Officials Talk Past, Present and Future of Coal Mining in West Virginia

 

 

October 7, 2024 - West Virginians have long held coal mining in high esteem as many can trace their family's prosperity back to a single miner.

However, the trajectory of the industry is expected to continue to turn down as mining becomes more automated, with former miners seeking reeducation in other industries.

In the early days of mining, coal camps were established near the mines that were inhabited by miners and their families. In many instances, miners walked to work.

But with the advent of the motor vehicle and the boom of industrialized society, miners began to be recruited from places much further away, said retired miner and former District Vice President for United Mine Workers of America Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion.

This was only the start. The mining industry continued to change alongside the world, and today mining is much different than before.

"It's not like it was back in the '50s," Caputo said.

Since 1990, the number of miners employed in West Virginia has fallen by more than 50%.

In that year, there were nearly 29,000 coal miners in the state. At last count, there were only about 13,000 still employed, according to the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training.

After Caputo's time in the mines, he received lifetime insurance benefits that were guaranteed to him and others who had worked 20 years in the mines. But this is not a reality for miners anymore.

"It had to change because there just weren't enough miners left to support those kinds of benefits," Caputo said.

Many mining operations in the state today are much more short term than they were back in the day.

"When I started in the industry, you were pretty much assured you'd get 20 years or 40 years at the mine. But that's not the case anymore," Caputo said.

Due to these shorter stints, miners often leave a job after 10 or more years and do not receive a pension. However, they and their employers often contribute to a 401k, which Caputo said is a good guarantee of retirement benefits they are able to take to their next job.

Technological and technical advances of the industry are the main reasons why mining operations became shorter in length.

More coal can now be mined with fewer men than ever before due to special mining vehicles and practices like long wall mining.

In 1950, there were 127,000 miners, according to The West Virginia Encyclopedia.

And in 2008, there were fewer than 20,000, according to the West Virginia Office of Miners Health Safety and Training.

"We weren't producing less coal, but were doing so with far, far fewer miners," Deskins said.

Due to this, many miners were left without something to do at their job site and were laid off.

To combat this, United Mine Workers of America established a career center in Ruff Creek, Pennsylvania, in the 1990s when coal was first experiencing heavy job losses to retrain miners to work in other energy industries.

Over the years, the training offered has changed to ensure retraining was not setting miners up for a second failure.

"When we'd lose jobs and get some retraining money, we'd train a laid-off coal miner to become a laid-off welder. And, well, that just does not work. We got to train the dislocated miners to work in these new industries," Caputo said.

However, after adjusting and becoming able to adapt and train former miners to enter into any energy industry, many miners learned skills there that they used to provide for their families.

"Retraining is a perpetual concern, a key issue," Deskins said.

But retraining is most applicable for miners laid off in their 20s and 30s more so than older miners who may be more likely to transition into an early retirement.

Community colleges, unions and private companies should implement employee retraining programs that teach skills that are in demand, up-to-date and in line with job advertisements seen across the state, Deskins said.

Still, Caputo said more needs to be done to ensure dislocated miners are able to secure jobs in adjacent energy industries.

"My union, the UMWA, has always been an advocate for a just transition. If you're going to build other energy sources... or battery plants, those dislocated miners who lost their job due to the change should have first rights for those jobs," Caputo said.

This does not, however, address the fact that new jobs may emerge in areas other than where job losses have occurred, causing workers to need to move or make long commutes, Deskins said.

Coal is still an enormous business both domestically and abroad.

At home, coal accounted for 11% of all U.S. energy production in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

This is a far cry from 52% of production in 1990, but still a notable portion of domestic energy.

Caputo wagered coal will always remain a large part of the United States' energy portfolio. But a great amount of coal mined in the United States is shipped to other countries like China that utilize it in their steel production.

The price of coal has remained steady over the last 34 years when accounting for inflation.

In 1990, Central Appalachian coal cost $31.59 per ton, or about $76 in today's money.

Currently, Central Appalachian coal costs $82.15 per ton, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"Coal was the major source of energy for many, many years. But now you have wind, solar and, in some cases, you have nuclear — a huge mix of energy sources that dropped the coal mining jobs down from what they once were," Caputo said.

Deskins expects West Virginia to produce coal for metallurgy and foreign trade for many more years, but domestic electric generation has been and is expected to continue to decrease.

Although Deskins could not estimate the rate at which decreases will continue with any certainty, he said it's likely to occur at a pace slower than what's been seen in the last 50 years.