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LOGAN -- in 1943, more than 418,000 coal miners worked in the nation's 6,620 mines. By 1996, only 85,000 miners were left, working in only 2,000 active mines, and the numbers have since dwindled further.
Yet during that same period, total coal production nearly doubled, from 590.2 million tons in 1943 to 1,063.9 million tons in 1996.
The numbers are clear. The "King Coal" economy of southern West Virginia is on its last legs. Production continues to skyrocket while the numbers of jobs plummet. Meanwhile, coal reserves continue to fall and the end of the mining industry looms more and more clearly on the horizon.
Today, more and more people are looking for ways to diversify the state's economy. The effort is multi-pronged, but for southern West Virginia, two possibilities are being given principal consideration --and industrial development.
Industrial development has, in the past, been hampered by a lack of suitable land for factories and warehouses. One possible answer to the problem of land availability is the use of reclaimed surface mines for industrial parks.
"Our problem in southern West Virginia is a lack of flat land," said Rev. Bernard Cook, of Man.
Cook said the people of southern West Virginia look upon reclaimed former surface mines as potential resources, and actually see the coal companies performing a public service.
"What I see is the companies hiring our people to make our property usable and paying us a good wage to do that."
Sen. Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, agreed.
"With the kind of terrain we have here ... and every time a business comes in you've got to last the side out of a mountain in order to make room for it ... you know these two (mining and economic development) could fit hand-in-hand," Tomblin said. ".... if we could fix it so once mining was complete you'd already have the infrastructure in place, there would probably be some great -- probably cheap -- land available where we could encourage some industry to come in here besides mining."
Yet, despite the clear advantages, few surface mines are reclaimed for such use.
"Only about 3 percent of surface mines are reclaimed for use by industry," said Larry Alt, chief inspector of the Logan office of...