CHARLESTON, W.Va.-
The manufacturer of the emergency air packs used during the Sago Mine disaster said Friday that its products are safe, despite new government tests suggesting the devices are prone to damaged air hoses and other problems.
CSE Corp. President Scott Shearer said customers share the company’s belief, citing a one-year backlog of orders, an expansion of its production plant and the hiring of additional employees.
“We haven’t had any cancellations,” Shearer said. “The only thing they’re upset with us about is that we have not defended ourselves more.”
Shearer’s Monroeville, Pa.-based company has been under increasing scrutiny since Randal McCloy Jr., the sole survivor of the Sago disaster, said four members of his team could not get their CSE air packs to work.
CSE has been sued by McCloy and the families of two of the 12 miners who died in the Jan. 2 accident. Eleven of the victims succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.
CSE SR-100 air packs also were used during a fatal fire at West Virginia’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in January and after an explosion at Kentucky’s Darby No. 1 Mine in May.
Now the 37-year-old family owned business is coping with the fallout of testing conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The report suggests problems with the air packs are getting worse, not better.
The report covers two rounds of testing between 2000 and 2004. It is the most recent data about air packs’ performance since tests conducted between 1998 and 2000.
Reports on earlier testing from 1982 through August 2000 indicate NIOSH found high breathing pressure and high carbon dioxide levels with CSE air packs, making it difficult for users to breathe. Those reports list fewer problems with damaged hoses or starter oxygen used to jump start the devices, which are known in mining as self-contained self-rescuers.
CSE has about 60 percent of the U.S. market for air packs. The company’s packs are popular because their small size and light weight make them easy for miners to carry.
CSE criticized NIOSH for testing units that it said would not have passed the company’s own inspection criteria. The report indicates 47 of 198 CSE units tested–one in four–failed various inspections required by the company.
NIOSH obtained air packs for all the tests from mines. Les Boord, director of the NIOSH National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, dismissed CSE’s complaint, saying the testing program is designed to find out what actually happens to air packs in mines.
Stacey Vernallis, the company’s attorney, said that despite concerns, CSE air packs have been proven to work. “There are miners that will not go into the mine with anything but an SR-100,” she said.
NIOSH plans to change the testing program to broaden the sampling pool but does not plan to issue alerts or recalls, spokesman Fred Blosser said.
NIOSH is considering changing the way it certifies air packs for use in underground mines and is working with the industry to create a new generation of devices.
The nation’s chief mining regulatory body, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, was still examining the report, spokesman Dirk Fillpot said.
NIOSH also tested air packs made by three other manufacturers: Pleasant Prairie, Wis.-based Ocenco Inc., Pittsburgh-based Draeger Safety and Pittsburgh-based Mine Safety Appliances Co. The agency found some problems, but they were not as numerous as with CSE’s units.
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