Modern requirements for occupational risk assessment at gold mining sites

Russia is currently in the process of modernizing its legislation, primarily in the areas of occupational safety and health, industrial safety and emergency safety, which concerns the management system for occupational and industrial safety on a state level. The aim of the modernization is to make a transition from the previous inefficient system to the modern one. The old system focuses on health compensation, medical and social assistance to the employees suffering work injuries and occupational risks, while the new system is based on a preventive approach that presupposes continuous improvement of the working conditions, industrial safety enhancement, development of a safe working behavior culture, and creation of a risk-management system. The purpose of the article is to analyze the occupational safety and health management innovations encouraging the employers to implement risk assessment and risk management, and to evaluate the occupational risks in gold mining processes. The authors have examined the modern procedures of risk assessment, evaluated the occupational risks for the gold mines of the Bodaibo district, Irkutsk region, analyzed the risks by two methods and identified high-risk professions. Possible reasons for the incompliance of the physical factors of the gold miners’ working environment with the claimed requirements have been analyzed. The investigated professions are classified as high- and middle-risk ones. The detailed study of the drilling-and-blasting site has concluded that the mechanical hazards caused by the rock fragmentation, dust, or noise are unacceptable. Thus, the priority measures on improving the working conditions should focus on eliminating these adverse factors.

occupational safety and health, legislation, occupational risk, assessment, opencast mining, gold mining

1. Ten countries: the worlds’ biggest gold stock. Goldomania. Available from: http://goldomania.ru/menu_002_010.html/ [Accessed 20th December 2019]. (In Russ.)

2. Effective tool of occupational safety. SRGECO Group of companies. Available from: https://www.srgroup.ru/mass-media/srg-smi/effektivnyy-instrument-okhrany-truda/ [Accessed 10th January 2020]. (In Russ.)

3. Martynov AV. Application of a risk-oriented approach while exercising state control and supervision, as necessary condition for reduction of pressure on business. Jurist. 2016;18:22–27. (In Russ.)

4. Egorova N. Three years without audit. Informatsionnyi byulleten' “Ekspress-bukhgalteriya”. 2015;29:11–13. (In Russ.)

5. Babich ME. Risk-oriented approach in state environmental supervision. Spravochnik ekologa. 2017;11:74–75. (In Russ.)

6. Feinberg A. “Governmental guillotines”: how the authorities try to lower the requirements to business. Rbc. Available from: https://www.rbc.ru/economics/15/01/2019/5c3df76f9a7947214d11adcf/ [Accessed 10th February 2020]. (In Russ.)

7. Aleksandrov OV. “Regulatory guillotines”: international experience in removing barriers to business and investment. Trade policy. 2019;1:107–119. (In Russ.)

8. Timofeeva SS, Murzin MA. Professional risks of mining industry in the Baikal region. Bezopasnost' v tekhnosfere = Safety in Technosphere. 2014;3(3):37–42. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.12737/4940

9. Timofeeva SS. Modern professional risk assessment methods and their role in labor protection management system. XXI vek. Tekhnosfernaya bezopasnost' = Technosphere Safety. XXI Century. 2016;1:14–23. (In Russ.)

10. Bukhtiyarov IV, Golovkova NP, Chebotarev AG, Salnikov AA, Nikolaev SP. Work conditions, occupational morbidity on open-cast ores extraction enterprises. Meditsina truda i promyshlennaya ekologiya = Russian Journal of Occupational Health and Industrial Ecology. 2017;5:44–49. (In Russ.)

11. Averin VA, Smekhneva OV, Mashustina EM. Risks oriented occupational safety model in “Lebedinsky GOK”. Meditsina truda i promyshlennaya ekologiya = Russian Journal of Occupational Health and Industrial Ecology. 2015;9:16–18. (In Russ.)

12. Castelo Branco J, Rebbah R, Duarte J, Baptista JS. Risk assessment in the open pit mining industry – a short review. In: Arezes P, et al. (eds.). Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control. Vol. 202. Springer: Cham; 2019. p.13–21.

13. Badri A, Nadeau S, Gbodossou A. A mining project is a field of risks: a systematic and preliminary portrait of mining risks. International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering. 2012;2(2):145–166.

14. Vinnikov D. Drillers and mill operators in an open-pit gold mine are at risk for impaired lung function. Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology. 2016;11(27). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12995-016-0114-9

15. Vinnikov D, Blanc PD, Brimkulov N, Redding-Jones R. Five-year lung function observations and associations with a smoking ban among healthy miners at high altitude (4000 m). Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2013;55(12):1421–1425. https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0b013e3182a641e7