Document an4J1V9ORrwnpgR3az4yM9kb

THE MINER AND HIS ENVIRONMENT By F. T. M. WHITE MacDonald Professor of Mining Engineering and Chairman, Department of Mining Engineering & Applied Geophysics, McCill University, Montreal "Environment" has been defined ns "the aggregate of physical, regional and circum stantial conditions that surround and influ ence the life or development of an individual or a community". When this definition is ap plied to the mining industry, the term de notes something much wider than ground control, mine ventilation, and dust abate ment, the aspects of the working environ ment that have so far received most atten tion. The object of this paper is to review, somewhat critically, the total environment of our industry insofar as it concerns those who constitute the productive work-force. It is for this reason that the topic "Tho Miner and His Environment" has been selected. The paper will, therefore, bo in the nature of an analysis of factors and principles relevant to the creation nnd maintenance of a proper total mining environment, certain aspects of which arc seldom examined but which nrc, in fact, highly relevant. Mining by surface methods has given rise to little anxiety concerning the physical envi ronment but, ns operations hnvc proceeded in depth, more attention to tho working en vironment has bccomo necessary. Most thought has been given to particular func tional nspects of the physical mining envi ronment, namely, ventilation nnd airborne mineralized suspensions,--The industry's in terest in these aspects of the underground environment is nlmost as old ns underground mining itself. Even in the paleo-motallurgic era of the nneient world, the importance of natural ventilation was acknowledged, nnd we know from the records of Agricoin of the new approaches to induced ventilation (by fire, bellows, and the like) in his day. With our more modem methods, undoubted prog ress has been made in the physical environ ment. In the composite costs of mining, the cost of labor is usually the largest single item and it is through an increase in the efficiency of labor--the output per man shift--that the greatest improvements in this item can bo achieved. The initial approach to achieve greater efficiency was to make the working place safer (from the obvious structural viewpoint), From these beginnings, it is now widely accepted thnt working places should also bo more healthful and comfortablo nnd that our mining nctivltics should bo designed in such n way thnt a rensonable performance of labor can bo achieved without discomfort. Much by way of increased productivity has been achieved by increased mechanisation, which is reflected by improvement in tho man hours per ton of ore mined: in metal mining, from 1.80 man hours per ton in 1952 to 1.09 man hours per ton In 1982 and, in non-mctnllic mining, from 0.50 man hours per ton in 1952 to 0.27 man hours per ton In 1962. These are significant improvements in productivity. But, mechanisation hns intro duced additional, ns well as its own special, problems. In more recent years, it has be come evident thnt the physical aspects of our industrial environment must bo correlated with psychological, ns well as sociological, aspects in the establishment of a comprehen sively attractive working environment. Tho totnl environment of mining is there fore, I suggest, n composite ono of physical, chemical, biological, psychological and socio logical elements; together, they constitute the working conditions within the industryeach giving rise to problems of control. In turning to these environmental components, there are some upon which I shall touch only briefly. Rock SiobiHly/InslabiHly. "Falls of ground" nrc n feature of tho physical environment that constitute the highest cause of mino fatalities. These derive generally from inadequate safeguards of loose material on the one hand and/or igno rance of tho relative stability of the rock structure cn masse on the other. Usually, the first of these relates directly to inadequate inspection of the "back" of a freshly-broken excavation nnd to inadequate remedial ac tion; the second is part of the established practice of ground control and is often the problem of inadequate support at a localized 4