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Coal refuse recovery works

When government messes up, it’s usually big news.

On the flip side, government initiatives that work well are often overlooked and don’t get the attention they deserve.

An example is the decision Pennsylvania made decades ago to encourage private enterprise to undertake the cleanup of coal refuse piles around the state — the leftovers of more than two centuries of mining.

By the 1980s, Pennsylvania was dotted with piles of coal refuse — a mixture of rock, aggregates and coal pieces too fine to be extracted by the mechanical cleaning techniques available at the time the mining occurred.

More than a half-billion tons of coal mine waste lying on top of the ground was scattered around the old anthracite and bituminous coal fields in northeastern and southwestern Pennsylvania.

They were a plague on the landscape, eyesores where virtually nothing of value could grow, depressing adjacent land values and causing extensive pollution of streams and waterways from acid runoff and sparking frequent wildfires as the coal still contained in the mine waste was ignited by lightning or other causes.

With the development of new combustion technology using fluidized bed boilers, it became possible to burn coal refuse even though it contained, on the average, less than 30 percent coal, to generate electricity in an environmentally safe fashion.

Lawmakers approved legislation to encourage private investment in the construction of high-efficiency electric generating stations powered by coal refuse and providing incentives for long-term contracts to sell the resulting electric power.

Over the next decade, 14 independently owned, coal refuse-fired power plants were built with a total generating capacity in excess of 1,400 megawatts, enough to supply a million homes while steadily eating away at the coal refuse piles and re-contouring and reseeding the reclaimed land.

Thirty years later, the program is still working.

Recently, the coal refuse trade association, ARIPPA, commissioned an economic and environmental impact study to identify and quantify the program’s results and project its impact over the next 20 years.

The study by Econsult Solutions is stunning. The generating stations have provided thousands of well-paying jobs helping to revitalize rural communities while cleaning up acid mine drainage and reclaiming thousands of acres of land and preventing wildfires.

Blair County has benefited from the removal of abandon coal piles in the headwaters of its drinking water sources.

The Econsult study noted the industry directly employs an estimated 1,820 workers when operating at capacity, supports another 1,800 jobs in the community and accounts for $746 million in economic activity.

Additional benefits include $6.6 million annually in state income tax revenue when operating at or near capacity and $7 million in sales tax revenue.  Business tax revenue is projected at $1.7 million annually and environmental taxes and fees are estimated at $4.4 million annually.

The average pay of a coal refuse industry worker is estimated to be $70,000 a year — about twice the per capita income of the typical worker in the counties where the generating plants are located.

The coal refuse recycling effort is one that is working — a success story unique to Pennsylvania among the nation’s coal mining states.

If the General Assembly and regulators stay the course, the economic impact report suggests another 20 years of success.

Simmers is involved with the the Colver Power Project.

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