Changes Made to PHMSA Special Permits
from the ISEE
The U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has issued a revision of special permits DOT-SP 8554, DOT-SP 10571, DOT-SP 11579 and DOT-SP 12677. The changes incorporated within the revisions are effective as of Oct. 5, 2009. If any of your vehicles are operating under the listed special permits you need to review to assure you are in compliance. More

In the Lab, Cooking up Bomb Detectors
from The Los Angeles Times
At the Transportation Security Laboratory, chemists, physicists and engineers dream up ways a weapon might be slipped onto a plane, then figure out how to stop it. It's part science, part James Bond. More

Rock Blasting Along Route 80 About to End
from The Daily Record
Rock blasting on Route 80, which has shut down the highway in 10-minute intervals a total of 176 times since July 2008, is coming to an end. The $5.5 million project, aimed at preventing rocks and other debris from falling onto a short stretch of Route 80 by the Roxbury/Mount Arlington border, had another four blasts to go. More

Tough Job in Mines
from the Evansville Courier & Press
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, few women worked in or around the coal mines. Underground operations were considered male bastions. The first women to enter the mine shaft were subjected to ridicule and sexual harassment. Pat Pendergrass was one of these pioneers, first hiring on in 1976. She had a variety of jobs that included shoveling belt and assisting on the cutting machine. She finished the training that allowed her to use explosives to blast coal. In Illinois, she became qualified to examine a mine for safety. More

Riversdale Estimates Zambeze Coal Resource at 1.7 Billion Tons
from Bloomberg
Riversdale Mining Ltd., an Australian mining company, said it estimated the coal resource at its Zambeze project in Mozambique at 1.7 billion metric tons. Zambeze is the company's second coal project in the Moatize Basin in northwestern Mozambique and is adjacent to its Benga project, it said in an e-mailed statement today. More

State to Permit More Mining at Cheektowaga Quarry
from The Buffalo News
The state Department of Environmental Conservation says it is poised to wrap up a five-year process and, in the next week or two, grant permission for more mining by Buffalo Crushed Stone in New York. More

Blasted! Legal Dispute Heads to Mine Itself
from The Naples News
You could feel the trembling in your toes as 6,300 pounds of explosive was touched off in the ground. Dirt and rock shot skyward as a muted rumble rolled across the 1,100 feet between the 21 blast holes and the seismograph, the small crowd and Lee County Hearing Examiner Richard Gescheidt in Lee County, Fla. More