monitoring and reporting.

This presentation describes findings from the program and focus areas, including:

• sampling results and data,
• compliance issues,
• at-risk groups
• increasing RCS education,
• improving risk identification and evaluating,
• effectiveness of control measures.

Fritz Djukic
Inspector, (Occupational Hygiene), Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy

Inhalable dust refers to all dust that may enter the mouth and nose during normal breathing. Inhalable dust may be divided into ‘respirable’ and ‘non- respirable’ fractions. The dust particle size will ultimately determine the site of deposition within the respiratory system. Respirable dust particles (<10 micron) may penetrate deep into the gas exchange regions of the lung. The ‘non respirable’ faction includes both ‘extra thoracic dust particles (<100 micron)’ and ‘thoracic dust particles (<25 micron)’.

The re-identification of CWP among Queensland coal mine workers and, more recently, the increase in cases of silicosis among engineered stone workers is a stark reminder of the hazards associated with exposure to respirable dust. Recent reforms to the respiratory component of the existing coal mine workers health scheme have resulted in major improvements with respect to the early detection and diagnosis of mine dust lung disease (MDLD). These improvements have led to a number of other forms of MDLD being detected among Queensland mine workers that are not associated with pneumoconiosis. A growing number of these cases fall into the broad category of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). There is an increasing body of evidence implicating exposure to larger dust particles (outside the respirable fraction) and an inflammatory response in the lung, resulting in COPD.

Unlike the Queensland metalliferous mining and quarrying legislation, there is currently no prescribed regulatory limit for inhalable dust in Queensland coal mining legislation. Despite this, the majority of coal mines have recognised this as a potential health hazard as part of their site health risk assessments (HRA).

This paper reviews available inhalable dust exposure data that has been provided to the Mines Inspectorate for Queensland coal mines since the introduction of risk based legislation in 1999. The paper considers the evidence basis for regulatory amendment to ensure risk is at an acceptable level and as low as reasonably achievable.

The provision of information, instruction, training and supervision is an essential component of any risk management strategy. A robust training and assessment program is fundamental to the safety of not

only those conducting tasks, but also other workers and people who may be affected by their work.

Can our training and assessment programs be more robust? Have we let complacency slip in? Have we stopped training and assessing in some areas because “it hasn’t happened for a while”?

During this Workshop, coordinated by the Resources Training Council, we will explore these questions and more.

Mark Holmes
Chairman, Circadian Australia

Until recently, key decisions on fitness for duty in the mining industry relied on subjective self-assessment by individual workers and subjective assessments made by Supervisors and Health and Safety Professionals.

Circadian Australia’s holistic approach to enhancing Sleep Quality, Sleep Quantity, Alertness, Safety, Health, Wellbeing and the Sustainable Resilience of workers in the Mining Industry, combines scientifically validated Fatigue Science Readiband™ Real-Time and Predictive Alertness Actigraphy data with Awareness, Education, Training, and confidential sleep coaching for individuals.

By collecting and analysing scientifically validated, objective, sleep and alertness data we help mining industry workers to take the guesswork out of measuring and managing sleep, fatigue and human performance and to visualise their alertness levels for the day and/or night ahead so they can operate and perform at their very best by knowing how circadian disruption, shift work and extended hours are impacting sleep quality, sleep quantity, their real-time and predictive alertness.

Developed with proprietary algorithms from the US Army Research Lab, the Readiband™ is the only validated system than can understand the cumulative effects of sleep and translate them into an objective, predictive measure of one’s alertness (fatigue).

Dr. Philip Tynan
National Toxicologist, Safe Work Laboratories

It is widely accepted Customs and Police Drug confiscation, self-report surveys (such as the National Household Drug Survey), and roadside and workplace drug testing give only a crude picture of overall community drug use. By assaying drug concentrations in sewage effluent, it is possible to obtain timely information on the actual spectrum of drugs used at a site and calculate the average drug dose per person.

Wastewater Drug Testing has been used internationally and in Australia (in the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program 2016 – 2019) to measure and interpret drug use within national populations and at selected worksites enabling the identification of problem areas, drugs of concern and monitoring changes in use patterns. A great advantage of Wastewater drug analysis is that it is not subject to response bias and can be used as an outcome measurement tool to gauge the effectiveness of a workplace’s drug use intervention strategy. Workplace drug use may reflect local drug use but as Australian workplace studies (including minesites) have shown, it can often be a reflection of the unique drug-taking culture at that workplace.

Dr. Andrew Lingwood
Director and Consultant Occupational and Environmental Physician, OccPhyz Consulting

Fatigue is a vital health and safety issue in the mining industry with a multitude of medical and organisational causes and implications.

This presentation will focus on the nature of circadian rhythms and how they can contribute to fatigue. The ways in which shift work can impact these matters is specifically considered, given the relevance of varied work and shift patterns to the mining industry.

The physiological effects of fatigue will also be discussed, including how these can translate into performance-based effects.

The presentation will also consider the complex interactions between the multiple medical, social and employment factors which contribute to fatigue.

Ian Hawkins
Seam Gas Manager, Anglo American – Moranbah North Mine

Minimising risk to our people is Anglo American’s number one priority. Anglo American has implemented a system to improve the control of works being conducted on the surface to support the underground operations.

Recognising that unplanned work can often be the most unsafe, Moranbah North operation has taken advantage of the existing, proven underground planning tool and processes (Fewzion) and aligned the surface operations to these processes.

The surface area of the mining lease has been split into geographical zones with a zone controller responsible for each zone.

All activities in each zone are planned within a shared database (Fewzion) and managed and scheduled through planning meetings and agreed processes.

Any break-in or unplanned work is assessed independently by the activity owner and zone controller prior to approval to proceed is granted.

Zoning of surface works provides confidence that:

• All surface work activities are planned and scheduled, minimising the need for break-in and unplanned work
• Permits to Work are in place, with associated risk assessment and hazard identification completed
• Simultaneous works are identified – minimising conflicting work areas
• All work is communicated to all surface workers – maximising awareness
• Break-in work is effectively managed, as it is planned through the scheduling process.

Cristian Sylvestre
Managing Director, HabitSafe

There has been considerable research (empirical studies and academic papers) during the last 10 years investigating human decision making.

The most disruptive discovery is that what we think of as a deliberate choice (an “active” conscious decision) happens fundamentally in the subconscious and is fed to the conscious mind very late in the neurological process. This is why it feels like we only make conscious decisions.

Three thinking principles help explain human decision making and enable us to understand human behaviour better.

These are automatic thinking (autopilot), social thinking and mental thinking models. As such, they also provide valuable clues to determine how we can future-proof efforts by organisations to make behaviours safer.

The lessons from these three thinking principles can be applied to three different layers in organisations:

1. Leadership
2. Teams
3. Individuals

The latest findings from studies in neuroscience, behaviour science, cognitive behavioural science and neuropsychology are used to explain how safety behaviour can be influenced more effectively.

Dr. Tilman Rasche
Principal Mining Engineer, Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy

The Minerals Council of Australia has identified that tyre fitters at mining operations are ten times more likely to be killed at work than mine diesel mechanics (Hassal 2016). Rim disassembly is particularly hazardous and resulted in seven fatalities in the Australasian region, over the last 15 years.

To better control this fatal hazard a mechanical interference feature, often called the Surelock bead seat band, was patented in 1986. It aims to prevent the inflation and consequential dangerous disassembly of earthmover tyre and rim assemblies, should a lockring be incorrectly fitted.

This presentation, based on the authors recent Australian Coal Association Research Project C26036, aims to raise awareness of this safety feature, explain some of the advantages, disadvantages and misconceptions about this design.

It will also reinforce the urgent need for better industry-wide training approaches around tyre and rim maintenance and highlight a much needed review and update of the Australian Standard ‘AS 4457.1—2007 – Earth-moving machinery—Off-the-road wheels, rims and tyres’, particularly around an improved universal marking and labelling standard of rim componentry.

This seemingly modest change will allow tyre fitters to better identify matching rim and wheel componentry thereby significantly reducing the reoccurrence of rim related fatalities.