MSHA Mining Safety & Health Data

Comprehensive mining safety intelligence from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Searches 86,000+ mines across the US and joins data from 5 DOL API datasets — mines, violations, inspections, accidents, and assessments — with automated risk scoring based on fatalities, S&S violations, withdrawal orders, and penalty history.

What It Does

This actor queries the DOL Open Data Portal API to build rich mine safety profiles:

1. Searches mines by name, operator, controller, state, type (Coal/Metal), status, or commodity
2. Joins violations — citations, orders, safeguards with S&S flags, negligence levels, and penalties
3. Joins inspections — regular, spot, complaint, impact inspections with violations found and on-site hours
4. Joins accidents — fatalities, injuries, lost workdays with narratives and classifications
5. Calculates risk scores — weighted algorithm considering fatalities (40pts), orders (10pts each), S&S violations (3pts each), high negligence (8pts each), large penalties, and violation-to-employee ratios

Key Features

• Multi-dataset joining — Automatically correlates data across 5 MSHA datasets by mine_id
• Risk scoring — Four-tier risk assessment (Critical/High/Medium/Low) with detailed risk factor breakdown
• Comprehensive summaries — Violation, inspection, and accident summaries with breakdowns by type
• Flexible filtering — Search by any combination of mine name, operator, state, type, commodity, date range
• Rate limit handling — Exponential backoff with staggered parallel requests to respect DOL API limits
• Dry run mode — Returns realistic sample data without API calls (default behavior)

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
apiKey	string	—	DOL API key (register free)
dryRun	boolean	true	Return sample data without API calls
mineName	string	—	Search by mine name (partial match)
operatorName	string	—	Search by operator name (partial match)
controllerName	string	—	Search by controller/parent company
mineId	string	—	Exact MSHA mine ID (7 digits)
state	string	—	Two-letter state code (WV, WY, PA, etc.)
mineType	string	—	C = Coal, M = Metal/Non-Metal
mineStatus	string	—	Active, Abandoned, NonProducing, etc.
commodity	string	—	Primary commodity (Bituminous, Gold, Limestone, etc.)
dateFrom	string	—	Filter related data from date (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateTo	string	—	Filter related data to date (YYYY-MM-DD)
includeViolations	boolean	true	Join violation records
includeInspections	boolean	true	Join inspection records
includeAccidents	boolean	true	Join accident records
maxResults	integer	100	Max mines to return (1-5000)
maxViolationsPerMine	integer	100	Max violations per mine (1-1000)
maxInspectionsPerMine	integer	50	Max inspections per mine (1-500)
maxAccidentsPerMine	integer	50	Max accidents per mine (1-500)

Output Format

Each mine record includes:

{
    "mineId": "4601432",
    "mineName": "EAGLE BUTTE MINE",
    "mineType": "Coal",
    "mineClassification": "Surface",
    "operatorName": "EAGLE SPECIALTY MATERIALS LLC",
    "controllerName": "EAGLE SPECIALTY MATERIALS LLC",
    "state": "WY",
    "county": "CAMPBELL",
    "latitude": 44.21,
    "longitude": -105.38,
    "status": "Active",
    "employeeCount": 320,
    "hoursPerYear": 640000,
    "sicDescription": "Bituminous Coal and Lignite Surface Mining",
    "primaryCommodity": "Bituminous",

    "violations": [
        {
            "violationNumber": "8765432",
            "section": "77.1607(b)",
            "sectionTitle": "Loading and haulage - moving equipment",
            "citationOrderSafeguard": "Citation",
            "significantAndSubstantial": true,
            "negligence": "Moderate",
            "proposedPenalty": 4416
        }
    ],
    "violationSummary": {
        "total": 2,
        "citations": 1,
        "orders": 1,
        "significantAndSubstantial": 2,
        "totalProposedPenalties": 27872,
        "byNegligence": { "Moderate": 1, "High": 1 }
    },

    "inspections": [
        {
            "eventNumber": "E001234",
            "beginDate": "2024-11-10",
            "inspectionTypeDescription": "Regular Safety/Health",
            "violationsFound": 2,
            "onSiteHours": 48
        }
    ],

    "accidents": [
        {
            "accidentDate": "2024-06-12",
            "degreeOfInjuryDescription": "Days Away From Work (DAFW)",
            "classification": "Powered Haulage",
            "daysLost": 45,
            "narrative": "Employee was struck by a loaded haul truck..."
        }
    ],

    "riskScore": 37,
    "riskLevel": "Medium",
    "riskFactors": [
        "1 withdrawal order(s) (+10)",
        "2 S&S violation(s) (+6)",
        "1 high negligence violation(s) (+8)"
    ]
}

Risk Scoring Algorithm

Factor	Points	Cap
Fatality	+40 each	None
Permanent disability	+20 each	None
Withdrawal order	+10 each	80
S&S violation	+3 each	60
High negligence / Reckless disregard	+8 each	40
Penalties > $100K	+25	—
Penalties > $50K	+15	—
High violation volume (>50)	+15	—
Contested violations > 10	+10	—
Days lost > 100	+15	—
Violation/employee ratio > 2	+20	—
Violation/employee ratio > 1	+10	—

Risk levels: Critical (≥100) · High (≥60) · Medium (≥30) · Low (<30)

Example Searches

Find all active coal mines in West Virginia:

{
    "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
    "dryRun": false,
    "state": "WV",
    "mineType": "C",
    "mineStatus": "Active",
    "maxResults": 200
}

Look up a specific mine with full history:

{
    "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
    "dryRun": false,
    "mineId": "4601432",
    "maxViolationsPerMine": 500,
    "maxInspectionsPerMine": 200,
    "maxAccidentsPerMine": 200
}

Search gold mines with recent violations only:

{
    "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
    "dryRun": false,
    "commodity": "Gold",
    "mineType": "M",
    "dateFrom": "2024-01-01",
    "maxResults": 50
}

Find mines by operator:

{
    "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
    "dryRun": false,
    "operatorName": "PEABODY",
    "includeAccidents": true,
    "maxResults": 100
}

Data Sources

This actor queries 5 datasets from the DOL Open Data Portal:

Dataset	Records	Updated	Description
Mines	86,000+	Weekly	All coal and metal/non-metal mines since 1970
Violations	Millions	Weekly	Citations, orders, safeguards from inspections
Inspections	Millions	Weekly	Every MSHA inspection since 1983
Accidents	300,000+	Weekly	Injuries, illnesses, fatalities since 1983
Assessed Violations	Millions	Weekly	Penalty assessments for violations since 1995

Additional supporting datasets available: contractor/operator employment, controller history, commodity lookup.

API Key

Register for a free DOL API key at dataportal.dol.gov/registration. The key provides access to all DOL Open Data Portal datasets (MSHA, OSHA, WHD, etc.).

Use Cases

• Mining company due diligence — Assess safety records before acquisition or investment
• Insurance underwriting — Evaluate mining operations for workers' comp and liability policies
• Regulatory compliance — Monitor violation trends and inspection frequency
• Investigative journalism — Research mine safety records and fatality patterns
• Legal research — Find citation and penalty history for mining litigation
• ESG analysis — Environmental, Social, Governance scoring for mining companies
• Government oversight — Track enforcement patterns across mining districts

Technical Notes

• The DOL API has aggressive rate limits. The actor uses 500ms delays between requests and exponential backoff on 429 responses.
• Violation, inspection, and accident fetches are staggered (1s apart) to avoid concurrent rate limiting.
• Mines are sorted by employee count descending (largest mines first) when no specific search criteria is provided.
• Results are sorted by risk score descending after processing.
• The mine_id field is the primary join key across all datasets.