“Peabody agreed to extend the contract for two years with a small wage increase,” said Marie Justice, president of UMWA Local 1620 at the Black Mesa mine. “But the Black Mesa and the Seneca mines are still slated to be closed on Dec. 31, 2005.”

If the company’s proposed mine closures go through, the only operating UMWA mine owned by Peabody Coal in the West will be the Kayenta mine. The Black Mesa and Kayenta mines are located next to each other on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. The Big Sky mine’s surface operations in Montana have already been closed.

Lewis Yazzie, a member of UMWA Local 1924 at the Kayenta mine, said in a telephone interview that “staying united is very important right now because we will soon be the last stronghold of the UMWA at Peabody-owned mines in the West.”

Coal from the Black Mesa mine is pulverized and mixed with water to form a slurry that travels through a 273-mile pipeline to the Mohave generating station in Laughlin, Nevada. Southern California Edison, majority owner of the Mohave station, announced that the coal-fired power plant would be shut down December 31 for three to four years to install pollution control equipment.

The plant had been operating since 1971 with no pollution control equipment. In December 1999 a federal court issued a consent decree that mandated the Mohave power plant to dramatically reduce its sulfur dioxide emissions. In February 2002 the Environmental Protection Agency upheld these emissions reduction requirements. Since that time Southern California Edison (SCE) had taken no action to install the mandated pollution controls and is now organizing to shut down the Mohave plant.

“We are the victims of the event,” said Marie Justice. “This is going to hurt a lot of families. SCE has stalled and so far there will be no extension of the Dec. 31, 2005, deadline. Peabody has agreed to allow miners from the Black Mesa and Seneca mines to bid on jobs available at the Kayenta mine.” That amounts to about 11 jobs right now, the union officer said. The 240 miners at the Black Mesa mine who will be thrown out of work will increase the ranks of the jobless on the Navajo Nation, where unemployment exceeds 50 percent.

The Seneca mine, near Hayden, Colorado, is one of the two mines in northwest Colorado organized by the UMWA. The proposed closure of this mine will throw another 100 miners out of work. A few miners will remain to do reclamation work.

Peabody, the world’s largest privately owned coal company, bought the Twentymile Coal Company in April 2004. Located a few miles from Seneca, Twentymile is nonunion. The mine, one of the most productive in the United States, plans to hire 80 more workers this year, increasing its workforce to 500.  
 
 
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