Apr 23 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Ry Rivard Charleston Daily Mail, W.Va.



Coal production in President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois is about to boom.

The industry there is wary of what his administration may do but is not facing the immediate obstacles that West Virginia coal operators are, a key official said.

Illinois will feel none of the restrictions the Obama administration is bringing against mountaintop removal mining, which is almost exclusively an Appalachian coalfield practice.

In fact, because Illinois is set to receive $1 billion for a first-of-its-kind, low-emission coal-fired power plant in Mattoon, the head of the Illinois Coal Association doesn't have much bad to say about Obama.

 "We've got that on the plus side, and there really hasn't been anything on the negative side that would harm the Illinois coal industry," said Phillip Gonet, the association's president.

Contrast that to the West Virginia Coal Association, whose leaders say the Obama administration's policies are going to kill the Appalachian coal industry and wreck the state's economy.

Illinois also is set to benefit from a shift in production that has little to do with Obama.

Coal production in Central Appalachia will drop by nearly half by 2020 even without further government regulations, according to a recent report by Morgantown-based environmental consultant Downstream Strategies. Those estimates were based partially on U.S. government projections.

For a while, Illinois was hurt and Central Appalachia helped by the passage of a federal law meant to curtail acid rain. While demand increased here, annual production in Illinois went from 62 million tons in 1990 to 31 million tons in 2003, Gonet said.

At first, power companies could comply with the law by burning low-sulfur coal like that found in Central Appalachia, which produced 234 million tons in 2008.

But as regulations for sulfur dioxide emissions become stricter, power plants have had to install scrubbers and there is little advantage to burn low-sulfur coal, which also releases less energy.

The so-called Interior Coal Region, which includes Illinois and Wyoming's Powder River Basin, is set to benefit.

Illinois currently has eight surface and 11 underground mines that produced a combined 33 million tons of coal last year. That could double in the next few years.

Gonet said three mines are under construction that could open next year and produce a combined 20 million tons a year. Another eight or so projects are being considered.

Illinois has fairly thick seams and about 100 billion tons of recoverable coal.

But that doesn't mean that Illinois coal operators don't think the Obama administration could end up hurting them down the road.

Steve Carter is president and part of owner of Knight Hawk Coal, which employs about 300 miners and 300 contractors in the southern Illinois coalfields.

He said most Illinois politicians "at least pay lip service to coal."

But he said Obama and much of Congress are "out to basically destroy the coal industry."

Carter said federal legislation meant to curb climate change by reducing emissions at coal-fired power plants is part of a rush to conclusions that will hurt the industry and the economy as long as coal is a main source of power.

"The best thing we've got for us is reality, because coal is an important product for our country's economic survival and stability of prices and everything else," Carter said.

Because of the production decline following the Clean Air Act, Carter said southern Illinois knows what West Virginia soon could face.

While coal is nowhere nearly as important to Illinois -- which has a major urban center, Chicago, and a large agricultural industry -- southern Illinois is rural and dependent on both mining and agriculture.

Following passage of the acid rain laws, "this area struggled from an economic standpoint for many years," Carter said.

Unemployment was high. Towns emptied. Miners left, heading to other coalfields, including those in the East or as far away as Australia.

Carter said some former miners found jobs working in newly built prisons. That's a phenomenon not unfamiliar in West Virginia, where some towns welcome new prisons as tent poles to prop up their economies.

Now, as Illinois mines recover, Gonet said the industry could face problems trying to get skilled workers.

"We skipped a whole generation here, and what we had was an aging workforce," he said.

He said it may be challenging to find workers and the industry is working with junior colleges to establish miner-training programs.

But even as the industry recovers there, Carter sees a handful of challenges, including increased scrutiny from federal safety regulators following the explosion at the Massey Energy Co. mine in Raleigh County that killed 29.

He said everyone wants to have safe mines, but he doesn't want regulators to "berate us" and "work on the trivial and inconsequential type things."

From a distance, Carter has taken exception to Obama's remarks last week that the death of the miners was "a failure first and foremost of management."

"To continually condemn the coal industry is not good for the American people, so I'm not very proud of him or Congress in that regard. I think it's extraordinarily unfortunate about him," Carter said.

"You can say what you want about Massey, but to be condemning the management of Massey before they understand the facts is not right."

Carter said he's also worried about cap-and-trade legislation, the goal of which is to decrease the burning of coal for electricity.

Carter noted that the economic slowdown has led to less demand for power. And he worries about the competition from natural gas, whose current low prices and cleaner burn are causing some utilities to reconsider coal.

He also sees "a lot of environmental things," besides new climate change rules, like water quality regulations and heightened objections from environmental activists.

"We're seeing increased scrutiny out here in terms of EPA's involvement, as well as the Corps of Engineers," he said.

That follows what some West Virginia officials think will be a pattern. While the EPA has taken aim at water quality issues at mountaintop removal sites and in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, some officials think regulators will gradually move their sights west.

"That's possible, and that's why we're monitoring things in Appalachia," Gonet said.

Carter said Illinois could stand to benefit from regulation that hits Appalachia harder and makes it more challenging to produce coal. But he doesn't want to benefit at somebody else's loss.

"We'd rather see the whole industry be able to work together," he said.

Carter later added, "We don't have it as strenuous as the people in West Virginia, but we're fighting a lot of the same battles."

Contact writer Ry Rivard at ry.riv...@dailymail.com">ry.rivard@dailymail.com or 304-348-1796.

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