Mining, maritime, and more : NIOSH’s Spokane Research Laboratory’s expanded mission serves broad array of industries

Details

• Personal Author:
  Teske, Theodore ; Mancillas, Danielle
• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  NIOSH’s Spokane Research Laboratory (SRL), located in the Eastern Washington city of Spokane, is the largest NIOSH facility west of the Mississippi River and has a history dating back to the post World War II era. The purpose-built facility has a long track record of supporting engineering research, but today its mission has expanded to encompass research in areas like industrial hygiene, geophysics, heat stress, and social science. This broader portfolio allows the lab’s researchers from the Spokane Mining Research Division and the Western States Division housed at the lab to address health and safety issues for a wide range of industries whether on the water in one of the maritime industries or underground in mines across the United States.
  
  The Spokane Research Laboratory celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2021 starting life in 1951 as a field location for the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) Northwest Electro-development Laboratory (now the Albany Research Center) in Albany, Oregon. Increased mining activity at the deep underground lead and silver mines in the nearby Coeur d’ Alene Mining District in North Idaho made the location in Spokane ideal for working with these mines while providing the infrastructure the facility would need to conduct its research.
  
  Early research at the facility focused on issues related to deep underground hard rock mining including developing better ground support technologies, waste disposal techniques, and prevention of rock bursts (rapid failure of rock structures in deep hard rock mines due to pressure exerted by the weight of the mountain). These topics expanded in 1977 with the passing of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act which extended USBMs research mandate to all sectors of the mining industry. Work in this era included research on mobile roof support systems for underground coal mines and environmental work on issues like acid mine drainage.
  
  In 1996, the U.S. Bureau of Mines was closed by Congress, resulting in 1200 USBM employees across the country being laid off and another 600 being transferred to other Federal agencies including the Department of Energy (which is where the Albany, Oregon research center is located today), U.S. Geological Survey, and Bureau of Land Management. Ultimately, 413 employees from the USBM Health and Safety Research Program including 77 employees of the SRL were transferred to NIOSH. The focus of SRL’s research also shifted to purely topics affecting health and safety of the nation’s miners.
  
  Some project highlights of the last 20 years of mining research in Spokane include the development of the Zero Emissions Utility Solution (ZEUS), a hydrogen-powered mine utility vehicle. Diesel emissions from vehicles used in underground mines pose a threat to miner’s health and can cause lung-related issues including cancer. The ZEUS used hydrogen gas stored in a metal hydride storage system to fuel a converted diesel engine. The resulting exhaust was essentially just water vapor, no diesel emissions at all. The vehicle was tested at the NIOSH Reardan Auxiliary Site (a decommissioned Atlas nuclear missile silo located 20 miles west of Spokane) and then in the field at the Stillwater platinum mine in Western Montana.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Anniversaries And Special Events CDC--history Fisheries History, 20th Century History, 21st Century Mining NIOSH--history Occupational Diseases/prevention & Control Occupational Exposure/prevention & Control Occupational Health Oceans And Seas Safety Management Ships

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• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Blogs
• Place as Subject:
  Spokane, WA
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:na
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:29316a03eaff432af3f115183c047e0a0f33844d59de53c73c899cf764e5ae5195cfc7424ab072ce390e25dc416e51849634fc0cb07a9f9e3fe1e924d79a824e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/114714/cdc_114714_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 935.74 KB ]