Oct 4, 2015 2 min read

Alpha Natural Resources recently informed employees at its Emerald Mine in Waynesburg that it will close the 38-year-old coal mine by the end of November.

The company announced a year ago the mine would close as it ran out of coal to mine, so the notification came as no surprise. However, that certainly doesn’t lessen the impact on many of the 290 employees who will lose their jobs, or the impact the closing of the mine will have on the local economy.

At the time of the company’s announcement, the mine had employed about 500 workers, and during the past year about 140 of them had been able to transfer to Alpha’s nearby Cumberland Mine. The company earlier said it planned to beef up production at Cumberland to make up for the production loss resulting from Emerald’s closing, so there is still a chance additional Emerald miners will find jobs at Cumberland.

Many of the employees who aren’t transferred, however, will probably have difficulty finding other mining jobs, given the state of the coal industry, or jobs that pay as well. Some may re-train and begin other careers, including those in the natural gas industry, which now appears to have a brighter future. Others, however, may move on, seeking employment in areas where there is a more diverse economy.

Local businesses that provide services to the mine, such as machine shops and parts suppliers, will suffer, as will the Central Greene School District, which receives a sizeable chunk of property tax revenue from coal.

And less than a week before Emerald informed employees of the closing, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection held a public meeting to discuss the state’s compliance with the federal Clean Power Plan regulations. Those regulations, limiting carbon dioxide emission from power plants, are expected to dramatically reduce the burning of coal for electrical power generation.

Coal will undoubtedly continue to be mined in Greene County for some time. This area’s mines, most of which employ longwall mining systems, are extremely efficient. Still, the closing will hurt Greene County and we believe is a reminder of the slow decline of the coal industry.