Tag: Economy

Alpha Planning to Lay Off 1,100 Coal Miners in W.Va.

One of the nation's largest coal producers said Thursday it expects to lay off 1,100 workers at 11 southern West Virginia surface coal mines by…

One of the nation’s largest coal producers said Thursday it expects to lay off 1,100 workers at 11 southern West Virginia surface coal mines by mid-October, citing dismal markets and federal regulation.

The announcement by Alpha Natural Resources dealt another blow to Appalachia’s iconic, but dwindling, fossil fuel industry. The company said 2015 industry forecasts show Central Appalachian coal production will be less than half of its 2009 output.

It’s due to a combination of familiar factors, Alpha said: competition from cheaper natural gas, weak domestic and international markets and low coal prices. Prices of coal sent to Europe for power are at a four-year low, and prices for steel-producing coal have dipped more than 20 percent in less than a year, Alpha said.

Another driving factor is that Appalachian coal just isn’t as accessible anymore. Thick, easy-to-reach seams have been largely picked clean.

“Many mines in the region have done a great job finding ways to reduce costs and remain economically viable in this unprecedented business climate,” said Alpha President Paul Vining, “but some Central Appalachia mines haven’t been able to keep up with the fast pace at which coal demand has eroded and prices have fallen.”

Alpha also laid some blame on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is pushing to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, part of President Barack Obama’s plan to stem global warming. The plan has sparked outrage in coal-producing states, and has driven the political conversation in a heated election year.

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin acknowledged the economic factors at play, but said Thursday’s announcement shows West Virginia’s fears over the Obama administration’s rules have come true.

“We recognize market trends can play a part in these potential closures; however these actions also show the real-world impact of the regulatory environment in which industry must operate,” Tomblin said.

Since 2010, coal miner jobs have plummeted. Last year, about 123,300 people worked in mines, compared to 135,500 in 2010, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

West Virginia still remains the nation’s No. 2 producer, behind Wyoming.

In the past three years, Alpha says it has laid off 4,000 employees and idled 60 mines and 35 million tons of production. The Bristol, Virginia-based company is one of the country’s biggest coal suppliers, with additional mines in Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.

Alpha notified employees Thursday afternoon that it expects to idle mines and related facilities. None of the layoffs would be immediate. Production could continue under the right circumstance, but next year’s projections aren’t looking good.

“There may be cases where if market pricing improves, and we find alternate customers for the coal either at home or abroad, production could continue,” said Alpha spokesman Steve Hawkins.

The mines are in Logan, Mingo, Boone, Raleigh, Kanawha and Fayette counties.

The affected mines produced 4.2 million tons of coal through the first half of this year. About 75 percent of their coal is used for power generation, and 25 percent is metallurgical coal for steel production, Hawkins said.

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act requires companies to notify employees if large layoffs are possible.

Work Underway for Electric Project in W.Va. Shale Region

  FirstEnergy Corp. says construction is underway on a new transmission substation in Doddridge County to help meet the electric demands of the area’s rapidly expanding Marcellus Shale gas industry.

The company also says the new substation also will support and help enhance service reliability for Mon Power’s customers in Doddridge and neighboring counties.

Officials say crews recently completed the foundation work and erected steel structures at the new 11-acre site.

The $36 million project near Sherwood also includes a short transmission line to connect the new substation with an existing line located nearby.

The new substation is expected to be completed and operational in December 2014. 

Mon Power serves about 385,000 customers in 34 West Virginia counties.

Groups Work to Combat Rise of Human Trafficking in W.Va.

In Morgantown, law enforcement officials met to learn about human trafficking in West Virginia. Apparently, reports of trafficking in the state are on the rise, but that might be a good thing.

Human trafficking: modern-day slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others either for sex or labor.

It’s considered one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world with an estimated 20 million enslaved, 14 million of which are women and children.

And it’s here in West Virginia, although not many are aware or recognize red flags that might indicate criminal activity.

Human Trafficking on the Rise?

Number of reports, investigations, and the amount of attention on the problem of human trafficking continues to rise each year. For example, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) experienced a 259% increase in calls between 2008 and 2012.

But modern human trafficking has only been a serious subject of concern on the planet for like 5-8 years (if you can believe that).

And since trafficking is pretty much illegal everywhere, there are few hard statistics to quote, and a baseline is harder still to establish. But many experts seem to report the same story: it’s bad and getting worse. Many sources report that hundreds of billions of dollars are made each year trafficking human beings. Numbers like that are hard to slow down.

Human Trafficking in West Virginia

“Both the drug dealers and now human traffickers are finding out that this is easy territory because law enforcement isn’t really beefed up on the red flags to look for,” said Thom Kirk, director of the WV Intelligence Fusion Center.

He said the eastern and northern panhandles are considered hot spots because so many traffickers travel through the areas. It’s a convenient place to stop, he said, because enforcement is much tighter in neighboring states.

But now other areas in the state, like the southern coalfields, are seeing activity, too.

“It’s associated with the heroin problem that has just exploded in this state,” Kirk said. “A dealer will come in with not only a shipment of heroin, but also expanding their profit margin with the sale of the people they have there.

“Especially kids,” said Kirk, “it’s amazing the number of kids that are mixed up in this.”

Sometimes kids are forced into labor of one kind or another, but many times they are caught in sex trafficking circles.

West Virginia Fusion Center and Polaris

Kirk’s intelligence agency, the West Virginia Fusion Center, gathers, analyzes and shares information related to any kind of criminal activity. To help bring awareness to the growing human trafficking issue in West Virginia, the Fusion Center organized a workshop in Morgantown. First responders, social workers, educators and law enforcement agents were invited. About eighty were in attendance.

Lara Powers is a program specialist with the DC-based, anti-human trafficking nonprofit called Polaris. She was the main speaker at the Morgantown event.   

Powers says three kinds of trafficking networks are prevalent:

  • Interfamilial trafficking: parents trafficking children, or a husband trafficking a wife
  • Pimp-controlled sex trafficking: one controller is controlling one or multiple women and forcing them to engage in commercial sex
  • Residential brothels

Both Kirk and Powers are hoping that increasing awareness among law enforcement agents will help those kids and anyone else stuck in a trafficking network in West Virginia be more likely to find a way out.
Resources

WV Fusion Center: 1-866-WV-Watch

Polaris: 1-888-373-7888 or text BeFree (233733). 

Hotline Call Specialists are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to take reports from anywhere in the country related to potential trafficking victims, suspicious behaviors, and/or locations where trafficking is suspected to occur. All reports are confidential. Interpreters are available.

Check out this human price list:

So, how many slaves work for you?

Secondary Intake Proposal Calls for Mountaintop Lake in Charleston

  Two men have submitted a proposal calling for a mountaintop lake in Charleston that would serve as a backup drinking water source.

The proposal by Fred Stottlemyer and Joe Mullins seeks construction of an earthen dam to create an 800 million-gallon lake at Coonskin Park.

Stottlemyer is former public service district general manager. Mullins was an urban planner in the governor’s office in the 1960s.

Their proposal suggests a state grant be used to pay for preliminary studies.

After a chemical spill in Charleston in January contaminated the local water supply for days, the Legislature required water providers to study alternative supply options, among other things.

West Virginia American Water spokeswoman Laura Jordan tells The Charleston Gazette the company will consider the proposal as part of its evaluations.

Groups Prep for EPA Clean Power Plan Hearing

Given the political climate around the EPA’s proposal, it seems unlikely that state lawmakers would have a policy without coal. Still, the United Mine Workers of America says workers and their families should be concerned about this new regulation. Groups from West Virginia and across Appalachia are gearing up to show support and protest of the EPA’s proposed rule.

Groups like the United Mine Workers of America and Coal River Mt. Watch are traveling to Pittsburgh later this week.

As it stands, the EPA rule would let states come up with their own energy policy on how to decrease carbon dioxide emissions. Given the political climate, some environmentalists worry it will be business as usual for the coal industry leaving little room for renewable energy. After all, lawmakers in states like West Virginia and Kentucky aggressively and consistently favor coal in speech and policy.

“We need to make it clear that the EPA does have the authority and the mandate ad the moral obligation to reign in CO2 emissions,” Haltom said.

Vernon Haltom, the executive director of Coal River Mountain Watch, even criticizes the agency meant to help protect the environment, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and other state agencies.

Groups Question W.Va.’s Environmental Reputation

Haltom points to two suits. One in which, Marfork Coal, a former Massey subsidiary and current Alpha Company, violated water pollution limits at the Brushy Fork Impoundment. The company  had submitted reports to the state DEP that showed high selenium levels and violations of water quality standards at the coal slurry impoundment, according to group’s website.

In March of this year, Alpha Natural Resource agreed to spend an estimated $200 million on implementing system-wide upgrades to reduce discharges of pollution from coal mines in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia for violating the Clean Water Act. The settlement involved more than 6,200 permits.

Coal: Easy Target

Phil Smith with the United Mine Workers of America says miners and their families should still be concerned. Smith says even if policy of coal dependent states keeps coal as king, it becomes an easy target for the rest of the country.

Environmentalists aren’t completely satisfied with the rule either. Haltom wants to see a policy with 100% renewable energy.

But where will those renewable jobs be created? Phil Smith and the UMWA says it won’t be enough for the areas that need it the most like the coalfields.

But let’s not lose sight of the BIG global picture. The new rule is meant to reduce carbon dioxide in order to slow climate change. Smith says the UMWA doesn’t argue the science behind climate change and agrees that something should be done, just not this new rule.  

Coal jobs have been declining in recent years and studies show that several things are contributing … like the amount of coal left, the location of the coal, competition like natural gas along with regulatory costs.  

Hearings begin today in four cities across the country. The EPA will host meetings in Atlanta Locations for the hearings include Atlanta, Denver, Washington, DC and Pittsburgh.

New Urban Garden in Wheeling Designed For the Blind

Wheeling has a new urban garden, and it’s a little out of the ordinary. It’s designed for visually impaired gardeners.  Not many like it exist in the state.

Inspiration From Afar

What was an empty lot on Wheeling Island in Ohio County not long ago is now a garden of peppers, flowers, beans, and more. Martin Wach designed and built it. Over the past several years he’s built several urban gardens in the area. Wach has trained mentally disabled people to garden, but even he was befuddled by the idea of creating a garden for the blind. He had to do some research, but he found a few good models.

“In Africa was the perfect example,” Wach said, “in Ghana and the Congo. All of the blind there garden. They have a vegetable garden. So I began to realize that the blind, even though they can’t see, have operational capability. They’ve learned how to compensate.”

Wach is using some of the African gardening techniques here in West Virginia. One device helps the visually impaired know which vegetables are in which beds.  

“We put a string with knots in it,” Wach said. “They slide their hands down the string. One knot is this garden, a little bit father is two knots, it’s cabbage; three knots is peppers.”

The Seeing Hand

Credit Glynis Board / WVPublic
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WVPublic
Teddy Busby and Debbie Hatfield work to pot plants in the fledgling nursery. They plan to sell the plants to pay for garden operations.

The garden for the blind is the latest initiative of the The Seeing Hand Association, a Wheeling-based organization with a mission to help blind and visually impaired people lead fulfilling and independent lives. Executive Director Karen Haught says some of the clients find jobs within the organization.

“We’re always looking for projects and ways to have our employees do things that they enjoy.”

The land for the garden was donated to the group. And now two Seeing Hand employees, Teddy Busby and Debbie Hatfield are spending a couple of hours a week in the back of the garden – a nursery that grows potted plants and flowers.

Teddy: She goes and gets me the plant, and I just put the dirt inside the pot. That’s basically the way we do it all the time. Board: And how many have you done? Teddy: Oh lord, we’ve done over— Debbie: We lost count. Glynis: You lost count? Teddy: I’d say we did over 400 or so, something like that. Debbie: And they’re going to be beautiful. They make a beautiful ground cover.

Busby and Hatfield use their sense of touch to tell the difference between day lilies and weeds.

Other gardening techniques for the visually impaired include wind chimes and herbs with strong fragrance to help navigate the garden, as well as vertical growing, like walls of tomatoes. The Wheeling garden could incorporate those in the future.

Gardening is new for Busby. He said his mom used to garden when he was a kid, but he never caught the gardening bug himself. But he’s getting into it now.

Hatfield does have some gardening experience and she’s happy to be getting her hands dirty again.

“It’s hard work,” she said, “don’t let them fool you that it’s easy—it’s not.”

But she said she likes being outside, and perhaps most importantly, she appreciates the opportunity to serve her community.

Public Service

Right now the plan for the produce:  

  • A large portion will go to the House of the Carpenter, a local charity that distributes food to low income households. 
  • Some will also go to  Seeing Hand.
  • Overflow may be sold in farmers markets.
  • Plants from the nursery will be sold to pay for garden operations.

The hope is with some volunteer help, and continued support from the community, Wheeling’s garden for the blind should soon be self-sufficient and could even become profitable.

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