By Samantha Zarek

June 27, 2017 - According to the Department of Energy, coal production in the United States has risen almost 20-percent in the past five months. This increase comes after a major decline for years cost thousands their jobs. Just last year, Southwest Virginia's coal industry lost nearly one million tons of production from the previous year due to energy market shifts. So far this year, Virginia producers are already seeing a 24-percent increase.

In past years, the coal industry has been steadily declining due to market conditions and carbon emission restrictions. Coal dependent communities have been hit hard.

"The coal industry is huge...It has a huge economic impact. We lost a lot of people that had to move away from here, kids in our public education sector in which we lost a lot of funding in regards to that so, you know, it has a huge impact," says Russel County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman, David Eaton.

But a possible boom is underway-- partially due to the cost of natural gas shooting up early this year, as well as President Trump's efforts to bring coal back.

"We're seeing some improvement here, we're seeing some jobs going back, especially on the metallurgical side of the coal," says President of the Virginia Coal and Energy Alliance, Harry Childress.

Metallurgical coal comes out of Southwest Virginia mines and is used to make steel. It's in high demand for construction and building purposes.

"We're seeing increased prices and increased demand for that, so we're seeing companies hiring back, they're going to longer work schedules, production schedules to try to produce what they can to try to take advantage of the market as it currently is," Childress says.

"What we're looking for is a hopeful situation that coal will come back and have an impact," Eaton says.

Childress says it's hard to tell exactly how much production will increase for the rest of the year, but he remains optimistic that the industry is beginning to stabilize.