Earlier this week, two great leaders and supporters of the industry,
former Association Chairman and President of Riverton Coal Production
Randy Hansford and Kingston Mining President Dale Birchfield announced
their retirements from Foundation Coal. Their long service and
dedication will be missed on a daily basis but we hope they will
maintain their interest and involvement in lots of activities. We wish
both Randy and “Preacher” Dale the best with a great appreciation for
all they have done for the industry through the years.
The following announcement was released by Foundation Coal on Monday
regarding the replacements for Randy and Dale. Congratulations to
Mark, Phillip, George and John on their new assignments.
Deep
in the coalfields of southern West Virginia, in tanks filled with pure,
cold water from under a long-shuttered mine, Atlantic salmon swim.
They
start as tiny pink eggs with two black dots for eyes. They surge from
fry to fingerling to full-grown in less than a year in a carefully
controlled, disease-free environment where antibiotics, hormones and
other contaminants are nonexistent. They are trucked out live, ending
up on dinner plates up and down the East Coast.
The Friends of Coal is launching a two-week membership drive from March
31 to April 14 in Mabscott in an effort to get hundreds of the town’s
residents to sign up, said Mel Hancock, coalfield representative.
On Thursday, Mabscott’s City Council voted to officially make the town
a member in the Friends of Coal, and will sponsor the membership drive.
The move has the support of Mabscott’s Mayor Wayne Houck, who was once
a coal miner.
On this wind-swept air base near the Missouri River, the U.S. Air Force
has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by
turning to a new and unlikely source: coal.
The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central Montana
the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of
facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning
synthetic fuel.
WVCA and GEO/Environmental Associates, Inc. will host a Coal Refuse Disposal Facility Seminar on April 8 and 9th at the Charleston Embassy Suites. Professional Engineers Barry Thacker, Gary Brill, Mitch Halsey, Roger Cecil & Scott Arwood from GEO/Environmental will lead the seminar. Seismic and subsidence experts and industry representatives from WVCA will lead the panel discussion.
Twelve (12) Professional Development Hours (PDH) will be awarded towards continuing professional competency requirements.
A registration fee of $200 per person includes course notes, luncheon and refreshments during breaks. For further information contact Carol Moore at 865-584-0344 Ext. 102 or clmoore@geoe.com
Full program and other information as well as registration forms are available on line at www.geoe.com
Scott Pack, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Foundation Coal and President of Foundation Energy Sales, has been selected to give the William Poundstone Lecture and to receive the Distinguished Engineering of Mines Award for the 2008 spring semester on April 23rd in Morgantown. Scott’s lecture is titled “Got Coal?” and will be delivered in Room 113 Mineral Resources Building on WVU’s Evansdale Campus at 4:00 p.m. Congratulations to Scott.
Duke Vetor, Senior Vice President for North American Coal, LLC, a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc. has been named to the Association’s Board of Directors for a term ending in 2010. Duke replaces Ben Statler who resigned from the Board as a result of the recent acquisition of PinnOak by Cleveland-Cliffs. We appreciate Ben’s invaluable guidance and tireless service to the Association and wish him the best in future with hopes that he will remain involved in the West Virginia industry. At the same time, we welcome Duke and appreciate his willingness to serve as a member of the Board and look forward to an active and engaging future.
In similar actions, Parkstone Energy, LLC has named Steve Capelli, Parkstone’s COO, as its representative to the Board of Directors.
The employees of Walker Machinery Co. have recruited more than 2,700 new Friends of Coal members since the company launched a membership drive just over a month ago, the organization said.
Friends of Coal is a coal advocacy group funded by the West Virginia Coal Association. Membership is free.
Steve Walker, president and chief operating officer of Walker Machinery Co., launched the membership drive at the company's Belle headquarters on Jan. 30. He told workers that their jobs depend on convincing others that coal is an essential energy source.
KANSANS, like West Virginians, pay much less than the national average
for electric power. That's because they get most of their power from
coal-fired plants.
But last fall, Rod Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health
and Environment, decided Kansas should not permit construction of two
new coal-fired power plants. He blocked a permit for the $3.6 billion
project.
Bremby's own staff had recommended approval of the project. Gov.
Kathleen Sebelius, a fast-rising star in Democratic politics, opposed
it.
RECENTLY, Dave Cooper, a Sierra Club activist, drew alarming parallels
between the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and the anti-mining
group's fight against surface mining in Appalachia.
Cooper publicly stated, "One day we will look back with horror . . .,
just as we look upon the photographs of civil rights leaders being
blasted with fire hoses."
Cooper's reasoning is as flawed as his comparison is reprehensible. If
through legislation or litigation, surface mining is prohibited, the
burden of resulting higher energy costs would fall directly on those
who can least afford them.
Environmental activist Dave Cooper's commentary, disingenuously equated International Coal Group and friends of coal with the civil rights oppressors of the early 1960s.
Cooper even went so far as to compare us to "Bull" Connor, the police commissioner who unleashed dogs and water cannons on peaceful civil rights marchers in Alabama.
Of course, the comparison is patently absurd and implies that the thousands of workers who earn their living in the Kentucky coal industry are immoral, evil, greedy and insensitive. That sort of characterization is as ridiculous as Cooper's self-aggrandizing portrayal of his own anti-mining extremist friends.
The state Public Service Commission has given American Electric Power
the go-ahead to build a $2.3-billion plant in Mason County that will be
the first of its kind in the world.
It's called an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Plant. Dana
Waldo, the president of Appalachian Power, a subsidiary of AEP, says
both clean energy processes they'll be doing aren't cutting edge but
putting them together is.
Crippling snowstorms in China, floods in Australia and blackouts in
South Africa might seem like problems a world apart. But they’re closer
than you think.
Since Jan. 1, crises such as these have strained coal markets already
stretched thin by soaring Asian demand, and the impact is reverberating
to mines in West Virginia and Wyoming, which are being counted on to
fill the void.
IN 1935, Congress and the Roosevelt administration created the Rural
Electrification Administration to bring electricity to the remote
reaches of America, by providing low-interest loans to companies that
would expand into rural areas.
Now, 73 years later, its successor, the Rural Utilities Service, provides such loans.
West Virginia University and New York City-based MSL Sports and Entertainment, in association with Nelligan Sports Marketing today announced that the university will host Gridiron Bash™ The Ultimate Fan Competition™ the day before the Annual Gold-Blue Spring Game. The event -- the first of its kind at Milan Puskar Stadium -- will take place during the afternoon and evening of April 18 and include a live performance by multiple Grammy® Award winner and entertainer Dwight Yoakam, as well as a giant pep rally introducing the team with remarks from Head Coach Bill Stewart and select players. Tickets go on sale March 7, 2008 at the Mountaineer Ticket Office, online at WVUGAME.com or by calling 1-800-WVU-GAME. Tickets can also be purchased through www.gridironbash.com beginning March 7, 2008. For more information please visit www.gridironbash.com. Dwight Yoakam will appear in support of Dwight Sings Buck, a one-of-a-kind new album honoring the legendary Buck Owens.
The album is available as both a CD and a Limited Edition 180 gram vinyl record, from New West Records. For more information on Dwight Yoakam, including his recently debuted Route23 fan club, please visit www.newwestrecords.com and www.dwightyoakam.com.
