Maria's Rhetoric and Civic Life Blog Just another weblog

In my last blog I addressed the subject of king coal. It does not surprise me that most of you did not realize the magnitude of U.S dependence on this filthy fossil fuel. As mentioned before, I have various personal ties to this particular mineral and it has had an enormous effect on both my local economy and the national economy. Nowadays, with the big push towards cleaner energy, coal and coal mining have become things frowned upon by increasing amounts of Americans. In this blog I will discuss the “what next” for coalmines. As more and more mines are being closed what effect does this have on the environment? There is much more to it then just stopping operation. In many cases the environment is hurt more by the abandoned mine than the mining operation itself. Let me explain.

What was once the main road running through Centralia, PA

Centralia, PA c.1981

These may look like images from The Walking Dead, but this is actually what remains of a town. Centralia is a borough and ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005, as a result of a mine fire burning beneath the borough since 1962. Like my small town, Centralia was located on an abundance of anthracite coal and drew attention during the mining boom. When the industry collapsed in the early 60’s the coal companies closed the mines up and left them abandoned. In 1962, a group of firefighters set fire to an old dump site.  However, the fire was not fully extinguished. An unsealed opening in the dump pit allowed the fire to enter the labyrinth of abandoned coalmines beneath Centralia. The fire has been burning ever since.

Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it continued to burn throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning in 1980, adverse health effects were reported by several people due to the byproducts of the fire: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and a lack of healthy oxygen levels. In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner and then mayor, John Coddington, inserted a stick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot, so he lowered a thermometer down on a string and was shocked to discover that the temperature of the gasoline in the tank was 172 degrees.

Statewide attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when a 12-year-old resident named Todd Domboski fell into a sinkhole 4 feet wide by 150 feet deep that suddenly opened beneath his feet in a backyard. His cousin, 14-year-old Eric Wolfgang, in pulling Todd out of the hole, saved Todd’s life, as the plume of hot steam billowing from the hole was measured as containing a lethal level of carbon monoxide. In 1984, the U.S. Congress allocated more than US$42 million for relocation efforts. Most of the residents accepted buyout offers and moved to the nearby communities of Mount Carmel and Ashland. A few families opted to stay despite warnings from Pennsylvania officials.The Centralia mine fire extended into the town of Byrnesville, Pennsylvania and caused this town to also be abandoned.

As you can tell from this extreme example, abandoned coal mines can be just as hazardous to people and the environment as operating mines. With advances and technology and a push towards clean, renewable energy sources, more and more coal mines are being closed up and abandoned. However, we can not let  coal companies just flee the mess they made. Abandoned coal mines are a serious threat to local communities,  animals, and the environment. Simply shutting off the machines and boarding up the entrances is not an acceptable way to retire a coal mine. We can not afford to have any more Centralia’s.

For my Civic Issues blog I knew I wanted to write about something that involved the environment, particularly energy. Economies rely on energy to produce goods and power industry. In the United States coal is king, and we control twenty five percent of the world’s supply. It is funny to think that the main energy source powering our modern life comes from the remains of plant life buried in the Earth millions of years ago. Coal was a key component in the industrial revolution, its acquisition has long been associated with danger, terrible work conditions, and death, and it’s commonly regarded as a dirty energy habit. The truth is, however, that coal continues to be a critical piece of our energy puzzle, and will continue to be so for some time (of course the US has the largest coal reserves in the world). In order to understand the role that coal plays in our energy system, environment, and our economy we must explore its origins, its qualities, and its history.  The vastly improved methods for extracting it, transporting it, and using it explain why coal continues to be the leading source for electricity production and industrial manufacturing despite the push for clean energy.

The United States relies heavily on coal to produce electric power.  Domestic coal production has expanded from 560 million tons in 1950 to 1.13 billion tons in 2005, while coal consumption for electric generation has increased from 92 million tons to 1.04 billion tons in this period.  Historically, coal has provided the lowest cost source of fossil energy in the U.S.  Electricity is one of the most prominent commodities traded in the United States, second only to food in annual sales volume.

This might seem like a dry topic for a civic issues blog, but I chose it because coal has played a big part in my life. My grandfather, father, and mother were all coal miners at some point in their lives. As a kid almost all of my friends lived in “the patch” which are just run down housing developments close to the coal mines where the miners and their families lived. Even today although many of the old mines have shut down, a large majority of my high school’s graduates forgo college to work in the coal mine  You can still see the huge coal barges being pushed up and down the Monongahela River and here the trains carrying coal in the night. When the coal industry left the area, they look almost everything with them. Hundreds of people lost their jobs and entire communities were devastated. It goes without saying that the extraction of coal destroyed rivers, lakes, and even entire towns. I have grown up surrounded by a destructive process.

The coal industry today is something no one likes to talk about. However, every time you charge your iPhone, turn the lights on, or use your hairdryer, you are using coal. It’s nice to talk about clean energy, but at the end of the day everyone still wants cheap electricity. This is why I am choosing to blog about coal, to ask the hard questions. What are the effects of coal on our economy and our community? How are we dealing with the environmental effects of strip mining and acid mine drainage? What about competition from foreign countries and fluctuations in price? These are just some of the questions I hope to address.