Greene County officials examine projected loss of coal revenue
CARMICHAELS – “There is no way to produce more coal in Greene County. Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Greene County’s chief assessor told a group Thursday. And so goes at least one-third of the county’s annual revenue, H. John Frazier said.
During the second day of meetings on projected mineral values for the county over the next two decades, Frazier told those gathered from the Carmichaels Area, Jefferson-Morgan and Southeastern Greene school districts what they already knew: Most of the coal left to be mined in the county is not in any of their districts.
In fact, the last mine in operation in eastern Greene, Consol Energy’s Dilworth Mine, is closing this summer.
While different school districts are affected differently based on the number of coal operators in each area, residents from all parts of Greene will be affected when coal revenue begins to take a serious decline, according to Jeffrey Kern, president of Resource Technologies Corp., the county’s firm for mineral assessment.
“Coal contributes 30 percent of the county’s budget, and within 10 years it will be 15 percent,” Kern said. “Within 20 years, it will contribute nothing.”
As he did Tuesday night during meetings in the Central Greene and West Greene school districts, Kern outlined the future of coal revenue across the county and explained how coal operations were valued as part of the Greene County property reassessment that will be completed later this year.
Based on the amount of coal being mined in the county annually, Kern and his team projected that RAG American Coal’s Emerald Mine will be the longest of the current operations to remain viable, falling off the tax rolls in about 22 years.
Kern assured those gathered that the coal left in the county will be mined and used for the foreseeable future, as the coal from Greene is used at 75 power plants within 400 miles of the county.
He projected that existing coal operators will look to permit additional areas in the county that will benefit their respective companies, which could add a few more years of revenue to the county’s tax rolls.
But those benefits from coal will not be around forever, he said, and he stressed that school districts and municipalities in the western portions of the county will be faced with a situation that Carmichaels Area School District knows all too well: how to operate when the last of the coal has been mined.
While Kern said new permit areas and new mines may be on the horizon, he tempered his words with a reminder of the risk factors that are involved. His projections are based on the increased use of reserve coal as active mine production begins to dwindle in the next several years.
“We have assumed that will happen on a nice, mathematical timeframe,” he said. “My message to the county has been that it is not going to be neat. It is going to be kind of bumpy.”
Other factors facing coal include weather and economy. Kern said tons of coal are sitting at tipples all over the county, and last winter’s mild conditions did not help the coal industry. He said market factors and continual protests from environmental groups against longwall mining are important issues for all county residents to follow as long as coal continues to generate revenue.
“If longwall mining were prohibited tomorrow, $400 million of value in Greene County will disappear within a week,” Kern said. “If you can’t mine the coal, it doesn’t have a lot of value.”
Frazier took a moment to remind school district and municipal officials of the importance of working together to help develop new ways to improve the county’s economy as coal becomes less and less of an asset on which to rely.
“We are all on the Titanic, it seems to be sinking and we need to start bailing out,” he said.
“Work together as much as you can, because we really can’t do much to stop this.”