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Show advertisement COAL and utilities along the Eastern seaboard, where screams about the price of imported oil have been the loudest "They're looking for a new energy source, and east of Pittsburgh this is our only natural resource. And it's right there in the Washington-York corridor, and New easily obtainable." Some observers feel that government emphasis on coal began too late (Pell's position was not created until 1978). One critic is William Savitsky, representative to the executive board of the United Mine Workers (UMW) from the anthracite region. Jhe government have should 3 convert pushed sion to coal right after the first energy crisis in 1973," a former says Savitsky, miner. "If it had, we'd be well on our way now. We don't have to be dependent, on Arab oil." Another benefit from the revitalization of anthracite is an increase in miners' pensions, which depend on how much coal is taken from the Coal companies ground. must pay a small percentage of what they make per ton to the UMW pension plan. During World War II, about 60 million tons of coal a year were mined; last year it was down to about 6 million, only a third of which came from the culm banks. Pen- would be graded and reforested. The pit would cut through old mine shafts and acid water deposits, restoring the land as it went for several miles. What about air pollution? The report maintained that emissions from anthracite, Iron poor blood is the most widespread nutritional ailment in America today. In fact, its a problem that millions of American women face. And all the vitamins in the world cant help, because vitamins dont contain iron. Take GERITOL, Americas 1 iron and vitamin supplement. GERITOL is so rich in iron, just one tarblet each day gives you more iron than even a pound of calfs liver. Plus vitamins that are essential to good health. GERITOL will actually build iron poor blood back to normal. Thats what makes it different from just plain vitamins and so important to you. sions for Savitsky's 11,330 retired miners, all of whom had to work 20 years or more to currently average $30 a month." And 90 percent of them," he lets you know, "have black lung disease. You didn't work 20 years in the deep mines here and not get it" But Savitsky and many others are confident that a new day is dawning a safer and more sefor anthracite the for miners because of cure day federal laws. and tough new state is indeed If the new day bright it will be because of a grassroots effort over the past several years by some qualify, of mining at Penn State University, in support of building a giant power plant to be fed by anthracite from a huge mine. The pit would open-p- it move, and after the coal was taken from one area, the land people in Northeast Pennsylvania who wanted a better shake for their devastated land. One of these is Abe Frumkin, 45, an attorney in Pottsville and a native of the anthracite area who is outraged over the abuses of the past. "The railroads owned the mines. They came in here and raped this land and left us nothing," Frumkin says, "except the culm banks." While Frumkin represents some mining interests as an attorney, he is an unpaid member and mouthpiece, as he puts it of the Joint Anthracite Committee, comprised mostly of civic officials from towns in the region. "It's my way of giving something back to this country," he says. In December 1978, Frumkin went to William Scranton III, who as the newly elected lieutenant governor of ' Pennsylvania would be chairman of tSq governor's energy council. Frumkin was armed with a report from Dr. Charles Manula, a professor even when unscrubbed (unpurified), not only do not violate the Clean Air Act but are as clean as scrubbed emissions from plants that bum the softer bituminous coal. The report recommended that plants which bum anthracite should be exempt from the very expensive scrubbing requirements. Scranton, who deplores what happened in the anthracite area, leaped on the idea. He, Erumkin and the Pennsylvania members of Congress petitioned the tal Protection Agency for the exemption and they were successful. Today, the projected racite-powered plant has the backing of three major utilanth- ity companies in Pennsylvania, led by Allegheny Electric. rj hy didn't the gov-- emment and pri- vate industry start thinking of coal long before 1979, when Scranton took V J J office? "No one really believed that oil prices would keep going up," says Scranton. "The big jump in oil prices was in 1979. It wasn't until then that it became compelling to look for other energy sources." Another reason, of course, is the 1979 mishap at Three Mile Island, which raised new questions about reliance on nuclear power. "Let's face it," says Abe Frumkin, "the reality of looking to coal was mostly because of Three Mile Island. After that, it was back to the drawing board." What the drawing board has shown is an abundance of the hardest coal there is, under the ground as it has been for millions of years. Waiting. It OCTO01E 5, I960 |