The Illinois coal industry has been a viable source of energy and jobs since the Civil War. However, stricter environmental policies enforced by the federal government have hit coal mines pretty hard. Carlinville’s own Shay coal mine is no stranger to layoffs or hardship. A few years ago it was called Monterey mine and was owned by Exxon Mobile. In 2009, Exxon sold the mine to Macoupin Energy LLC; a company that is a part of the Cline Group (owned by the Cline Mining Corporation). Cline Mining Corp’s owner Christopher Cline also owns Hillsboro Energy and several other mines in Illinois and West Virginia. Cline has been dubbed “King Coal” by those in the industry and for good reason. Forbes reports that he has a net worth of $1.9 billion and is the 78th richest person in U.S.
Walls of coal are up to one Empire State Building wide and ten long
As Cline can tell you, Illinois coal is a booming industry. According to the Illinois Coal Association’s estimations, coal contributes $2 billion to the Illinois economy annually. According to the same source, the energy content of Illinois’ coal is greater than that of the oil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. The Illinois State Geological Survey estimates that, at one time, there was about 210 billion tons of coal beneath the state’s surface. In the last 200 years, companies have mined eight billion tons of coal. About half of this coal is recoverable physically or financially. Some of it cannot be reached by equipment or it would be too expensive to do so. That still leaves more than 100 billion tons to be mined.
The coal’s immense quantity ensures that Illinoisans do not have to worry about running out anytime soon. Illinois’ coal does have one drawback; it has a higher sulfur content than the coal mined in Pennsylvania or Wyoming. High sulfur coal, or “dirty coal” as it is sometimes called, has been identified as the primary cause for acid rain. “We are looking at water with a PH of 5.5 or lower… Acid rain can destroy plant life, it can hurt infrastructure. I mean, it’s acid,” said Blackburn College chemistry adjunct professor Jim Pickett. The Clean Air Act of 1963 and the subsequent Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required power plants to reduce their sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions to try and slow down pollution and acid rain. Adhering to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations and using Illinois coal would mean that U.S. power plants and businesses would have to put expensive scrubbers on their smokestacks. Although some power plants in Illinois and other states do this (less than 25 percent as of 2005), it is not considered cost-effective and makes power plants and factories much more likely to use coal from other states.
So if Illinois coal is such a booming industry and most people in the U.S. will not buy it, then who is buying it? It is being sold to Europe, India and China, nations that have more relaxed environmental policies or that actually use scrubbers. The way this coal is being removed from the ground is through a process called longwall mining. Used mostly in the midwest, this process is where a long wall of coal is mined in a single slice. These walls are typically three to four kilometers long and between 200-500 meters wide. Longwall mining has enabled Illinois mines to increase their production. Sixty percent of the coal production in Illinois in 2015 was due to longwall mining. President of the Illinois Coal Association Phillip Monet explained, “They are among the most productive mines in the world and they are safer for miners because the ground subsides and there is no roof fall… One of the reasons why they (Shay or Monterey) longwalled was the ceiling or the roof of that area was unstable so they allow the ground to subside to protect miners.” Ground subsidence is inevitable which means that private property is sometimes affected and both ground and surface water can be polluted. Shay mine in particular has become somewhat infamous for its groundwater pollution which has been recorded on site and has received over 800 EPA violations in the past six years. Attempts were made to contact mine officials but they proved unreachable by phone and in person.
The Cline group has been criticized before for buying land from struggling farmers at unfair prices. The Center for Media and Democracy’s (a national advocacy group that conducts investigations into corruption and the influence of corporations in the media) Sourcewatch website said, “In Litchfield, IL, Cline Mining Corp. began buying land, prepping the ground for mining but leaving it unusable… Yet as of 2010 Cline Mining continues to buy land from struggling farmers and its mining efforts are expanding… Many townspeople begrudgingly support the business. In a time when jobs are increasingly hard to find, the development of longwall mining in the area promises to bring jobs to many people in the area, despite the cost for others.” Often times these coal seams could have been procured without exploiting down-on-their-luck farmers by utilizing the traditional room and pillar method, where pillars of rock, stone or other manmade support structures are left to support the ground. However, this method simply is not as good for business. Monet explained, “Longwall allows you to extract close to 80 percent of a coal seam that you are mining. With room and pillar mines this can range from 45-55 percent because of the coal you have to leave to support the service.” The subsidence and groundwater pollution that occurs due to this decision can also affect more than the environment, as biology professor Dr. James Bray explained. “A school up near Gillespie has been affected by the mine subsidence,” he said. “And I remember I was here [Carlinville] when we had those real subsidence issues. Just south and east of town and you could literally drive by farms and see houses that had been swallowed or hanging over a hole that hadn’t been there yesterday. It looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie.”
Under the Obama administration, coal took a bit of a hit. The layoffs and EPA policies that occurred under Barack Obama’s presidency are called the ‘War on Coal’ by those in the industry. Despite some casualties in the so-called war, Illinois coal is doing pretty great. Massive profits by Cline and others in the industry prove this. What is the future of Illinois coal under a Trump administration and a Scott Pruitt EPA? Monet said, “I would be shocked if the Trump administration does not stop most of the rule making. The Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS rule)… the MATS rule (Mercury and Air Toxic Substances rule)… a Trump administration is gonna stop the bleeding… We won’t have to contend with overriding any presidential vetoes. All the regulations that I gave you we expect to be undone either by congressional action or the new administration pretty soon.” Pickett agreed, “Politically, a campaign promise has been made to the coal industry in general. I think we are gonna see big changes under a Trump administration and a Republican congress.” For better or worse Trump and the Republicans have already set their sights on some of Obama’s environmental policies. On Jan. 30, the Stream Protection Rule passed in Obama’s final weeks as president, began the process of being overturned. On Feb. 1, the House of Representatives voted 228 to 194 to officially repeal the rule and on Feb. 2 the Senate followed suit. It remains to be seen how these changes will affect the environment, Carlinville and other Illinois communities.