The Mine Safety and Health Administration has not inspected mines in the Pacific territories since 2016 and wrongly identified them as abandoned, according to an alert that the Office of Special Counsel sent to the president on Tuesday based on an investigation by the Labor Department.
DOL investigators found that, from 2016 to 2023, 51 active mines in Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands were incorrectly classified as “new mines,” meaning they did not require inspections. Then, in a December 2023 incident, the acting manager in MSHA’s Vacaville, California, district directed an employee to label the mines as abandoned. When the employee refused, another agency official changed the mines’ statuses.
Underground mines must be inspected by federal investigators at least four times a year and surface mines twice annually.
The investigation was based on disclosures to OSC from two whistleblowers at MSHA. OSC provides a channel for federal employees to make whistleblower complaints and oversees accompanying agency investigations.
This is not the first time that the lack of inspections at mines in the Pacific territories has been publicized. The DOL inspector general in November 2024, based on a referral from the OSC of the same whistleblower disclosure, issued an alert memorandum that MSHA wasn’t conducting mandatory inspections in the Pacific territories, improperly classified the mines’ statuses and, therefore, inaccurately reported that it had a 100%...
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