The U.S. Department of Labor today awarded $250,000 in Brookwood-Sago grant funding to three organizations in three states.
The funds are intended to support education and training initiatives that will help identify and prevent unsafe working conditions in and around the nation’s mines.
Administered by the department’s Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA), the Brookwood-Sago Mine Safety grant program will help recipients to create comprehensive training materials, promote and conduct mine safety training or educational programs, and evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts.
Established under the Mine Improvement & New Emergency Response Act of 2006, the grant program honors 25 miners who died in mine disasters at the Jim Walter Resources No. 5 mine in Brookwood, Alabama, on Sept. 23, 2001, and at the Sago Mine in Buckhannon, West Virginia, on Jan. 2, 2006.
In awarding the grants, MSHA gave special emphasis to funding education and training programs focused on workplace safety and health hazards faced in areas where critical materials and other minerals are mined. Training and education supported by the grants align with the Brookwood-Sago Mine Safety grant program’s mission, as well as key MSHA priorities, including mine rescue, powered haulage safety, fall safety and better protection of miners from exposure to silica dust hazards.
The recipients of the 2025 Brookwood-Sago grants are the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota ($120,000); the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona ($80,000); and Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania ($50,000).
