Dredge work: 40 of 1,204 recorded mining deaths since 2000

Of the 1,204 fatalities recorded on MSHA Form 7000-1 since 2000, 40 occurred at the subunit MSHA codes as DREDGE. That places dredge operations fifth among work locations in the archive, well behind the two categories that dominate the record: strip, quarry, and open pit sites at 469 deaths and underground work at 444. Mill operations and preparation plants account for 185, and surface work at underground mines for 50.

The subunit field describes where on a mine a death was reported. It does not tell us how many people worked at that location or for how many hours, so 40 is a raw count and nothing more.

To turn that count into anything resembling a per-worker or per-hour risk figure, we would need the employment and hours reported on Form 7000-2 for dredge operations specifically, matched to the same period. The public record does not break employment out cleanly by subunit in a way we can align to these fatality codes, so we do not attempt the division. Treat the 40 as a fair proxy for the absolute burden of recorded dredge fatalities since 2000, not as a statement that dredge work is more or less dangerous per worker than any other subunit.

The underlying reports are indexed per mine and per operator, and each of these 40 records can be surfaced individually through the archive for anyone who wants to check the coding or read the incident detail.