Posted on 02/27/2016 7:55:01 AM PST by george76
The North Fork Valley is now down to one operating coal mine after Friday’s announcement that the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia is being idled.
Kentucky-based Bowie Resource Partners said in a news release that the action is occurring “as a result of continued market deterioration.” “The mine will remain idle while the market for Bowie No. 2 coal is evaluated,” the company said.
The mine employs 108 full-time employees and one contractor. Bowie said it expects that 68 positions will be eliminated
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Just a few years ago, Bowie No. 2 employed more than 300 miners
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Another North Fork Valley mine, Oxbow Mining’s Elk Creek Mine, was idled by late 2013 after problems a year earlier that led to a fire that stranded its longwall equipment underground in January 2013. Oxbow also had employed more than 300 miners at one time.
A third mine, West Elk, continues to operate in the valley, and in fact last year was the most productive coal mine in the state despite its production having dropped off slightly for the year. West Elk is owned by Arch Coal, a leading coal producer that recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization due to continuing problems in the coal market.
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The loss of coal jobs has hit the North Fork Valley hard because they have represented a proportionately high number of jobs in a relatively rural area.
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it’s difficult to replace high-paying jobs
(Excerpt) Read more at gjsentinel.com ...
My Aunt’s husband’s family owned this outfit at one time.
These people can thank Obama for this. So sad!
Well, apparently a majority of America supports the killing of the coal industry. They voted Obama into office twice and one of his campaign promises was to bankrupt the coal industry, (sarcasm).
I don’t know. Gas is cheap. Might have had something to do with market forces but you folks are right. This administration doesn’t believe in the market.
– Translated into English from an article appearing in the Czech Republic as published in the "Prager Zeitung" of April 28, 2010.
More on the War on Natural Resource Harvesters - the socialists love to prevent or take away good paying jobs in rural areas to force people to either live in poverty or move to the city where they can be controlled.
The big government Socialists are using the EPA to write unconstitutional laws to punish working people in rural areas.
Congress refuses to try to defend the US Constitution. No wonder the progressives put a pillow over Scalia’s head.
The EPA and the Courts have been proceeding apace since Nixon had his too-bright by half idea while vacationing in the San Juan Islands.
The PacNW was the first place his efforts were introduced - first by taking aboriginal rights from theoretical law to codified law; then using that to destroy the commercial fishing industry; and then on to property rights and endangered species. This was the beginning of the War on Natural Resource Harvesters, in which many of us paid dearly.
The courts also refuse to defend unconstitutional laws starting with SCOTUS and working down. Any one who believes otherwise is just as naive as we were. Once your case enters the system, you have lost, even if there seems to be a victory, you will just find your case back in court on some other angle. Or worse, the lower court may realize you do not have the funds to keep pursuing your case and, even though you have taken your case to SCOTUS and some part of that is upheld, the lower court will safely over rule SCOTUS. It does not matter if the basis of your case is written in plain language in a Treaty, they will find a way around it and you lose again.
Easterners and Midwesterners seldom understand the depths the Courts and the EPA, working hand-in-glove, will stoop to ensure people are driven off the land and their livelihoods destroyed.
...so that those same people will move into "more sustainable" communities.
In ‘08, the United Mine Workers’ union’s homepage was a huge endorsement for Obama even after he told them he was going to shut them down. The morons voted for their own demise.
OTOH, Obama's carbon regulations on existing permits, existing power plants has been put on hold by SCOTUS and it is not known how they will rule on the case in 2017. But for now, he can't implement them.
OTOH, in December, the GOP controlled Congress extended the renewable energy tax credits for 5 years, which will drive a lot of new wind and solar.
the Clean Power Plan is an overreach of regulatory authority, a threat to grid reliability and exorbitantly expensive. The U.S. Supreme Court just stopped the plan cold. The court has issued a stay in the implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan.
http://www.aei.org/publication/keeping-coal-in-the-ground-buries-affordable-energy-2/
Another reason the progressives wanted to put a pillow over Scalia’s head.
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