Jan 13, 2018 5 min read

MT. MORRIS – The announcement earlier this month Dana Mining’s 4 West Mine in southern Greene County will close in June was a demoralizing blow for an area that is still hoping coal can make one more comeback, local residents say.

The loss of 370 jobs at the mine near Mt. Morris will have a significant economic impact on the community’s businesses, along with losing local and school tax revenue that helps to support Perry Township and Central Greene.

“It hurts the whole county,” said Robert “Buck” Kennedy, a former Perry Township supervisor who served for nearly three decades before leaving office in 2016. “Just imagine the taxes and earned income (lost). It’s terrible. Any closing like that would have a big impact on the area.”

Perry Township officials estimate they will lose $110,000 each year from the earned income and local services taxes.

The impact of the mine closure on the small village in Perry Township, a mile north of the West Virginia line, is expected to ripple far beyond the lost tax revenue.

Ronda Morris, a manager at the BFS convenience store at the truck stop near the Mt. Morris interchange, said she’s worried about the effect it might have on the business, which sees a steady stream of miners during shift changes.

“We have a lot of regular customers,” she said.

Morris, who grew up in the shadow of the nearby prep plant on Bald Hill Church Road in Dunkard Township, pondered the human toll of the closing.

“They go underground and risk their lives every day,” she said. “What are they going to do now? It’s sad.”

Kennedy and his Mt. Morris neighbor, John Weaver, chatted at the post office about the closure a couple days after the Jan. 2 announcement.

“The coal is almost done. Trust me,” Weaver said.

“Gas is taking over,” Kennedy responded.

New training opportunities

Both men agree the problem facing many residents is they can’t afford to move elsewhere to look for new work.

“People can’t relocate,” Weaver said. “They don’t have the money. We live hand to mouth. It all comes down to money.”

The closure leaves only two major mining operations – Consol Energy’s Bailey complex and Contura Energy’s Cumberland Mine – in Greene County after Emerald Mine near Waynesburg closed in November 2015.

New job-training opportunities, while available, still don’t necessarily provide for good-paying jobs that can be found in the mines, they said. UMWA Career Centers Inc. just received a $3 million state grant to retrofit its Ruff Creek campus – once used to train mine workers underground – to retrain unemployed workers.

“You can’t retrain a guy who’s done mining all of his life,” Kennedy said.

State Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, toured the UMWA Career Center near Ruff Creek with Gov. Tom Wolf Thursday. She was one of several local and state officials who cited the need to diversify the workforce in Greene County.

“These are challenging times, and we do need to find a way to diversify our economy while also supporting coal,” Snyder said during an interview last week. “I’ll continue to stand up for coal. It needs to be part of the energy portfolio.”

A Trump visit?

Snyder also reiterated her invitation to President Trump to visit Greene County, which she first offered in the days after his election.

“That invitation is still open for me, as long as he is president,” Snyder said. “I would welcome him to come and see firsthand what a coal-mining community is and what it means to the people who live here.

“I would hope he could do more and help keep coal-mining jobs available.”

The announcement of the mine closure comes less than a year after President Trump took office, following an election campaign in which he promised to bring back coal. Greene County voted overwhelmingly for Trump, giving him more than two-thirds of the vote over Hillary Clinton, helping to catapult him to a win in Pennsylvania.

Since Trump’s election in November 2016, mining and logging jobs have remained stagnant in Pennsylvania. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated there are about 23,500 jobs in the two trades, which are combined for statistical purposes, compared to a preliminary count this past November of 23,600 workers in those fields in Pennsylvania.

There is a debate among locals about what, if anything, Trump can do to help coal-mining areas, but most are in agreement the closure of the 4 West Mine was due to economic conditions that made it more costly to mine the smaller Sewickley seam using a continuous miner. Snyder said earlier this month the nearby Cumberland Mine was able to supply cheaper coal to the Longview Power Plant in West Virginia.

“You can’t really blame this on him,” Morris said of the president. “This was an aging mine.”

Both Weaver and Kennedy also are unsure what the president could do to boost the coal industry.

“He’s got too many irons in the fire,” Weaver said. “He’s got his feet wet and knows he’s got to change. Coming here would be good for (Trump). I think he supports the miners as much as he can, but he’s got a lot on his plate.”

While Kennedy and Weaver agree Trump should visit this area, they have doubts about what that would do for the region and its coal miners, besides provide the president with a photo opportunity.

“He’s got to look ahead,” said Weaver, who voted for Clinton. “He better get around and change his tactics.”

“I don’t think that will happen,” said Kennedy, a Trump supporter. “He’s not going to change.”