PORTLAND – The U.S. Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration will hold free workshops in Portland and Caribou for surface stone, sand and gravel mine operators to meet safety training requirements made effective last year.

Each workshop will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: in Portland on Thursday, March 15, at Keeley the Katerer, 178 Warren Ave.; and in Caribou on Tuesday, March 27, at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center, 19 Main St.

Every mine is different, so the workshops help operators build training plans to suit specific needs, said Robert Elam, acting assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health.

All mine operators are required to have approved safety and health training plans for the 120,000 miners at more than 10,000 sites where sand, gravel, surface stone, surface clay, colloidal phosphate, shell dredging and limestone operations are done. For information, call (703) 235-1452.