The Charleston Gazette-Mail published this editorial on Friday, June 27.
Anyone listening to local radio recently mightƵve heard an ad from the lobbyist group The Friends of Coal extolling the virtues of the Trump administration for stepping up to revitalize the coal industry in West Virginia.
That ad happened to play multiple times on a particular station in Charleston on Thursday, often just before or after a MetroNews update that announced coal operations in Southern West Virginia are laying off about 500 miners, creating quite a jarring juxtaposition between fantasy and reality.
Even the term ƵlayoffsƵ is a bit soft, considering Civil LLC, based in Beckley, said the 279 jobs cut at nine sites throughout the state are permanent, according to MetroNews. These jobs are not coming back. The announcement comes a couple of weeks after Core Natural Resources announced that the company would eliminate 200 jobs in Wyoming County.
Really, the recent job loss total in West VirginiaƵs coal industry is even higher, considering Greenbrier Minerals LLC announced in April that it would be cutting 61 jobs. The next month, Coal-Mac LLC announced that 105 workers at three locations in West Virginia would be losing their jobs.
Take into account the glut of coal company bankruptcies over the past five years or so, along with the fact that coal has dropped to providing just 20% of the nationƵs electricity, and the economic picture is very clear.
ItƵs been said again and again, but bears repeating: Coal is on the way out and the reasons are plain to see. When it comes to producing electricity, natural gas is much cheaper. So are renewables, which are continuing to grow in reliability at an industrial scale. Coal is finite. The mines are drying up. Coal is now the most expensive form of producing electricity. Yes, itƵs still used in manufacturing, and coalƵs shelf-life there might be a bit longer. The industry has seen pockets of increased productivity over the years, but the broader trend has been downward for a long time now because of market forces.
To be clear, this isnƵt something anyone should be celebrating, considering hundreds of hardworking West Virginians are losing some of the few good-paying jobs around. This state has seen this scenario play out over and over, at a variety of scales, for decades. When coal operations fold, communities crumble and people suffer. ItƵs a tragic legacy all too familiar to just about every West Virginian.
However, itƵs almost worse to blindly declare that the industry is booming or will boom thanks to the empty words of a politician. Even conservatives have remarked that the way some worship coal in West Virginia is unsettling and unmoored from reality. The problem is that placing fealty to this one industry has kept West Virginia from moving forward. ItƵs not the only reason the state has one of the worst economies in the nation, but the lack of imagination beyond taking rocks out of the ground has played a major role to be sure.
Unfortunately, no amount of spit can make this situation shine.
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