No mine in the country met pattern-of-violations criteria this fiscal year

MSHA announced on Oct. 27 that none of the nation's roughly 12,000 mining operations met the criteria for a pattern-of-violations notice in fiscal 2026, which ended Sept. 30. It is the third consecutive year with no operator placed on the status.

The mechanism matters more than the headline. Under section 105(e) of the Mine Act, MSHA can issue a notice when an operator has a pattern of significant and substantial violations of mandatory health or safety standards. Once on the status, any further significant and substantial violation lets the agency withdraw miners from the affected area, which is the enforcement equivalent of shutting the section down. MSHA publishes the calculator it uses to screen operators, and the criteria are not secret.

A clean year does not mean clean mines. Most operations never get near the threshold, but the ones that do are usually visible to their own staff months earlier through citation volume, the gravity and negligence findings on those citations, and how quickly hazards get abated. Running your own numbers against MSHA's published criteria each quarter is free, and it is the only way to see a trend while there is still time to change it.

The useful conclusion from a zero year is that the line is not the thing to manage to. The things to manage are the repeat citation, the hazard that gets written up and left standing, and the supervisor who lets a shortcut become the standard.