Developing a Mine Safety & Health Management System in Queensland

This report provides a detailed analysis of ensuring safety and environmental responsibilities within mine management, adhering to Queensland Coal Mining legislations. It proposes requirements for proper mine operations in Australia, focusing on the legal responsibilities of the management. The legislative requirements of the safety and health management system, particularly concerning the ‘principal hazard management plan’ of Horizon Mining Pty Ltd, are discussed and advised upon. Furthermore, the report addresses safety procedures in the event of a fatality at a mine site, including the responsibility to contact police, secure the site, and establish backup procedures for key personnel absence. It also examines the mine management's responsibility towards environmental protection and sustainability, covering noise, dust, wastewater monitoring, and cultural awareness. The report concludes that adhering to Queensland Coal Mining legislation and the Environmental Protection Act 1994 is crucial for the safety and health of workers and environmental management in coal mines.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

1
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Safety and Environmental Responsibility..................................................................................2
Ensuring Legal Responsibilities.................................................................................................4
Principal Hazard Management Plan...........................................................................................5
Fatality at mine site....................................................................................................................6
Reference....................................................................................................................................9
Appendix....................................................................................................................................9

2
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Introduction
In this report a detailed research is done for ensuring the safety and environmental
responsibilities of the mine management given under the Queensland Coal Mining
legislations. A proposal of requirements for proper mine operations in Australia in respect to
the legal responsibilities of the management has also been discussed in this report. Further the
legislative requirements of the safety and health management system in regard to ‘principal
hazard management plan’ of the Horizon Mining Pty Ltd has also been discussed and
advised. In discussing safety procedures in event of any fatality that happened at mine site a
few issues have also been discussed regarding the responsibility to contact police,
responsibility for securing the site and backup procedures in case of absence of key
personnel. However in this report not only the legislative responsibilities of the mine
management have been discussed their responsibility towards the protection and
sustainability of the environment in relation to noise, dust and wastewater monitoring and
cultural awareness have also been discussed.
Safety and Environmental Responsibility
All mining personnel in Queensland are required to be in compliance with the all the
safety and health legislations such as Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 and the Coal
Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017, Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act
1999 and the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017 (Walters et al. 2016).
Under the provisions of section 89 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation
2017 the responsibilities of the mine management are mentioned. These requirements are-
 Ensuring that for an 8 hour period the respirable dust exposure for the workers is in a
level acceptable and not exceeding the calculations of Australian standard AS 2985

3
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
 Ensuring for shifts longer than 8 hours the respirable dust exposure is not greater than
that of an 8 hour shift
 Providing protective equipments to the workers
 Monitoring and recording the amount of respirable dust and silica exposed to the
workers
 Providing the information of the reports to the workers
 To suppressing dust level that is airborne to ensure that a worker’s safety is not under
threat.
 Providing necessary measures and adjustments for reviewing the control of dust.
Under section 33 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 coal mine workers and
other personnel affecting safety and health as a result of the mining operations would
have certain obligations under the division 2 of the act.
Section 39 under the division 2 of the Act describes the obligations of any person
working in a coal mine as-
 Complying with the Act and the procedures for the safety and health management
in the mine
 Giving another person any information necessary to fulfilling another person’s
obligations or duties or for the protection from risk of any kind of injury or illness
 Taking any necessary and reasonable action for ensuring that no one has been
exposed to any risk of unacceptable level.
Mining personnel under this section have certain other additional obligations. These
obligations are-
 Carrying out work in a way that does not expose anyone to any unacceptable
risk level

4
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
 Ensuring the conduction of any work under the supervision or leadership that
has been allocated to the worker is not exposing anyone to any unacceptable
risk level
 Extending the worker’s involvement for participation in the practices of the
risk management
 Complying with the safety and health instructions that are given by any site
operator or supervisor
 Working in a coal mine only if fit to carry out the work without affecting
anyone else’s safety and health
 Not doing anything recklessly or wilfully for adversely affecting the safety
and health any other worker at the mine.
Ensuring Legal Responsibilities
Under the section 9 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 it is required to
have a standard operating procedure for a hazard in a coal mine.
For ensuring the awareness of legal responsibilities of the mine management section
10 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 needs to be followed. Section 10 of the
Act provides that a site senior executive of a mine for the development of standard operating
procedure must
 Consult with other mine workers for identification of the hazards and ways to control
the hazards that are associated with the work, preparing a draft for the standard
operating procedure and giving them to the workers.
 If the workers are in agreement with the draft then preparing it as the final procedure
for standard operations.

5
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
 If there is a disagreement between the workers for the procedure and the disagreement
is not legal then deciding the disagreement and preparing final procedure
 If the disagreement is of legal nature then obtaining further information from the
workers, and consulting with the workers and preparing a further draft and giving the
copies to the workers
 Including the final procedure in the safety and health management system.
Principal Hazard Management Plan
Principal hazard management plan can be defined as any activity, process or
circumstance that carries out operations of a mine that has potentially resulted in multiple
deaths in relation to- ground failure, substance inundation, and mine shafts, contamination of
dust, fire explosion, gas burst and combustion. Under the Work Health and Safety (Mines)
Act 2013 provides for the identification and risk assessment of mining hazards.
 It is mentioned as the duty of a mine operator to identify all hazards that are
associated with the operations of the mine.
 An assessment of the risks involved must be conducted by involving investigation of
comprehensive and systematic process for the analysis of the all the health and safety
risks that can be associated with the mining hazard principal.
 For conducting assessment of the risk a mine operator is needed to consider the
appropriate investigation and analysis methods and individually and cumulatively
consider the mining hazard principals in relation with other hazards present in the
mine.
Under the Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations the preparations of a principal
mining hazard plan has been mentioned as-

6
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
 For each mining hazard principal that has been found to be associated with
operations of the mine there should be one principal mining hazard management
plan prepared
 Before the preparation of the principal mining hazard plan it should be ensured
by the mine operator that there is no mining operation carried out that night is
hazardous.
The principal control plans that the mine operators are required to prepare are needed
to be with compliance with the provisions mentioned under the Work Health and
Safety regulations. These provisions are-
 Compliance with the requirements mentioned with respect to the principal
control plan in the schedules of the regulation is needed from the mine
operator
 Documentation of the principal mining hazard plan is a must requirement and
it should be practicable and expressed in such a way that can be understood by
the person using the plan.
Fatality at mine site
In case of a fatality occurred in a mine site it is required in the legislation to report the
incident. Incidents where there was a risk of high potentiality of injuries should also be
reported to alert the management for the problem so they can implement strategies for the
risk management. In section 198 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 the
responsibility of reporting or notifying any accident or incident is imposed on the site senior
executive.
In the section 200 of the Act it is required that in case of an accident or high potential
incident an inspector must be held liable for securing the site and no person can interfere with

7
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
the site without the inspector’s permission. Under section 201 of the Coal Mining Safety and
Health Act 1999 it is required for the site senior executive to be forwarding the report related
to any serious accident or high potential incident that has occurred in the mine within one
month (Walters et al. 2016).
Under section 16 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulations 2001 it is
required that for reporting any high potential incidents or fatalities to the mines inspector the
Queensland Mining Industry Incident Report form is needed to be used. With the timely
submission of the form the compliance and legitimacy of the data for the Queensland Mines
and Quarries Safety Performance and Health report can be seen to be depending upon. Under
the subsection 2 of section 16 of the regulation requires that the procedures for notifying the
inspector should be included in the safety and health management system of the mine.
Under the section 198 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health act 1999 the provisions
relating to notification of accidents incidents or diseases are mentioned. Under this section a
site senior executive of the coal mine is responsible for notifying orally or by a written notice
an inspector and a representative of the industry safety and health in case of a death, accident
or high potential incidents that occurred in the coal mine. The site senior executive is required
to provide primary information related to the incident such as location of the accident, time of
the accident, number of persons that were involved and injured or died, in case of death- the
name of the person died and whether the death was caused by accident, in case of accident or
incident- name of the person seeing the event, person present at the time of the event, name
of any person injured, in case when no one was present- the name of the deceased or injured
person, brief description of the cause of the accident or death. If the information is not
available to the site senior executive it is his responsibility to take any step reasonable and
necessary to find out all the primary information and to give that information to the inspector
and the representative.

8
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Environmental Management
Following the provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1994 the mining
personnel should ensure that all the necessary measures, plants and equipments for
complying with the conditions of environmental management are installed (Horberry et al.
2016). It further needs to be ensured that the plants and equipments are properly maintained.
Reasons of Dust emission can be said to be because of clearing vegetation, removing the
topsoil, crushing and conveying pit, loading of materials to truck. Reasons for water pollution
can be stated as drainage of acid mines, contaminated metals, and disposal of waste. Drilling,
blasting, hauling can be said to the important sources of noise pollution caused by the coal
mines (Chen et al. 2019).
Conclusion
It can be concluded that for the safety and health of the workers in the coal mine the
mine management is required to be following the Queensland Coal Mining legislation. Under
this legislation the mines are bound under the provisions of Coal Mining Safety and Health
Act 1999 and the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017, Mining and Quarrying
Safety and Health Act 1999 and the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation
2017. For the environmental management the mines are required to follow Environmental
Protection Act 1994.

9
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Reference
Chen, L., Li, L., Yang, X., Zhang, Y., Chen, L. and Ma, X., 2019. Assessing the Impact of
Land-Use Planning on the Atmospheric Environment through Predicting the Spatial
Variability of Airborne Pollutants. International journal of environmental research and
public health, 16(2), p.172.
Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999.
Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2001
Horberry, T., Burgess-Limerick, R., Cooke, T. and Steiner, L., 2016. Improving mining
equipment safety through human-centered design. Ergonomics in Design, 24(3), pp.29-34.
Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act 1999
Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulations 2017
The Environmental Protection Act 1994 (EP Act)
Walters, D., Johnstone, R., Quinlan, M. and Wadsworth, E., 2016. Safeguarding workers: A
study of health and safety representatives in the Queensland coalmining industry, 1990-2013.
Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, 71(3), pp.418-441.
Walters, D., Quinlan, M., Johnstone, R. and Wadsworth, E., 2016. Cooperation or resistance?
Representing workers' health and safety in a hazardous industry. Industrial Relations Journal,
47(4), pp.379-395.
Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011

10
PROJECT MANAGEMENT