On the downside, though, company officials say they may have trouble finding people to fill the 300 to 400 new high-paying coal miner jobs that will be created by this expanded coal production. The market for miners is so tight that Massey recently began offering workers multiyear contracts to keep the workers they now have to cope with a 20-percent turnover rate.
Another downside to this economic boom is that surge in worldwide demand for coal as a fuel source has also caused a spike in electricity rates for consumers. Here in West Virginia where more than 90 percent of our electricity is generated by burning coal, the increase in rates will be 15 percent this year.
This is one of the biggest increases in American Electric Power’s history and the Columbus, Ohio-based company attributes it largely to the rising costs of coal.
The Massey plans for additional coal mines have to be viewed by the environmental community as a step in the right direction since much of the expansion will be directed to underground coal mines.
This is considered by some to be a tacit acceptance by Massey that the continuing court battles over surface mining permits are going to make it increasingly difficult to get permits for above ground production.
Air quality concerns about the use of coal to fire electric generating plants continues to be another key environmental issue that causes concern about the large-scale use of coal to produce this country’s increasing demand for electricity.
But even with the costs that issue adds to power production, coal is still very much a bargain when you compare it to the other options. According to a recent study, it costs $1.69 per Btu compared to $6.87 for natural gas.
So the mining of coal is going to continue to be an important part of West Virginia’s economic future despite its inherent detrimental effects on our environment, at least for the foreseeable future.
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Meanwhile, the West Virginia Lottery’s expected bonanza from the implementation of table games at two northern West Virginia licensed racetracks continues to climb with last week’s report that gross receipts increased 14 percent in March.
The numbers are sure to be even higher if and when Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center in Nitro launches its table games operation later this year. Meanwhile, we can only speculate on the money that would come in had the voters in Jefferson County approved table games at the Charles Town racetrack since that is the largest of the four tracks in overall revenues.
The video lottery machines at all four tracks continues to be the biggest item, though, with $76.9 million in March — more than 10 times the $7.4 million realized from table games at the two Northern Panhandle tracks.
More significant is the fact that the overall lottery money for March at the four racetracks was down compared to a year ago because of the growing competition from surrounding states.
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Finally, the fact that more than 46,000 new eligible voters have been added to the registration rolls in West Virginia in the last two years and will be eligible to vote in next week’s primary election is largely attributable to the fact that, unlike 2006, this is a presidential election year.
But it’s far more critical how many of the 1,183,495 people registered for this election will actually vote compared to the last presidential balloting in 2004 when 1,103,264 were registered to vote and only 363,948 cast ballots in the presidential primaries.
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