Coal: Is it Still the Best Economic Choice?

Bill Raney prepared a presentation that included data of the financial and coal production declines since 2008.
Photo by Bridgette Morris

Audiences of the 2015 Coal Heritage Lecture Series have experienced the lows of The Music of the Coalfield, discovered The Impact of Coal on the Environment, and now they have learned about The Impact of Coal on the Economy. This third installment of the lecture series happened on Tuesday, April 7 at 7 p.m. at the Erma Byrd Higher Education Center in Beckley, W.Va.

The Coal Heritage Lecture Series is presented by the Concord University Appalachian Studies Program and is co-sponsored by Concord University’s Beckley Center and the National Coal Heritage Authority. Its purpose is to educate students and the community about the history and importance of coal culture in West Virginia.

Organizer Karen Vuranch arranged a counter-point argument for the lectures that took place in March and April. In March, Keely Kernan and Elise Keaton informed students and community members of the environmental hazards caused by fracking and mountaintop removal, and discussed the shift in market demand from coal to natural gas in The Impact of Coal on the Environment. Bill Raney, President of the West Virginia Coal Association and Executive Director of the Friends of Coal, provided those who attended Tuesday’s lecture with the opposing views of the former argument.

Because of the controversy surrounding the pro-environment/pro-coal debate, Vuranch kicked off the event by telling the audience, “We are not going to be confrontational. We’re going to be informational.” She asked the audience to be respectful, even if they disagreed with the information presented to them.

Raney has been representing the coal industry since 1977, but his roots in coal go deeper than that. He began his presentation by revisiting the pleasant memories of growing up in a coal camp in Covel, W.Va. in Wyoming County. “Going to Mullins was a big trip for us, and going to Pineville was a real big trip for us. We had a three room school, and a whole lot of fond memories of growing up in Covel.”

Beyond his family’s visits to nearby towns, Raney also recalled a few traditions that took place in his local community, one being when a young couple got married they would return to Covel after their honeymoon. Everyone in town would come out of their houses and would serenade the newlyweds with pots and pans. The town called these occasions serenades. Joining in on discussion, Vuranch said the town’s traditional serenades were part of an old Appalachian tradition called a shivaree, or chivaree. 

After a quick trip down memory lane Raney got to business. In his lecture he discussed where the coal industry stands today and where the industry has been.

There is no question to the fact that the coal industry has faced some hard times in these recent years. Raney touched on topics ranging from decline in coal production to loss of employees and closure of mines. He says the industry has suffered due to a number of challenges, such as a shift in market demand from coal to natural gas, geological challenges in West Virginia’s landscape, and the difficulty in obtaining permits to mine coal due to recent Federal regulations.

In contrast to last month’s lecture, where Keely Kernan, a freelance photographer, stated the decline in coal production was a result of the demand for natural gas, Raney prominently argued that the drop was a consequence of the War on Coal.

Raney also included the ways in which the coal industry contributes to the West Virginia economy. The reclamation of MTR sites was one such contribution he was particularly proud of. The coal industry has worked with West Virginia’s highway department in the construction of new roads and the National Guard and Department of Defense in building new training facilities. 

A fairly new undertaking the industry has been working on is the construction of high tunnel greenhouses on one MTR site to grow lettuce for the National Guard and all the armories across the state. They plan to use water from an abandoned underground mine for irrigation.

Raney hopes that their efforts will help raise coal production to where they want it to be, producing 125 to 130 million tons of coal per year. 

Nearing the end of his lecture, Raney took a question from the audience. Daniel Tyson, a writer for the Beckley Register Herald, inquired about the loss of jobs in the industry, “Why do we constantly hear, ‘These jobs need to come back, these jobs need to come back?’ When, in reality, these jobs aren’t [coming back]. Why is that always the drum we’re hearing?”

Raney replied, “Well because I think there’s always a belief that we can do better than we are doing. […] Right now we are going through a low spot, and, no, we will never be back to where we were. And we recognize that. I don’t think you would make much headway in giving up and saying, ‘We just can’t do it anymore.’ We think we can. […] I think we’ve got to many good people and too much good coal. […] So it’s an optimism. Maybe it’s a foolish optimism, but I don’t think it’s foolish.”

Either way, the future of employment in coal, and the industry as a whole, is fairly unclear as of now.

There is only one more lecture to attend before the close of Concord’s semester. Labor in America Today is scheduled for May 5 at 7 p.m. at the Erma Byrd Higher Education Center in Beckley. This last lecture will address current issues that workers in all fields face in West Virginia. These events are free and open to the public.

For more information on the 2015 Coal Heritage Lecture Series, contact Karen Vuranch at kvuranch@concord.edu, or call the Concord University Beckley Center at (304) 256-0270.