While federal support may keep some power plants open, natural gas, steel uncertainty, and population decline are the main threats to Monongahela Valley coal.
WAYNESBURG, Pa.—In a roadside clearing, a young man in boots, jeans, black hoodie, and black cap emerges from a trail and sits on a flat-topped boulder.
He’s startled to see he’s not alone on this warm, overcast Easter afternoon in the woods just north of the Pennsylvania–West Virginia state line.
Between swigs from a plastic water bottle, he describes a two-hour hike from his home, tracking along tree-lines atop hillside pastures, scouting for turkey sign with spring hunting season two weeks away.
People believe turkeys are dumb, he says, but bearded Toms are wily. They’re sounding off, gobbling in the grassy seep below his father’s farm, near the mine he works at, but they’re nowhere to be seen when you’re looking for them, he laughs.
When he learns he’s talking to a reporter on his own scouting mission to speak with miners, roughnecks, and steelworkers about the coal and gas industries in the Monongahela Valley, everything changes.
“Conversation over,” he declares and abruptly rises. “We don’t talk to reporters.”
With that, he’s gone, disappearing down the trail, looking for birds that are everywhere but can’t be found.
“You’re an outsider to begin with … and a reporter. That’s, like, a double curse on you,” State Rep. Bud Cook (R-West Pike Run) said..
Coal miners—all miners—“have been under attack for so many years” by media critical of their industry, or condescending and cliched in coverage about them, so it’s no surprise “doors are not being opened for you.”
“It’s a very close, very closed, family relationship,” he said, in the 75-mile northern meander of the Monongahela River from Morgantown, West Virginia, downriver to Pittsburgh—also known as “The Mon.”
Union representatives don’t return calls; a mining school sees “no value” in an interview. The two corporations that operate the three coal mines in Greene County, 60 miles south of Pittsburgh, will address broad industry issues but won’t discuss specifics.
By John Haughey
