Compass Minerals Louisiana Inc.Mining Incidents in 2020

On 12/21/20, the 16ft hoist started to trip and then went down due to a loop contact fault. There were two other means of egress from the mine and no one was injured as a result of this occurrence.

Hoist operator received fault codes conducting hoist tests on the #3-16' shaft. The hoist would not reset. Operator called to report the fault. Calls to MSHA reporting line were placed at 10:44 PM, 10:46 PM, 11:03 PM, and 11:05 PM. Operator at hotline stated they could not hear caller and terminated call. Text was sent to local MSHA supervisor.

On 12/19/20 power tripped to the 8ft, 14ft and 16ft hoists and main fan. The 8ft & 14ft were reset, allowing for two other means of egress from the mine. The main fan was able to be reset. The 16ft was reset, with a loop contact fault being the cause. No one was injured as a result of this occurrence.

SCR failed in hoist control system. Damage was repaired within 45 minutes of discovery.

On 12/8/2020 the 16 ft. hoist went down due to a hoist blower motor failing and caused the SCR to overheat. There were two other means of egress from the mine and no one was injured as a result of this occurrence.

A miner heard one of the skip ores hitting the loading pocket hard as it entered. The hoist was taken out of service, inspected, and damage to the structural steel discovered. One of the ore skips used for hoisting ore in the #3-16 shaft hit the edges of the loading pocket as it descended into position.

On 11/7/2020 at 10:02 am the hoist was out of service due to a blower motor breaker trip. An electrician was called up and reset the breaker.

The 16 ft. was out of service to do a combination of loose pin connections on the MDA driver module.

The 16ft hoist went down due to electrical issues with the programming. The E&I tech was called out to make the repair.

On 10/28/2020 service power (Cleco) was interrupted due to a tree branch falling on the powerline off site. The emergency generator was started to evacuate the mine. The transfer switch did not fully engage on the first attempt.

Service power to the mine was interrupted. 2 miners were working in the 16 ft. shaft. As the power was interrupted the miners could not be moved up or down in the shaft. Once power was restored the hoistman had to manually reset the 16 ft. hoist drives. The two miners were safely brought to surface.

A joint in automatic sprinkler system piping failed. Fire pump started with drop in line pressure. Water from open water line entered friction hoist motors causing a short and controllers to trip. Two personnel hoists used for man travel were available and operating. Incident reported be conditions of Citation 9457597.

The 14ft. skip was being loaded with a primary crusher breaker shaft. As the weight was placed in the skip the hoist rope stretched misaligning the magnets. Once the hoistman began to move the skip it tripped due to the magnet switches not in sync. The skip was damaged as a result of this occurrence. No one was injured.

On 1/26/2020 employee was working off of a four foot ladder and fell backwards from the second rung, breaking their fall with arms extended out behind them. On 10/13/2020 the employee had surgery to the Rt. shoulder making this a lost time event.

Employee was cutting a small piece of wire loom with a self retracting safety utility knife. EE was holding the wire loom with left hand and attempted to cut through it. As EE did this EE cut the middle finger of left hand.