Article Last Updated: 02/01/2008 11:38:22 PM MST

A Washington company is the first to receive federal approval to proceed with wireless tracking technology that could resolve a mine-safety weakness evident in August's Crandall Canyon disaster - the inability to locate individual miners underground.
The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) said Thursday it had authorized the use of Venture Design Services Inc.'s wireless communication and tracking system in underground mines.
That approval does not guarantee Venture Design's system will work in all underground situations, said MSHA official Dave Chirdon, particularly if mine workings are ravaged by a physical calamity, such as two wall collapses that killed nine miners and injured six others in August at the Crandall Canyon mine in Emery County.
But it shows the system "is safe to use in a gassy atmosphere," Chirdon said, clearing the way for companies to install it in their mines, if they choose. "This is a big step for us because it's the first wireless tracking system. This is a different technology that hasn't been available before."
Jim Barrett, Spokane-based research and development manager on Venture Design's system, said his company's technology can come within 75 feet of showing where a miner is, can track the miner's movement on a big-screen monitor, and will be adding a two-way, text-messaging service. Up to now, electronic messages could be sent from the surface to points underground but not vice versa.
If this system had been in place at Crandall Canyon, he said, it could have avoided the need to drill multiple holes to gain some information about the locations of six trapped miners. "That becomes important, not only to saving the rescuers' lives, but also to [helping family members] desperate for information about the status of their loved ones."
Scott Matheson, who led a commission appointed by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to see what more the state could do to improve mine safety, expressed interest in the system's "applicability to the deep underground mining conditions we have in the state. I hope Utah coal operators already are evaluating its use," along with a state technical advisory committee likely to be set up.
Representatives of the United Mine Workers of America and the National Mining Association also applauded efforts to develop the technology.
Barrett said the technology has been used since May in West Virginia, which is requiring its mines to have tracking systems prior to a June 2009 federal mandate for mines nationwide.
Since 2006, MSHA has approved 36 communications and tracking systems featuring other technologies.
Another 41 applications, including some wireless based, are in the approval pipeline.
mikeg@sltrib.com