[Music]
there are a variety of materials mined
across the Commonwealth and the Virginia
Department of Mines minerals and
energies mineral mining team oversees it
all we have two primary responsibilities
that is the safety and health of the
workers and safe conditions at nine so
we have therefore enforce the health and
safety regulations at mines and then we
also do the environmental side for
environmentally sound mining twelve
inspectors are spread out across the
state living in the area they are
assigned they wear a lot of different
hats they insure worker safety provide
operator assistance health and permit
review provide training and ensure the
environment is protected the whole
purpose is to make sure that eventually
the sites put back into some kind of a
productive land use when the mining is
completed depending on the area
inspectors are responsible for thirty to
forty mine sites each and even more
workers we had a little over three
thousand employees by the mine operators
themselves and we had about eight
thousand contract employees working at
the mining operations they make complete
inspections of each mine every six
months but visit them more often DME
Charlottesville houses a support network
for the field work and the industry a
permitting engineer provides technical
review of permits and complaint
investigations a safety engineer
oversees training and certification
making sure everyone on a mine site has
the proper requirements before they
begin work mineral mining staff also
offer training and certification classes
for miners they offer a long list of
certifications for workers that include
general mineral minor surface foreman
surface blasting and much more some of
the mineral mining team oversee records
and serve as a dispatch for the division
they also provide technical support
ensuring everything in a forms and on
the website is working for operators
orphaned or abandoned sighs these are
mineral mines that were done prior to
regulations so this was pre pre-law they
reclaim them when funding is available
sometimes that's through grants or the
interest collected from the minerals
reclamation fund those on the mineral
mining teams say a good working
relationship with operators is key to
their success well we have a really good
working relationship with the majority
of our operators I think the majority of
them see us as a as a resource recently
they teamed up with a coal mine safety
team to offer electrical audits as an
effort to improve safety on mineral
mining sites they've completed over 50
audits in three years by having an
industry on boards critical so the next
time you drive on a road change your
cat's litter box add the salt to your
backyard pool or even prepare a meal on
your granite countertop remember the
mineral mining team had a hand in
getting that to you safely while
protecting the environment
[Music]