“Being in an underground coal mine is like roaming around a city at night. By the dim light of a headlamp, miners peer down avenues speckled with lights that make coal seam tunnels look more like urban streets. A close-knit community has developed around an industry that has kept the lights on, above ground, for more than a century. But now, those underground communities face collapse. In early June, 80 full-time employees received notice of their layoffs from the West Elk Mine in Somerset, one of Colorado’s largest energy producers. The mine is the last still in operation in the North Fork Valley on the state’s Western Slope, where coal mining has been a mainstay of the rural economy for nearly 120 years.
Just five years ago, approximately 1,200 people in the North Fork Valley were employed by three local coal mines: the Bowie No. 2 mine, outside Paonia (High Country News’ hometown), and the Elk Creek and West Elk mines, both about nine miles up the road in Somerset. Now fewer than 250 people remain employed, says Kathleen Welt, an environmental engineer at the West Elk Mine in Somerset. The Elk Creek mine has shut down permanently and Bowie No. 2 is idled, leaving West Elk as the sole coal producer in the valley.
Being in an underground coal mine is like roaming around a city at night. By the dim light of a headlamp, miners peer down avenues speckled with lights that make coal seam tunnels look more like urban streets. A close-knit community has developed around an industry that has kept the lights on, above ground, for more than a century. But now, those underground communities face collapse. In early June, 80 full-time employees received notice of their layoffs from the West Elk Mine in Somerset, one of Colorado’s largest energy producers. The mine is the last still in operation in the North Fork Valley on the state’s Western Slope, where coal mining has been a mainstay of the rural economy for nearly 120 years.
Just five years ago, approximately 1,200 people in the North Fork Valley were employed by three local coal mines: the Bowie No. 2 mine, outside Paonia (High Country News’ hometown), and the Elk Creek and West Elk mines, both about nine miles up the road in Somerset. Now fewer than 250 people remain employed, says Kathleen Welt, an environmental engineer at the West Elk Mine in Somerset. The Elk Creek mine has shut down permanently and Bowie No. 2 is idled, leaving West Elk as the sole coal producer in the valley.
Being in an underground coal mine is like roaming around a city at night. By the dim light of a headlamp, miners peer down avenues speckled with lights that make coal seam tunnels look more like urban streets. A close-knit community has developed around an industry that has kept the lights on, above ground, for more than a century. But now, those underground communities face collapse. In early June, 80 full-time employees received notice of their. ”
(Some graphics could not be replicated.)
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