North Idaho College marks a decade of mine safety training with new federal grant

The Idaho Mine Safety Program at the North Idaho College Workforce Training Center is celebrating a decade of providing dedicated safety instruction to the region's extraction industry. To mark the milestone, the college announced it has secured a new grant of just over one hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. The funding will support safety education over the next year for new and experienced miners, operators, and contractors working at both surface and underground operations.

The latest funding represents the eleventh annual federal grant awarded to the college since the mine safety program was launched in 2015. Over the past ten years, nearly three thousand five hundred individuals from more than one hundred different businesses and institutions have completed the college's mine safety courses. The program currently trains more than five hundred individuals each year, serving a vital role in a state where the mining industry employs approximately three thousand people.

Colby Mattila, the executive director of workforce and economic development at the college, said the institution has worked alongside the state's mining industry for ten years to help workers build the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe on the job. The local award is part of a broader ten million dollar federal grant distribution announced in October to support federally mandated mine safety and health training across forty-seven states, territories, and tribal lands.