How to read these records

The mine ID

Seven digits; the first two are the state. It ties together every MSHA file about the operation.

Status

MSHA's own words: active, intermittent (operates part of the year), new mine, nonproducing, temporarily idled. Abandoned mines are not on this site. The date is when the mine entered its current status.

Type and commodity

Surface, underground, or facility (a mill or plant). The commodity is MSHA's description; the industry group is its canvass: coal, metal, nonmetal, stone, sand and gravel.

Workers

The number entered on the Mine Information Form by the inspector. It is not a payroll figure and can be out of date.

Quarterly reports

Operators report average employment, hours worked and coal production to MSHA every quarter. The record shows the latest quarter in the file and the three before it.

Inspections, citations, accidents

Counted over a fixed window, from October 1, 2024 to the date of the file — never “since the beginning”. Citations and orders are those issued to the operator and not vacated; “significant and substantial” is the inspector's finding; penalties are proposed amounts, which can be contested and changed. Accident reports are the forms filed with MSHA; “with an injury or illness” leaves out accident-only reports. A citation is not a conviction, and a mine with many inspections has more occasions to be cited.

Mine contractors

Companies that work at mines without operating them — drilling, blasting, hauling, construction, maintenance — have an MSHA contractor ID and report each quarter the employees and hours they had at mine sites. It is not the size of the whole company. MSHA's file gives no address for them. Their records carry the ID prefixed with C.

What is not here

The controller's name (it can be a person), directions to the mine, the narrative of accidents, anything about the injured person, and citations issued to contractors or individuals.