Center for Coalfield Justice moves to new location
WASHINGTON – A nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting property owners affected by the coal mining industry has a new name and new headquarters. The Center for Coalfield Justice, previously known as Tri-State Citizens Mining Network, is now located at 96 E. Chestnut St. in downtown Washington. The new office is within walking distance of the county offices, Washington and Jefferson College and a residential area.
“Part of the move here was to improve our profile,” said Jim Kleissler, the group’s executive director.
The organization was previously located at the rear of a building on Jefferson Avenue in Washington that Kleissler said had poor visibility for the public.
“We changed our name and reorganized to do a better job of serving our member organizations in the coalfields,” Kleissler said. “We have a number of member organizations and individuals. These are people who live in the coalfields and are impacted by them. This disrupts their lives and their infrastructure.”
Kleissler said one thing the organization does is help individuals through the public comment process for coal mining permit applications so they can protect their property. The Center for Coalfield Justice also works with organizations such as the Ten Mile Protection Network, the Wheeling Creek Watershed Conservancy that is concerned with the area near Ryerson Station State Park, and the Mountain Watershed Association that is concerned with surface mining operations in Westmoreland County.
Doug Smith of Prosperity in Morris Township, Washington County, is one individual whose property is being impacted by the mining industry. He lives across from the proposed site of a coal preparation plant.
“We have a beautiful view. It’s going to destroy it. We’re going to be living under an industrial complex,” Smith said.
Smith said he works in a coke plant, so he’s not against the coal industry. He just wants to see it abide by local ordinances that protect the viewshed.
“Under the ordinances, they are to obstruct the above ground structures from view. They can use the natural topography or evergreen shrubs, but you’re not going to be able to block the 200-foot silos unless they put them in the valley,” Smith said.
Smith said the local ordinance was upheld in court in 1994, though the noise portion of the ordinance was modified slightly.
“I know that they need the coal, but they have to uphold property rights, too. There’s a way they can do it without destroying people’s lives,” Smith said.
Phil Coleman of West Brownsville is on the board of directors of the Center for Coalfield Justice. His late wife, Wyona Coleman, founded the Tri-State Citizens Mining Network.
“We were both in the Sierra Club. We looked around and saw the abuses of the surface mining industry in the ’70s. She got involved in the surface mining legislation. When Act 54 was passed and she saw what longwall mining was doing, she got very involved in that,” Coleman said.
Act 54, a 1994 amendment to the 1966 Bituminous Mine Subsidence and Land Conservation Act, was designed to regulate the underground mining industry’s impact on surface structures and activities.
According to the United Mine Workers of America Web site:
“Longwall mining now accounts for about 31 percent of underground coal production. There are about 100 longwall operations in the United States, most of them in UMWA mines in Appalachia. In longwall mining, a cutting head moves back and forth across a panel of coal about 800 feet in width and up to 7,000 feet in length. The cut coal falls onto a flexible conveyor for removal. Longwall mining is done under hydraulic roof supports (shields) that are advanced as the seam is cut. The roof in the mined-out areas falls as the shields advance.”
Coleman said he has a number of concerns about longwall mining.
“One of the things about longwall mining is the mine companies don’t let anyone into the area where they are dumping the spoils. They are still creating big spoils piles,” Coleman said.
Information about the Center for Coalfield Justice is available at the organization’s Web site www.coalfieldjustice.org.