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Sen. Rob Portman, joined by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, listens to miners’ plight at Rosebud Bergholz

Campaign stop at Rosebud Mine includes Sen. Capito

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, back left, was joined by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., during a stop at the Rosebud Bergholz Mine in Jefferson County Wednesday morning. Among those meeting with the senators were, foreground left, miners Josh Willis and Jerry Murphy, and Rosebud Permitting Manager Gary Alkire. — Paul Giannamore

BERGHOLZ — Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, outlined his thoughts on coal, miners’ jobs, jobs in general and the plight of families in the region during a stop at the Rosebud Bergholz Mine Wednesday morning.

Portman was joined at the stop by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who said she supports Portman in his bid against Democart Ted Strickland, a former governor and congressman.

Portman said Strickland has become anti-coal. Portman noted he won House election well in Strickland’s home county, Scioto, which was split by congressional district lines between him and Strickland at the time.

“Ted Strickland did represent this district, but he’s turned his back on this part of the state in many respects. One is coal. Another is his position on gun control. He was always the NRA-endorsed candidate, but he’s changed his view on that and we’re endorsed by the NRA now,” he said. Portman noted he’s also picked up endorsements from the Teamsters and the operating engineers, the Fraternal Order of Police and other unions, including the United Mineworkers.

He said Strickland won’t distance himself from Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s statement, made in Ohio, that she would put coal companies out of business.

“My opponent used to represent this area in Congress and said he was pro-coal. He went to Washington and started his own lobbying outfit that represents people who are against coal and now he’s flipped. He supports all these regulations that are coming down, not just on coal companies but on power plants, that make it hard to burn coal, even to do it cleanly.

“People around here don’t appreciate politicians who say one thing and do another. What we see with Ted Strickland, my opponent, is that he went from pro-coal to anti-coal just as soon as he got out of office, went to Washington and took a job there. He continues to be taking these positions and supporting what Hillary Clinton said and supporting what the Obama administration has done,” Portman said.

What has happened during the Obama administration has been a decline in coal industry jobs, from nearly 200,000 to about 60,000 now. Gary Alkire, permitting manager for Rosebud Mining, said the Bergholz mine now has about nine employees working compared with 40 when it was at full employment. The mine had been idled for more than a year when it received a small order from First Energy that it is currently filling with one shift working five days a week.

“It’s not what we’re capable of producing here, “ Alkire said. The company once had 1,700 employees between its Ohio and Pennsylvania operations and now it employs “in the 600s.”

As for regulations that are making it costly to mine coal, Alkire said the company had to buy a newly required type dust monitors, one per man per shift at its 24 mines. The monitors cost $14,000 each and even the Mine Safety and Health Administration representatives were unable to get them to work properly when they came for a demonstration.

The classification of streams to be protected has been expanded to the point where “small erosion ditches going down a 30 percent slope are being considered as viable resources” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alkire said. Mine companies have to perform studies on these kinds of water flows and replace them — going down very steep inclines — when the mining is done at a site.

Alkire said it’s not that his company doesn’t care about the environment.

He noted Rosebud Bergholz has been in operation for a decade and the adjacent Yellow Creek is not affected, though the mine discharges its water to the stream after it proceeds through on-site settling ponds.

“In fact, they just stocked (Yellow Creek) with an endangered species, the (Eastern) Hellbender. We are protective of streams and wetlands, and we’re proud of what we do, but we believe the Clean Water Act now makes it very difficult,” he said.

Portman said he’s been pushing hard for incentives to power companies to burn more coal by giving them a tax break if they use technology including carbon capture and sequestration. The measure has bipartisan support, he said.

“It keeps coal jobs here. It uses the coal in the ground in Ohio. We have another two to 300 years worth in the ground in Ohio and we can have good jobs in these communities and not have all these layoffs and heartaches we see in these communities in Eastern Ohio,” he said.

Portman and Capito held a half-hour talk with miners before meeting with reporters. He recounted their stories of miners leaving the mine on the day of a layoff.

“It’s driven people out of the community. It’s hurt their families. The inability to know they’ve got a job places a lot of strain on a family. We heard about that today. And it’s not just the 60,000 coal jobs. It’s hundreds of thousands of jobs of a lot of people,” including truckers, railroad workers, excavating companies and mine suppliers.

“It’s the restaurant jobs and the hotel jobs and we talked about the gas station down the road from here,” he said.

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